Harvest Monday June 17, 2024

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I’m cutting the last heads now of the greenhouse lettuce from my spring plantings. Last week it was Sea of Red And Grazion. They are holding up reasonably well in the greenhouse where it has been getting over 100°F every day for hours at a time. The only other thing left in there are the cucumbers I set out last month, and they are beginning to vine and to bloom despite the extreme heat we are having of late. We are smack dab in the middle of the heat wave that is gripping much of the U.S. and yesterday the outside temp hit 97°F while it got up to 117°F in the greenhouse.

Sea of Red Lettuce

Grazion lettuce

I cut a big batch of curly kale last week that I have planted behind the greenhouse. It’s a mix of Winterbor and Starbor, both of which usually do well for me in the springtime. There’s a bit of slug damage on the leaves, but they were protected from cabbage moths by the netting I have over the bed.

Starbor and Winterbor kale

Summer squashes are coming on nicely now. It’s Mexicana zucchini, and Butterfingers and Tempest yellow squashes in the below photo.

summer squashes

Butterfingers is a new yellow straightneck squash I’m growing this year. We will see how it compares to Tempest, which I have been growing for several years now and is my current favorite yellow squash for both taste and productivity.

Butterfingers squash

It’s been a good year so far for raspberries and blackberries, and we’ve been enjoying them for fresh eating. I’ve also begun to freeze the extra blackberries. It looks to be a disappointing year for the blueberries though.

raspberries and blackberries

That’s all the harvesting I did for the week, since early in the week my wife and I traveled to the Cumberland Falls area of Kentucky and met our friends Steve and Sharon who drove up from Alabama. We spent much of our three days in the area hiking, and saw both Cumberland Falls and Yahoo Falls, which is the tallest waterfall in the state. We could hear Cumberland Falls long before we could see it, and when we arrived at the overlook we were rewarded with a rainbow. It was an enjoyable trip and it was great seeing our friends again and having a new adventure together. We even went for a horseback ride one day, which is something I haven’t done in years.

Cumberland Falls

horseback riding

Yahoo Falls

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!