June 14, 2010: Harvest Monday

For the week of June 7-13

Harvested:

6 oz. strawberries
18 oz. raspberries
12 oz. spinach
2 oz. shallots
2-1/2 oz. sugar snap peas
122 oz. lettuce
43 oz. onions
24 oz. carrots
sprig of dill

229.5 oz = 14.3475 lb. for the week

49.218 lb. year to date

*Daphne's Dandelions is our host for Harvest Monday*

This week I harvested lettuce.

And more lettuce.

Onions, carrots and shallots.

And more lettuce.

Raspberries.

Carrots and the first three sugar snap peas.

More carrots and more sugar snap peas.

And more lettuce. A lot more lettuce.

One head of Summer Crisp completely filled the laundry basket, and weighed nearly 1-1/2 pounds. It was still sweet and crisp, but I lost some of the large outer leaves to slug damage.

The Red Sails is also getting huge, but showing no signs of bolting or bitterness.

Along with the Summer Crisp and the Red Sails, I had two bunches of Red Romaine and two of another (unknown) variety. This made for an overflowing basket full of lettuce!

Some of the smaller onions. They are too large to call "salad onions", but too small for drying. They're a really good size for just about any way I want to use them.

The onions would be so perfect if it weren't for the wire worms in the soil. Four of these six onions had some damage. It's just one tiny hole in each, and it doesn't go deep, but it takes away from the perfection.



Consumed

sweet pickle relish (2009)
dill pickle relish (2009)
baby spinach
sweet red peppers (freezer, 2009),
home canned pizza sauce (2009).
home made ketchup (2009)
raspberries
radishes
lettuce
strawberries
carrots
shallots
sugar snap peas
onions
home canned pickles (2009)
home canned pickled beets (2009)
peach jam (2009)
dill


The last of the spinach made a delicious spinach and strawberry salad with a
balsamic vinegar/oil/sugar dressing.


Home made pizza used pizza sauce (home made 2009), sweet pepper strips from the freezer (2009) and onions from this year's garden.


Observations:

Taste test of Chantenay Organic and Ingot carrots: both were crisp and sweet, Chantenay maybe a bit sweeter than Ingot, but needed to be scraped due to so many "hairy" roots. Short 'n Sweet carrots didn't live up to their name. They aren't terribly short, and not nearly as sweet as the other two varieties.
.
6/12 Summer is here, it's 91.3F in the shade. I should have put something on the west side of the lettuce beds for late afternoon shade.

The Black Beauty zucchini is blossoming, but all are male blossoms.


General Gardening:

6/8 Constructed shade tops for lettuce beds.

6/8 Mowed with push mower, to collect grass clippings for garden.

6/8 Tied on horizontal supports for peppers.

6/8 Fertilized garden peppers with 10-10-10, then added a 1" layer of grass clippings. Even with all the rain we've had, the raised beds dry out very quickly.

6/9 Pulled bolting spinach and planted bush beans in its place. Hesitated to do so, as that area of the bed is surrounded on three sides by onions, which are supposed to be bad for the beans.

6/11 Moved large pot of blossoming cilantro, but roots had grown through the bottom of the pot and the plant died.


Poor, wilted cilantro.


Other

While trying to show Mr. Granny the first tiny Sungold tomato, I broke it off :-(

Neighbor, Pat, bought me a motion sensor owl for the garden, so I hung it over the peas to deter birds and squirrels. It goes "hoo-hoo-hoo" when something passes near it, but today its hoo-hoo got stuck, so I had to turn it off.


You really haven't lived until your hoo-hoo gets stuck!