Monday, October 24, 2016

Harvest Monday - 24 October 2016

Welcome to another Harvest Monday update from Eight Gate Farm. Harvest Monday is graciously hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. Please join me in viewing all this week's posts.

Our happiest harvest this week was this unexpected treasure:


We planted 7 artichoke seedlings this year, and 6 gave us lots of petite but delicious 'chokes. One plant stubbornly refused to produce anything. But with the others long finished, this one decided to reward us. I'm not sure why. The 'choke is more oblong than the others; could it be a different variety that sneaked into the Imperial Star seed lot?

You may have read that the entire Northeast had a terrible tree-fruit year. Here's more proof. Last year, we picked over 6 bushels of apples, and the quality was great. This year, not even 2, and the fruit is misshapen. Not even enough to bother with a batch of hard cider (we still have plenty left over from last year).


I've mentioned that two of our eggplant starts had mysterious but recognizable tobacco seedlings spring up. This amused me, so I left them to see what would happen. The tobacco grew robustly, and the resulting plants totally overshadowed their companion eggplants. One was over six feet tall! So we harvested this week. It's funny to compare the "unintentional" on the left with the "intentional" we grew. Don't call me Philip Morris.


We picked more watermelon radishes to give some as a gift, because nothing says giving like a radish or two!


The raspberries are still producing nicely:


And we've really been enjoying Asian Green soups and stir-fry, so we took more tatsoi.


This week promises several frosts, so all tomatoes were taken, in the hope at least some will ripen indoors.


Lastly, some parsley and sage for the dehydrator.


That's all for this week. Are frosts threatened in your area too? Time to get busy. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Dave for hosting Harvest Monday.

7 comments:

  1. No frost here yet, but maybe some rain, which is good news. Sad news about the fruit harvests. But those are some amazing radishes.

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    1. Thanks, Michelle. The radishes are fun to grow, though it's tempting to grow too many! Hope the rain comes your way.

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  2. Congrats on that late season artichoke - one to be shared and savoured! I can sympathize with you on the apples - I had a similarly bad plum/cherry year. That's the way it goes with fruit, isn't it? A sure thing it's not!

    And anyone who has gardened for any length of time would look at that tobacco leaf comparison and just simply nod their head...yup, that's how it usually goes :)

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    1. Thanks Margaret. We haven't been here long enough to get a feel for the apple years, but we do know this year was especially weak.

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  3. No frost here yet. Last year we already had a freeze by now, but not 2016. Your chokes are amazing! I never got a single edible thing when I tried growing them. That's some beautiful tatsoi too.

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    1. Thanks, Dave. As I'm sure you know, when growing them as annuals, you have to trick artichokes into thinking they're in their second year and thus should start flowering. I thought the slow poke didn't "get the message," but apparently it did.

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  4. At least you got some apples, I got zero Asian pear this year. Those luscious raspberries are making my mouth water.

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