It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We made the last cutting from the asparagus beds last week. It has been a good year for it, and we harvested almost 13 pounds overall. Now we will cut down the weeds, apply a complete fertilizer and let the ferns grow for the rest of the year. We’ve enjoyed it a lot this year, and one of our last treatments was a simple side dish with asparagus and mushrooms sautéed in a little olive oil. It’s a good use for some of the thinner spears, which cook in no time.
last asparagus harvest of 2023
asparagus in stir fry
The lettuce is winding down too. I cut a little more of the Navara last week to use in salads. I am thinking we will get one more week of it before it all bolts and becomes too bitter to eat.
Navara lettuce
But even while the asparagus and lettuce is winding down, we got our first fruits of the year! Our cherry trees have never given us a lot, but we got enough of them last week to make a small cobbler. We are planning to make a trip to Farview Orchards when their cherries are ready to give us some for the freezer.
cherry harvest
I pulled another of the collard plants in the greenhouse to make room for planting the rest of the cucumbers. This batch was from one Georgia collard plant, and weighed just a bit over one pound. We’ve been enjoying this ‘bonus’ crop after the collards re-sprouted after they got frozen out in December.
Georgia collard greens
My latest planting of arugula is ready for cutting, and I got enough to go on a pizza we made for our Saturday night dinner. This is a mix of Astro and Esmee, and added great flavor as we piled it on top of the other ingredients, just under the cheese.
Astro and Esmee arugula
pizza with arugula
In other news, the tall tombstones in the cemetery across the road from us make a good perch for hawks and other birds. I spied one big hawk sitting there one day last week, no doubt waiting for a meal to be served up.
hawk sitting on tombstone
I’ve been more busy planting the past few weeks than I have been harvesting. Last week I was planting eggplant and tomatoes when the paparazzi (aka my wife) showed up with the camera. I have all the tomatoes planted now, and next up on my schedule will be the peppers, vining squashes and pole beans. The last crop to be planted will be sweet potatoes, which I try and have in by early June. I will be keeping busy getting all that done for sure!
planting eggplant
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please check out what everyone is harvesting!
It certainly is a busy time. Looks like you have some good weather for it.
Nice last harvest of asparagus. That way of preparing it looks really tempting. I’m wondering what the differences are with the types of arugula you grow. All I have ever planted is the generic “Italian” type, but I now need new seeds. I really want to try the arugula pizza. Cool photo of the hawk…a red-shouldered?
I’m not sure about what kind of hawk it was Will, except it was big! I grow Speedy arugula a lot. It looks like the ‘wild’ types but has a nice flavor for general use.
It intrigues me that you can’t grow lettuce in summer Dave, I grow mine in my pepper tunnels and it’s pretty hot in there, so I can only imagine how hot it must be where you are. I suppose that’s why you have such good success growing all of your tomatoes and peppers outside! : All the best – Steve
I can grow it in summer Steve if I plant heat-tolerant types, but I’m not happy with the quality. But I’m going to experiment with one called Tehama that was recommended by some local farm friends of ours. They grow it in high tunnels in spring and fall, though not in the hottest part of summer.
Dave – not sure if this will be helpful to you, but there’s a farmer in Tennessee (Ray Tyler) who successfully grows lettuce & greens in the summer. You may already be familiar with him, but if not here’s an article that describes some of his techniques:
https://moderngrower.co/how-to-grow-salad-greens-in-the-summer-part-4-of-4-rosecreek-farms
Thanks for the info Susan, I will check it out.
I like the your asparagus yield! I have a asparagus patch that is probably 7 years old, but I’m still getting very small crops as if it was a 2 year old plot. I really must remember to fertilise in (our) late winter/early spring to try and get more spears
This was the 15th year of production for our patch. I neglected to get ours fertilized earlier so I am going to do it now.