Sunday, July 28, 2013

Harvest Monday - 29 July 2013


Welcome to Harvest Monday. It's a great time of year, don't you think? Once again, we've been busy.

The onions that had flopped over were all pulled.



Here they are drying on the floor of the garage. The variety is called "Stuttgarter," which the Harris Seeds catalog calls "the best onions from sets for long-term storage when properly cured...the finest variety overall." I planted 8 squares of 16 sets (128 total), which I purchased from a local garden center at a very reasonable cost of 3 or 4 dollars. About 20 never grew, still leaving us with a nice haul which we hope lasts the winter. We had only limited success last year with onions, but once I determined how depleted of fertility the soil was, and took steps to restore it, you can see what a difference it makes. Next year I may plant more, or maybe some from another variety. Onions really are no fuss, which is great.

After the dirt mostly dried off, the Kitchen Goddess braided them into tidy bunches, ready to be hung for the winter. This way, some can be brought in to the kitchen one bunch at a time.

The Braidy Bunch:

 
 
The cucumbers have sent out robust vines, and have tons of flowers, but so far only 3 have gotten picking-size. Here are two of them. The variety is Double Yield Pickler. They taste absolutely great in salads too, so they never made it to the pickling process.
 


 
We're still picking beans and zucchini of course, and another batch of beets and carrots. The carrots got frozen, and the beets canned.


 
The last of the lettuce, New Red Sails, finally started bolting this week. Personally, I don't like the way bolting lettuce looks in the garden:


 
So out it comes! This pretty much filled the bushel basket.


 
That does it for this bed that held spring crops: peas, radishes, and lettuce. As the summer progresses and the sun keeps declining, the bed gets less and less sunlight, so time to rake it smooth...


 
...and put the bed to bed for the season. Thank you for your service! Next year I'm planning to use a green manure instead of the weed blocker.


 
I checked an ear of corn, and couldn't resist eating it raw right then and there! It was small but super-sweet. Something is eating all the silk off the ears, so I may harvest sooner than I expected.


 
Finally, I'll bet you're wondering what we are going to do with all that lettuce (plus some left over from earlier). Well, here's an answer from The Kitchen Goddess: Lettuce Soup! Recipe will be published in the next post...I promise.
 
Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Daphne! http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com
 
 

3 comments:

  1. Really impressive harvest of onions, and from sets. I have no luck with sets. They are OK for green onions but mine have always bolted if I try to grow them for storage. So I now use transplants grown from seed. It's more work but you also have a bigger variety of onions to choose from

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  2. Very nice set of onions! I'm a little surprised that you braided yours while they're still green. Don't they tend to rot more if they're not properly dried out?

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    1. Hmmm, maybe you're right. We were just tidying up I guess. So this is an experiment.

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