Monday, September 16, 2013

Harvest Monday Mid-September Edition

Although the garden is really winding down, there have been some good harvests this year and at the midpoint of September we have already harvested more than last September's total. My fall plantings are maturing at a very slow pace, so whatever we get out of them is questionable. There are rumblings of frost predictions for tomorrow night, but it is very unlikely to get that low here. Our first frost is usually in mid-October, so it would be quite a blow to get one a whole month early.
 I didn't take many photos this week. Not pictured are the 2 and 1/2 pounds of parsnips I pulled to thin the beds, because I posted that already last week. Some critter is grazing on the parsnip tops now, so I wonder how that will affect the growth of the other roots. I'd like to leave them in the ground until after the frost next month. Most of my harvest has been tomatoes as you can see from the two pictures here. I'm getting a great amount of kale both from the spring planted kale and now from my fall plantings. They've been the only really robust plants of the fall garden so far.
 It has been a terrible year for eggplant and peppers in my garden. The three eggplants pictured are very small and the few left out in the garden are even smaller. No ratatouille this year! Also not pictured, I picked two Anaheim peppers which will go into a batch of salsa I hope to can later in the week. Beans are still coming in both from my bush bean beds and from the Kentucky Wonder beans that are just now ripening. The Chinese red noodle beans are peaking this week. I still get broccoli side shoots even though the plants are looking decidedly ragged and the two Lemon cucumbers pictured above are just about the last of the crop, as the vines have pretty well succumbed to powdery mildew.
And finally, here are my first ever dried beans. They are called "Aunt Jean's", ordered from Fedco. They seem to be a sort of yin-yang bean. I don't think I even got quite a pound of them, but I'm looking forward to making a pot of baked beans with them later in the winter. I'm trying to dry my runner beans too since we've been swimming in all the other beans around here.
That's it for this week's Harvest Monday report which is hosted over at Daphne's Dandelions!

26 comments:

  1. Very nice harvest! The "Aunt Jean's" beans are beautiful! I hope you let us know how they taste. Lucky you to still have spring Kale. Mine has finally given up and like you my fall crops are growing very slowly. I don't know if anything will come of them. Deer have munched on my parsnip tops too. I started placing chicken wire hoops on some of the beds so the deer can't get to the foliage.

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    1. Thank you! I'm excited about the beans, but confess that I'm not too good at telling one bean from another taste-wise! My husband is the bean connoisseur! I am wondering if it's deer that hopped my fence, but haven't noticed any hoof prints. Good idea about the chicken wire!

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  2. A great looking harvest again this week. Our Kale is doing really well this year also!! I'm waiting for the frost to sweeten it up a bit before we start harvesting it, but we will be switching to the fall garden soon as our summer crops are really slowing down!!

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    1. Thanks! You know, I never really have the patience with the kale to wait till after the frost, but this year for once my fall kale is big enough that I may get to experience that sweetened up flavor!

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  3. I'm getting to that "just yank it out" point in gardening. I'm so tired of beans (still have 1-1/2 gallons in the fridge, just waiting for me to do something), but they just refuse to quit, so I keep picking them! Your dried beans are so pretty. I never had much luck with them, they take so much space to grow and I might harvest a half-pint at most!

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    1. Well, that's why I made sure to get a pole variety of beans to dry, so I could grow them on the edge of the fence. But it's true, you don't get a whole lot out of them! Like you, I'm getting pretty tired of the other beans. I have 40 packs in the freezer which is plenty for the year. I've given a ton away and they're still coming in!

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  4. Oh those dried beans look stunning - and will look soo good in your pantry. You have inspired me to try and grow some this year.
    Love leanne

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    1. Do try them Leanne, it was a first for me and I'm super excited to see how they turned out. I used a pole variety due to space constraints. Next year I hope to plant more of them if I can only figure out where!

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    1. Thank you Dan! And thanks for stopping by the blog!

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  6. I hope the frost holds off for a while! Those dried beans are pretty, I've never heard of that one before.

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    1. Don't we all Dave! Sorry about the bad luck with your beehive. I tried to comment on your blog but the captcha would not cooperate with me at all today!

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  7. What a pretty big bowl of dried beans! Your harvest is still doing quite well.

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    1. Thanks Shawn Ann! I'm having a pretty good year in some regards. The beans are only one layer thick in that photo so they look like more than they are!

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  8. It seems we have similar weather pattern, yes it is going to be very cold tonight but I am hoping there is no frost. My fall crop is not doing anything either. Beautiful dried beans love the colors.

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    1. I think I only live about 2 and a half hours away from you, so I'm not surprised if our weather is similar. We'll cross our fingers for no frost tonight or tomorrow! It's way to early!

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  9. You are still getting a nice harvest of things. I hope you don't get an early frost. Hope we don't either as I think the average here is middle of Oct. but last year we got one Oct. 8th. Where did the summer go so fast!!! Nancy

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    1. This really has been an awfully fast summer Nancy! But I guess we say that every year as we get older.

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  10. Nice haul of tomatoes and beans. Funny, I don't distinguish spring and fall kale. I plant mine in the spring and will continually harvest it until hard freeze. If the winter is mild enough, it may winter over and start producing again next spring. It's shading out everything now and I have given bags of it away to the food pantry (it's OK, the town the food pantry is located in has a large Portuguese population and they know what to do with kale). Given last winter and how lousy this summer has been, we deserve a mild winter.

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    1. Last year I didn't have much for a fall planting of kale, so I depended on the spring crop right up to the freeze. But I find my spring planting kind of failing toward the end of the summer. I think maybe my plants don't get as big as yours? I do have a tendency to plant things closer together than they ought to be.

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  11. Pretty, pretty beans, but I have to say that I love the look of your fenced garden in your blog header! It's beautiful!

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    1. Thank you Louise! That is a picture from last year's garden. I wish my pictures were a little sharper, but I've yet to master digital photography.

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  12. The beans are really pretty. It's kinda hard to cook them, you just want to admire them! That's a bummer about your eggplant and pepper harvest, I hope they do better for you next year.

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    1. Thanks Michelle! You are right, it'll be awhile before I can bring myself to cook those beans! Every year is different, last year the peppers and eggplants were awesome, but the onions stunk. This year it's flipped around. Keeps things interesting I guess! I'm waiting for the year that EVERYTHING does well. Dream on, huh?

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  13. Love the beans. I've grown Calypso which is the typical one called Yin Yang bean. But it is black. I've never seen one that is red brown.

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    1. Thanks Daphne, and thanks again for the advise on drying them. I can't wait to see what they're like when I cook them.

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