Monday, July 28, 2014

Harvest Monday 28 July 2014

black_raspberries

 

My gardening style is all about laziness. Not surprisingly, my landscaping style runs similar but it has its advantages. For example, if I had cleared out the brambles under the Kousa dogwood last year, would I have this bowl of black raspberries today? Probably not. But I have resolved, as soon as the raspberries are all picked, I will deal with the brambles.

 

The garden is coming up to full production. I’m still cutting chard and pulled a few beets. Usually my chard is bolt resistant (after all, it is a biennial) but I had one plant start to bolt. It was the Magenta Sunset and I read somewhere that pink or red stalked varieties were more likely to prematurely bolt.

 

chard&beets

 

Plenty of kale and collard greens.

 

kale&collards

 

The bell peppers are from Revolution, a bell that is supposed to produce thick walled peppers in the North. I gave up on bells and plant smaller varieties like Lipstick because I get better yield and quality. But since I killed a lot of my pepper starts, I grabbed a pack of these to try. These peppers are from the in-ground plants, the raised bed equivalents have marble size peppers on them. And that is my first Pingtung eggplant.

 

pingtun

 

More beans and squash. Beans are being picked almost daily. I read in Johnny’s catalog that the size and even the existence of a green spot on the end of the Y-Star patty pan is variable depending on heat and plant stress. The plant looks pretty happy to me, I don’t think it is being stressed. And it is an F-1 hybrid so cross-pollination shouldn’t be an issue.

 

beans&squash

 

Four kinds of beans are being harvested. Clockwise from upper right, Gold Marie, first picking of Jade, Provider and Musica. The Provider beans went into a batch of refrigerator dilly beans, using this recipe.

 

4beans

 

Tomatoes and my first cucumber, a Jackson Classic pickler. I’m harvesting the tomatoes as soon as they start to show color to keep the birds from destroying them. I have lost almost a dozen of the Juliet tomatoes to the birds so far. They have not bothered the other tomato varieties but I don’t want to take a chance. The large tomato is a Big Beef, with a couple of Jaune Flamme below it. The cherries are Esterina, which are supposed to be more crack resistant than Sungold, but notice the blossom end rot on two of them! I have never had BER on a cherry tomato before.

 

tomatoes&cuke

 

That's all from my garden and weed patch in Bolton. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

12 comments:

  1. I think the premature bolting is weather related. Probably that late cold spell we had in May. I've had two of my chard plants bolt on me and one parsley. I've never before had either of them do that before.

    Lovely beans. I've got three kinds growing this year. So far I'm just harvesting from two.

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  2. Those are some wonderful harvests. Love the eggplant! My bell peppers are maturing so slowly as well. Like you, I'm definitely going to go with smaller varieties next year. I didn't realize that birds attacked tomatoes - I'll have to keep an eye out.

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  3. Lovely bowl of black raspberries, will you move the plant to another location? Beautiful and varied harvest, I am looking forward to harvesting my Ping Tung eggplant.

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  4. BER on a cherry tomato?! I've never experienced that before either. I'll tolerate cracking over BER any day. Those black raspberries look so good - are you sure you want to tackle those brambles? :-)

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  5. Those beans look great! I had several green chard plants bolt on me last year and like Daphne I blame it on a late cold spell that probably tricked the plants into thinking they had gone through a winter. FWIW I have trouble getting ripe bell peppers here in So Indiana. The non-bell sweets (Carmen, Jimmy Nardello, etc) and the hot peppers are much more reliable for me.

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  6. The beans look wonderful and they seem to be keeping you busy. Interesting that the patty pan is still neon. I wondered if it was a fluke the first time. Love the blackberries too and agree that it was best to leave the brambles at the time. Enjoy :) ~ Rachel @ Grow a Good Life

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  7. You want bell peppers? I have them out the you know what! It seems if we have a wet spring/summer they set like crazy. I too have never heard of BER on cherry tomatoes. Weird. As far as lazy, you have company.

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  8. I love how colorful your harvests are - especially the eggplant and rainbow chard! I'm planning on growing some rainbow chard for a fall harvest.

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  9. All of your harvests look delicious, especially those beans and such a pretty eggplant. I've had an ordeal with flea beetles on my eggplant, so I'm not sure if I'll get any this year. I hope the birds stay away from your tomatoes.

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  10. What an impressive harvest! I wonder why your peppers in the ground are doing so much better than the ones in the raised beds... any ideas? I, too, can be a lazy gardener/landscaper. There always just seems to be so much to do that if I can somewhat stay on top of the weeds and basic tending to things then I feel pretty good. Occasionally, I have to take some days off from the Day Job just to get those basic things done.

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  11. Nice varied harvest, love the berries you have there, I continue to experiment with growing small fruits but not much success, someday maybe someday I'll get it.

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  12. Nice harvest! I love black raspberries. They have such a unique taste that reminds me of summer foraging excursions. Nice haul of beans as well.

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