Harvest Monday - 3 july 2023

We came home Saturday afternoon from our week at a secluded lakeside cottage to find the garden out of control, as was to be expected. I'll talk a little about our trip later, but first, the harvests over the two week interval since my last Harvest Monday post.

We got the first kohlrabi. We like the bulb raw in salads, and use the greens as we would any brassica green.

'Kolibri' (F1) kholrabi

We picked the first Super Sugar Snap peas. These we typically eat raw, as an appetizer and in salads.

Super Sugar Snap peas

We picked the first Avalanche snow peas. These we typically add to stir-frys. This variety suffered from poor germination this year, which is puzzling, since the seed was new.

Avalanche snow peas

We picked the first scallions/green onions/bunching onions/spring onions (why so many names??). These were slender, but so tasty!

Nabechan (F1) scallions

We took the first harvest from the many loose-leaf lettuces I planted this year.

Loose-leaf lettuce

I took the last of the Asian greens (bok choy. tatsoi).

Last harvest of Asian greens

Very early Sunday morning, I went out to the fenced garden just before it began to rain. I saw that the first broccoli was ready, based on the heads starting to separate a little. This is Blue Wind, an extra-early, reliable variety I grow every year. It also produces abundant side-shoots.

Blue Wind hybrid broccoli

This tableau is the other stuff I picked Sunday morning. From left, snap peas, snow peas, kohlrabi, and the last of the garlic scapes.

Sunday general harvest

We enjoyed the week at the lakeside cottage so much, even though it rained for the first couple of days. The quiet and serenity cannot be expressed. We can't wait to go back.

Here's the view from the spacious screened porch.

Lake view from porch

The lake is home to a pair of Common loons, a threatened species. Their haunting cries speak to me of wildness. If you've seen the movie On Golden Pond you know what I mean. I took this picture with my drone. I was hovering as they swam toward it. I probably shouldn't have done that, but they did not seem the least concerned with the little buzzing thing.

Common loons

We were visited by family and friends over the week. Here's a picture of our son with his girlfriend, whom we haven't met before. She completely charmed us.

Canoeing on a calm evening

Thank you for reading! And thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for keeping Harvest Monday going.

Harvest Monday - 19 June 2023

Hello, and happy Juneteenth! A new Federal holiday on which we reflect on the horrors of slavery in America, and its end.

Harvests are trickling in. I cut the first head of iceberg lettuce. It was chilled, then served that night in a wedge salad.

Iceberg lettuce

I did the first small cutting of parsley. Some of this is from a plant that regrew itself from last year, now starting to flower. This is not a bad thing, as parsley seed is a nice spice.

Italian flat-leaf parsley

Garlic scapes are making an appearance, and I cut a couple of  them for a dish The Kitchen Goddess made that night. It's a salad of Asian greens, nori, and sesame seeds, spiced up with the scapes and a "dressing" of rice vinegar, tamari, and sesame oil. She got it from the "Clean Eats" cookbook, and it was very good. Definitely a keeper.

Garlic scapes

Sesame bok choy salad

Several heads of greens were harvested this week, some to keep, some to give away. Here's a sample.

Tatsoi, Asian Delight bok choy

I just had to share this. I brought up the last of last summer's winter squash from the cellar. On the left is a spaghetti squash, and on the right an "Autumn Frost" hybrid butternut-type (C. moschata). This is after they have been baked in the oven. I'm amazed at how long these have kept. Sure, we lost a few over the months, but many more have been useful. Autumn Frost has become our favorite: deep orange color and exceptional sweetness.

Baked winter squash from the stores

In Wildlife Notes, we have two trail cameras set up in our woods. I don't change the memory cards as often as I should (afraid of ticks), so when I do there are literally thousands of pictures to wade through. Most of them are boring pictures of the same herd of deer that wanders through, but we occasionally get some interesting shots of deer and many other animals (and a trespasser or two). Here's one that captured a doe in mid-leap. Wonder what spooked her?

White-tailed deer

And here's a recent close-up of a magnificent Eastern Coyote.

Eastern Coyote

How about that? An entire post without wingeing about the weather!

No post next Monday. TKG and I have rented a lakeside cabin (if you can call a 3 bedroom 2 bath house a "cabin"). It's only an hour away, so we can return home in mid week to water, harvest, exchange clothes, and buy more groceries. We are really looking forward to it. But there's no internet, so no posting. I'll check back in the week after. Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 12 June 2023

Do I go on too much about the weather? Even I think I do. But it has such an effect on our growing I feel I have to keep notes. This week was absolutely awful...cold, damp, and we even had the haze from the Canadian forest fires. Luckily it was much less than what you see in the apocalyptic photos from New York City (even though we're much closer to Quebec).

The warm-loving crops are suffering. The tomatoes are doing okay, I guess, but peppers and eggplants are sulking. And I'm going to have to replant cucumbers and melons, and maybe squash, thus delaying their harvests for this year. On a positive note, the brassicas have been thriving, especially the Asian greens, which are the best I've ever grown. And I haven't had to water at all.

I did a first picking of tatsoi, on the left below, and picked another Brisk Green bok choy. 

Tatsoi (L) and Brisk Green hybrid bok choy

We picked chive flowers and started the process of making infused vinegar, which we really like.

Chive flower vinegar

We took the last of the spinach, which was looking bolt-y. 

Final spinach harvest

Same goes for the arugula, so much that we gave some away.

Final arugula harvest

It looks like the coming week will be much warmer, which is welcome. I can finally get to the tasks which I had to put off. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday - 5 June 2023

What a wild weather week! We had three days of 90+ heat, where even small garden chores were exhausting. Then on Friday evening a thunderstorm front came through, ushering in a dramatic change. The weekend days were only in the 40s, with rain and drizzle. One source I read said we haven't had a "high" that "low" in June since 1916. On Saturday we were at the local garden club's plant sale, where I manned an "Ask A Master Gardener" booth, while The Kitchen Goddess (the club's newly-installed President) assisted in plant selection and sales. We were so chilled that we had to light the woodstove when we got home. In June!

This kind of weather contrast can't be good for the newly transplanted vegetables, but there's not much I can do about it. We'll see how they fare.

For harvests, I took two "Asian Delight" bok choys. I don't really taste much difference between the varieties I grow, but I like the contrasting appearance. Asian Delights are petite but well-formed, with fat white stems.

Asian Delight hybrid bok choy

We also did generous pickings of spinach...

Overwintered spinach

...And arugula.

Arugula

The arugula pizza featured by our Harvest Monday host, Dave, in his last post, inspired us, so we had our own, a little modified by adding prosciutto. Yum!

Arugula-topped pizza

Finally, a few more radishes were added to our salads.

Cherry Belle and French Breakfast radishes

On Sunday the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Cooperative Extension held a Volunteer Appreciation Day. The Extension has many volunteer organizations under its sponsorship, with hundreds of participants, including my group, the Master Gardeners. The event was held at the Gunstock Mountain Ski Resort, and "plus ones" were also invited. You could ride the chairlift to the top of the mountain, with its stunning views. After lunch you had your choice of educational programs. I chose the "Discover and Measure NH's Big Trees," then a "Plant/Fern ID Walk." TKG chose a 2 hour "Forest Bathing Mindfulness Walk."

We rode the chairlift to the summit, where it was 37 degrees with a fierce wind, so we couldn't stay long. There was a nice view of the big Lake Winnipesaukee, but the lofty Presidential Range beyond was hidden by clouds. A picture can't capture the total panorama.

View from Gunstock Mountain

Thanks for reading! And thanks to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 29 May 2023

This past week I've been living the life of a swingin' bachelor. The Kitchen Goddess is en Paris visiting my sister. It's not like I couldn't have gone; after all, I'm very close to my sister. But someone had to stay and do all the work: planting, weeding, watering, mowing. You know, the swingin' bachelor lifestyle.

For harvests, I cut the first bok choy. I've said before, I find row covers to be a nuisance, but in this case it worked to keep flea beetles out.

'Brisk Green' hybrid bok choy.

I also picked the first radishes. They did not have good germination this year, so the crop will be small.

French Breakfast radishes

I cut some of the last asparagus. This was way more than I could eat this week, so I gave most away.

Asparagus

Simple meals were a part of the aforesaid bachelor lifestyle. I made a soup using miso broth, and added the bok choy, plus mushrooms, scallions, and ramen-style noodles. Quite tasty, and I got two suppers out of it. Also, I've been making salads with our spinach, arugula, radishes, and the last of 2022's red onions. It may look boring, but it makes me feel good to know all the components are home-grown.

Swingin' bachelor salad

In Wildlife Notes, I awoke one morning this week to find the bird feeder next to the kitchen herb garden was lying flat. It had been anchored with a sturdy metal bracket with a spike 15" into the ground. There's only one animal big and powerful enough to do that...a bear.

Bear Attack

It had pried open the two suet feeders on the pole. Fortunately they were not really damaged, nor was the hummingbird feeder. The bracket was toast. Note the wild turkey in the background, inspecting the situation and no doubt hoping there was something left for it. There wasn't. I got a new bracket and put it back up for the hummingbirds. I'm still nervous about putting suet out again. Maybe I'll wait for the bear to move to the next county!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 22 May 2023

Greetings from Eight Gate Farm! I always say our springs are unpredictable from a weather perspective, and this year is no exception. In early April we had two days of 85+ degree temperatures (30 C.) And I stupidly neglected to vent the two little mini-greenhouses we have. So all my artichoke, celery, and lettuce seedlings were cooked to death. Then it got cold again. It was warming up fine in the past weeks, but in the wee hours of May 18 we got a true frost, literally a month after our last frost. It was not unexpected, but it still caught a lot of people off guard, people who had rushed to set out their tender crops. Here, we were not affected too much, but it did wither the new leaves on the grape vines. I hope they recover.

Harvests so far have been almost exactly tracking what happened last year at this time. Here's the lineup:

Asparagus

 We've been getting regular cuttings of asparagus, giving us all we really need, and I even gave away some. I think we'll maybe get two more cuttings before I let the spears grow to nourish the plants.

I overwintered spinach again. Only about half the plants made it though the winter, which is pretty good considering the leaf mulch I applied blew away in one of our storms. The hardiness of spinach is amazing.

Over-wintered spinach

I got the first picking of arugula, which was directly sown on April 11. Thus we got the first homegrown salads of the year, very welcome.

Arugula

Finally, I've done three cuttings of chives. We believe the spring chives are tastier than what you get later in the season, so we've been using them fresh and dehydrating a lot. They are now about to flower.

Spring chives

On Thursday I set out all my tomato plants, and this coming week will be a big push to sow beans, and transplant peppers, eggplants, and all the cucurbits. I sure hope the weather holds.

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

Waste Not, Want Not

I'd always attributed that aphorism to Benjamin Franklin, the great American patriot and polymath. Looking further, the phrase predates him considerably, to the 16th Century, though not so succinctly put. Regardless, I've always agreed with it, especially when considering the garden produce that I work so hard to provide. Nothing bothers me more than having my crops get wasted, because they can't be used in time.

It came to mind this week, when The Kitchen Goddess dispatched me to the "stores," to fetch some potatoes for a dish she was making. The spuds had been harvested in early September, and were being kept in a cool, dark room. Alas, I found that every remaining one had sprouted. I was going to throw the lot out, but we reconsidered, and decided we could use them anyway, even if they were a little soft.

I peeled them and put them in cold water while she was out.

Peeled 'Kennebec' potatoes

She did her typical magic, and took some to make gnocchi, by adding flour and egg to make a sort of dough. Then she rolled it into cylinders, sliced them, and pressed a fork onto them. Finally she dusted with corn meal. Here's the result.

Gnocchi

These were frozen flat, then put into freezer bags.

The remaining potatoes were shredded. These can be used for potato pancakes, or that uniquely American dish, "hash browns." They were also put into the freezer.

Shredded potatoes

So no waste, no want! We now have plenty for some of my favorite dishes, and my soul was satisfied.