July is winding down, and we're just now starting to get some large harvests. As usual, I'll start with the "first harvests of the season."
On October 15 of last year, I planted 48 hardneck garlic cloves, anticipating that a normal cool fall and cold winter would put them into dormancy. Well, it was the opposite. They immediately began to grow and sent up leaves, only to have those leaves killed by the arrival of true winter. So I had fears that the plants would be harmed by this. That turned out not to be the case, fortunately. We harvested the entire crop this week.
2023 garlic harvest |
From left, Vietnamese Purple Striped, which had the smallest bulbs. Then Spanish Roja, a new variety for me, which is supposed to be strongly flavored with red-clad cloves. Finally, Katterman, a variety that as far as I know is only produced by one grower, whom we buy from directly, at the Vermont Garlic Festival. It makes huge bulbs and cloves.
We also did first harvests of a number of greens. This is "Top Bunch 2.0" hybrid collards. It's the only collard I've ever grown, and I'm very happy with it.
Collard greens |
Next are two types of Swiss chard. This one is "Oriole" (hybrid).
Oriole chard |
And this one is "Peppermint," also a hybrid.
Peppermint chard |
There's no difference in taste between the two; I just like the color contrast.
We also did a first picking of kale. They come from a mesclun mix, so I don't know the actual variety.
Kale |
Some of the above greens were given away, and the rest we chopped and froze raw for use in our breakfast smoothies.
My sweet pepper plants are still pretty small, so I took some of the early fruit to hopefully encourage them to put on stronger growth. This is "Ace," a hybrid bell type.
Ace |
Newhall carrots |
Broccoli |
Lettuce |
Imperial Star artichokes and Pantheon (F1) zucchini |
Orazio (F1) fennel |
So I'm not the only one who likes 'green' in my smoothies? I also put frozen zucchini in mine. And that is a big fennel!
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