Harvest Monday - 7 July 2025

 I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, because we were away June 23 - 30. More on that below. But over the course of the interval, here's what we harvested and used, starting with the "first harvests" of individual crops. Apologies that this post will be unusually long.

We cut the first head of "Red Iceberg" lettuce, which we enjoy immensely.

Red Iceberg

I took an assortment of leaf lettuce, which were volunteers from the bed I grew them in last year. Not sure if they had reseeded themselves or just didn't sprout that year. Still welcome!

Volunteer Leaf Lettuce

Edible-podded peas made their first appearance. Up first is a new (to me) variety of snow pea called "Sweet Horizon." The pods are smaller than what I'm used to, but it looks to make up for that in productivity.

Sweet Horizon snow pea

Super Sugar Snap is an old reliable crop that I've grown for many years.

Super Sugar Snap pea

I got the first eggplant. This is another new variety called "Violet Delight." This one is an outlier; all the plants are not doing too well, and it will be awhile before I get any more.

Violet Delight (F1) eggplant

For continuing harvests, I took the last of our tatsoi. Sad to see it go.

Tatsoi

I cut another head of curly endive. This is turning out to be a versatile crop, enjoyable by itself or with other salad greens.

Curly endive

I pulled another bunch of bunching onions.

Nabechan (F1) scallions

Lastly all the remaining garlic scapes were cut. The garlic itself should be ready to harvest in a week or two, meanwhile we get to enjoy the mild garlic flavor of the scapes.

Garlic scapes

The Kitchen Goddess has been making vegetarian Vietnamese Spring Rolls, which she serves with a spicy peanut sauce. It's nice that so many of the ingredients come from the garden: pea pods (sliced), raw tatsoi, green onion, mint, and Thai basil. Served cold, they are very refreshing on a warm evening

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Now for the travelogue part of the post. For the last three years we've been really enjoying renting cabins at a nature preserve. It's only an hour away, making it easy and efficient to come home in mid-week to water and harvest, as well as replenish groceries and clothes. This year we rented the large cabin called "Lakeside Cottage," which is as its name says. We love the "Adirondack Style" of this place, and it's only steps from the water.

Lakeside Cottage

The weather in the beginning of the week was very warm. It sure was nice to cool off by sitting and paddling around the lake in "floatees!" It amazed us that no one else was out on the lake, even though there are houses on the southern end. 

It turned much cooler for awhile, making us wish we'd packed some warmer clothes. But it warmed up again in time to be joined by our son and his delightful girlfriend, plus a very old friend. One night we made a nice fire in the pit by the lake and watched the fireflies dance.

Our last morning was very calm, and TKG enjoyed being out on the paddleboard on the glassy lake. As for me, I fall off, calm or not!

No visit is complete with seeing and hearing the mournful cries of the resident loons. This time of year the lake has a mated pair that call to each other when separated. One swam right up to me as I was fishing from a kayak, and did its yodel. I was close enough to see that they do this from the throat without opening their bills. I did not know that.

Common loons

Well, I said this was going to go long! Thanks for sticking with it if you're here. Thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 16 June 2025

Well, we are finally getting into the swing of things here. I had several first harvests this week. Leading off is a new crop for us, frizee or curly endive. This variety is called "Rhodos," and it's doing well. We had some in a salad. The flavor is good, just a tiny bit bitter, and it's chewy. I don't know if that's its characteristic or if it's something to do with how I'm growing it. Regardless, we were pleased.

'Rhodos' curly endive

Another first harvest was Tatsoi. We love Asian greens for their taste and versatility. This is a particularly nice head, just starting to flower.

Tatsoi

Yet another first was scallions/bunching onions/green onions. Whatever your name preference, we really enjoy them and use them a lot, raw or cooked.

'Nabechan' scallions (F1)

Mid-June is the time our hardneck garlic planted in the fall begins to send up "flower" shoots (not really flowers but bulbils), called "scapes." Cutting them directs more energy to sizing up the bulbs, and they are a treat, too! We grilled a couple, which is a nice way.

Garlic scapes

For continuing harvests, the arugula is starting to bolt, but still very tasty.

'Ice-bred' arugula

Finally, yet another entry for "Wildlife Notes." I was amazed to see this bobcat walking the fenceline at the top of our field, in broad daylight. I love seeing them, and no doubt they will help control the rabbit population. This one is particularly big, and looking very tiger-like.

Bobcat

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 9 June 2025

 The best way I have to describe our recent weather is that it's been all over the place. Fluctuating from unseasonably warm to unseasonably cold. We've had haze from the smoke of the Canada wildfires. The one constant is rain, lots of rain. If crops don't seem to be moving along, I have to think it's the weather.

You'd think that the cooler temperatures would been good for the brassicas, at least, but I'm not getting the results I expected. Maybe it was too cool? Case in point, I scaled back growing Asian greens, and only started 3 baby bok choy plants. Only one survived, and I picked it this week. This is an open-pollinated version called "Milk."

'Milk' baby bok choy

The Kitchen Goddess added it to a homemade egg drop soup, which was really delicious, and made me wish I had more of them. So I started another six this week. Maybe under a row cover they won't struggle when the temps finally stay warm.

I also pulled the first radishes.

French Breakfast and Cherry Belle radishes

And I did several trimmings of the arugula (rocket). 

'Ice-bred' arugula

We don't have any lettuce that's quite ready for picking, but it should be soon. In the meantime, at least we can claim radishes and arugula to augment our salads. Two peppery things!

In Wildlife Notes, TKG snapped this super-zoomed picture out the bedroom window.

It's a Red-tailed Hawk. Buteos like this species are not known to be big bird-hunters, preferring small mammals as food, but still, it's not the kind of thing you want to see on a birdhouse. Maybe he was waiting for something to pop out.

At least the gardens are fully-planted now, despite the rain. Here's hoping the crops will take off soon. Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday - 26 May 2025

 I don't like to start off a post on a sour note, but I have to rant. The weather has been so non-garden friendly, with cold temperatures and rain, that so many planting tasks have been put off. Today I will finally get a chance to transplant tomatoes, and the plants have gotten quite leggy. Peppers, eggplants, squash, and beans will have to wait at least another week. The plants are enormous.

But at least I have some harvests to share, leading off with arugula/rocket. I took a light snipping, and they wonderfully augment our salads (with store-bought lettuce for now).

'Ice Bred' arugula

Up until that, asparagus was the only thing coming from the gardens. Fresh asparagus is a treat, but like any treat, it can lose its "treatyness" after a while, so we've been giving it away too.

Fresh asparagus

We first planted asparagus when we moved here about 15 years ago, and the plants are starting to age a little. Some time after, I supplemented with some "Sweet Purple" crowns. They never really thrived, and we only got a couple of spears, like what's on the bottom of this picture:

Asparagus, featuring 'Sweet Purple'

That's really all the gardening I can report now, but I wanted to share a photo captured by my TrailCam, and extremely handsome Eastern Coyote, who seems to be saying "I'm sexy and I know it."

Eastern Coyote

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back when I have more to report. Thanks to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for continuing to host Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 28 October 2024

I thought last week's post would be my last for the year, but a few things happened this week that I'd like to record. Don't worry, it's short.

We have three mature apple trees, which I'm gradually pruning into shape after years of neglect. Last year and the year before, we got no fruit at all. This year, only the Granny Smith produced. Let's face it, these unsprayed apples are ugly, bumpy, and blemished. But peeled and sliced, they are fine and oh so tart.

The Kitchen Goddess made "Eve's Pudding," which can be described as a crustless apple pie, or more accurately, a deconstructed apple cake. It is so good, I asked her to make it again.

Ugly apples and yummy Eve's Pudding

I pulled a couple of leeks to make potato/leek soup. TKG is also making squash soup this coming week, so it's a soupy week, which is fine with me.

Lincoln leeks

 In 2022 and 2023 we really binged on making hot sauces, to the point where we wanted to skip it in 2024. But I was gifted two ultra-hot pepper plants, and that's really all we can do with them. This week I made 5 bottles of Scorpion Pepper-Mango sauce, and TKG made 4 of Carolina Reaper-Carrot sauce. She used two peppers for her batch, and I used three for mine. That made them much hotter, but not overpowering.

Scorpion/mango and Reaper/carrot sauces

I used all the rest of the Scorpion peppers to make a simple (i.e. unfermented) varietal sauce. I'm going to have to psych myself up to try it. I'm sure I'll find someone who will appreciate it if it's too much for me.

Pure scorpion pepper sauce

So now we are up to 20 bottles when we thought we'd have none.

Well, I really do think this is the last post for the year. Enjoy your gardening time off, and see you in the spring! Thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday - 21 October 2024

We got our first frost early Wednesday morning. I was prepared for it, so no harm done. It just meant that we closed out all the sensitive crops a little earlier than last year.

As such, I got a first harvest of "Sugaretti" spaghetti squash, which looks like a delicata. This is the only mature one the struggling plant managed to produce.

'Sugaretti' hybrid spaghetti squash

I also cut all the remaining squash from other types. There were four neck pumpkins, three of which coincidentally weighed 18.4 pounds each, and a fourth at a more demure 14.6 pounds. In the foreground is another Autumn Frost squash which was hiding in the tall grass.

Last of the winter squash

Only the neck pumpkins produced heavily for us. I estimate we got over 170 pounds from the single hill. We are begging people to take some from us.

I got a final big haul of green sweet peppers. These were chopped and frozen raw.

Final harvest of sweet peppers

I took all the remaining ultra-hot peppers. These are Carolina Reapers on the left, and Trinidad Scorpions on the right. They look the same, but the scorpions fittingly have longer "stingers." All in all, it was fun to grow them, but I really see no need to repeat it again, as they are so ridiculously hot they have limited utility for us.

Or maybe make homemade bear spray?

Actually I think I'll just (carefully) cut them up and freeze them. We can make sauces over the coming months.

Carolina Reaper and Scorpion hot peppers

After the frost I salvaged the other hot peppers that remained. The leaves were wilted, but the fruit was still fine. On the left are cayenne and guajillo peppers, hard to tell which is which. On the right are the few remaining jalapenos. The latter we have plans for when combined with what was in the fridge from the week before. I reserved some to make another jar of pickled jalapeno rings, and the rest were chopped and frozen. We want to make at least one more batch of the Creamy Jalapeno Sauce I showed last post, which we are greatly enjoying (it's excellent on eggs for example). The cayennes and guajillos were just chopped and frozen. We will probably find some good use for them in the future.

Last of the hot peppers

Ironically the weather warmed up substantially after the frost. We may even reach 80 today (Monday). But very little is left in the garden: leeks, carrots, lettuce, celery. This may be my last Harvest Monday post for the year. If so, thanks for reading and commenting on my posts. Big thank-you to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for providing the Harvest Monday forum for us.

Harvest Monday - 14 October 2024

As recently as a couple of days ago, we were getting a prediction of a frost on this coming Thursday night. They've since back-peddled on that, but who really knows? I'm taking steps in case it happens. 

We got a "first harvest," minuscule as it is, but it brings us joy: saffron. It is such a strange plant...growing in spring, dying back so completely that you think it really is dead, and then springing up with flowers in deep autumn.

Saffron crocus

At the start of this past week, I did a harvest just of things we needed: chard (silverbeet), celery, carrots, napa cabbage, green onions.

Tuesday general harvest

On Friday I had such a heavy harvest that I had to support the basket from underneath. This was in response to the frost prediction. I need three photos to show it all.

I took all the remaining (small) eggplants, and tomatoes that had a chance of ripening indoors.

Friday harvest #1

I took all the ripe (or nearly) sweet peppers. These were chopped and frozen.

Friday harvest #2

And I took all the hot peppers. These are Anaheims, cayennes, and jalapenos. We are desperately thinking of ways to use them all. There will be a lot of Hispanic-themed meals in the coming days.

Friday harvest #3

It was a terrific year for peppers here, even though I planted no more than two plants of each type.

I also cut two more Penn. Dutch Crookneck Squash/neck pumpkins. The one on the right is our largest yet, at 19.6 pounds (~8.9 kg).

"I know what you're thinking..."

The Kitchen Goddess took two of the cabbages and started fermenting a batch of 'kraut.

Sauerkraut

I made "Creamy Jalapeno Sauce," (non-dairy, with emulsified avocado oil to give it its creaminess). The jalapenos are definitely hotter this late in the season, so this has some kick to it. But it's really good, and sticks to the tortilla chip!

Creamy jalapeno sauce

My goal this week is to take all the remaining green sweet peppers, and cut all the winter squash. The latter would probably be okay in a light frost, but the vines have run all over the spot I want to plant garlic in.

There was a lovely light at sunrise Sunday morning, just prior to rain. The picture does not do it justice.

Lovely autumn morning

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.