Harvest Monday April 29, 2023

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Speaking of harvests, I made another cutting of tender new leaves from the overwintered collard plants. I thought they were about done for, but at least one plant (Jernigan’s Yellow Cabbage) proved me wrong and gave us a bit less than a pound of tender leaves last week. These are great when lightly sautéed in a bit of olive oil, and for me don’t need much in the way of seasoning other than some salt.

collard harvest

We’re also continuing to enjoy the lettuce I’m harvesting from the greenhouse plantings. This week I cut a giant head of Grazion, which is a green leaf lettuce with thick, wavy leaves. That one weighed over a pound, and lasted for several salads.

Grazion lettuce

It’s been a great year so far for asparagus too. We continue to cut a few ounces every day, and now have harvested right at eight pounds so far. Last year’s total was 13 pounds, and with about a month left in the season we should reach that amount again this year easily .

roasted asparagus

The overwintered parsley is bolting and just about done for. Those leaves aren’t quite as tender as normal, but plenty good enough to make another batch of tabouli salad last week.

parsley harvest

Tabouli salad

I pulled more of the Forum onions last week, and I continue to be happy with how they are doing. I planted sets last fall, and they have proven to be hardy and vigorous growers. I’m hoping to let a few size up, though eventually I will need to pull them all to make room for this year’s sweet potato planting.

Forum onions

In non-harvest news, our Encore azaleas are in full bloom now. These are repeat bloomers that put on another show in early fall, though usually the spring bloom is the heavier of the two. Our other azaleas have been done for several weeks now, so these are a welcome sight at the front of our house.

Encore azaleas

red azalea

pink azalea

And last but not least, the clematis (Crystal Fountain) we planted by our front porch last year is really blooming now. The blooms are huge, and the compact vines are literally covered in them.

Crystal Fountain clematis

closeup of bloom

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!


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Cold Frame Makeover

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a project to replace the cold frames I have behind our greenhouse. I’ve got three growing areas back there with about 50 square feet of growing space, and the cold frames provide protection from wind and critters like deer and rabbits. The frames have been falling apart for some time, and I finally decided it was time to replace them. Here’s what they looked like back in the fall of 2020, when they were still in fairly good shape.

back side of greenhouse

And here’s what they look like now, falling apart on the tops and bottoms with mostly rotten wood. This is a photo of one I moved to make room for the new ones, which I decided to buy instead of make.

rotting cold frame

The first step was to get rid of the old cold frame pieces, and put down cardboard around the edges to keep down weeds. Then I could assemble the new beds and move them into place. Finally I covered the cardboard with cypress mulch, and then started planting. I am continuing to use one old cold frame bottom, which will be planted with annual and perennial herbs. That bed does not need to be covered or protected, so the top isn’t really necessary and the bottom itself isn’t really that important.

assembling the beds

The old cold frames were made from untreated pine boards, and only lasted a few years before starting to decay. The new ones are made from white cedar, and with any luck should last as long as I do! They are a bit pricey up front, but given the cost of lumber and the hardware it takes to assemble the frames I thought it would be money well spent in the long run. These assemble with slots and pegs, and can be stacked to provide more growing room. I’ve got two of the 4×4 foot beds stacked together in one bed, and I planted curly kale (Winterbor, Starbor) in there and interplanted with onions. I plan to pull the onions as spring onions/scallions.

new cedar beds

In the third bed, I have a 4×6 foot cedar bed that I just planted yesterday with kohlrabi and lettuce seedlings. I also interplanted these with onions to fill in the spaces between rows. I sprinkled Sluggo Plus around the plants, then covered with the bird netting material.

bed after planting lettuce, kohlrabi and onions

I’ll share more updates as the growing season progresses, but so far I am pleased with the makeover results. I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

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Harvest Monday April 22, 2024

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The weather has been seasonally cool here of late, and we continue to enjoy the lettuce I have planted in the greenhouse. Last week I cut Sea of Red and Grazion, and they went in salads and on tacos. I think homegrown lettuce has more flavor than what we buy at the grocery store, and my wife and I enjoy it often when it’s in season here. I make croutons with our homemade bread to go on salads, where they add both crunch and flavor.

Grazion and Sea of Red lettuce

lunch salad

tacos with lettuce

And we also enjoy the asparagus while it’s in season. We made another batch of Asparagus Mimosa last week, which makes for a light lunch or dinner when served with some crusty homemade bread like the Ligurian Focaccia.

I made a cutting of Mizspoona Salad Select last week for use in an egg dish and on a salad. This is a mild flavored mizuna/tatsoi cross from Wild Garden Seed with big green serrated leaves that does well for me here in container or in-ground plantings.

Mizspoona Salad Select

And I also made a cutting of arugula last week to go on a pizza. This is a mix of Speedy, Uber and Esmee I have growing this time around. Speedy is a long time favorite, while Uber and Esmee are more recent additions to our lineup.

arugula for pizza

pizza with arugula

And last but not least, the Pileated Woodpeckers have been almost daily visitors to our feeders lately. I often hear them before I see them, since they have a big voice to go with their big bodies!  It’s always a treat to see these giant birds, the largest of the North American woodpeckers. This one in the photos is a male, judging by the red cheek feathers. He has been foraging around on the ground under the feeders too.

Pileated Woodpecker at suet feeder

Pileated Woodpecker on the ground

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!


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Harvest Monday April 15, 2024

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s salad season here, and lettuce continues to play a big role in many of our meals lately. I cut a couple of smaller heads of Hyper Red Rumple Waved last week, along with a big head of the green leafed Starfighter. We used the Starfighter in a wilted lettuce salad, which is one of my favorite treatments.

Hyper Red Rumple Waved lettuce

Starfighter lettuce

wilted lettuce salad

It’s also asparagus season, and we have been enjoying it in a variety of dishes. The daily harvests are usually just a few spears, but it adds up. We have gotten over a pound a week for the last three weeks, which is plenty to keep my wife and I supplied.

daily haul of asparagus

I also harvested some baby leaf greens and onions from the greenhouse plantings last week. The baby greens (pac choi and mizuna) went into a soup we had on one of the rainy and chilly days we had after the warm sunny day of the eclipse.

spring onion and baby greens

Last fall I planted about three dozen of the Forum onion sets in the main vegetable garden, and last week I pulled some of them as spring onions. I had set them out fairly close together, and this served as a thinning out to let a few of them grow on to get a bit bigger. This batch will keep us well supplied for a while, and both the tops and bottoms are quite useful in the kitchen.

Forum onions

In other news, for dinner one night I sautéed more of the collards and rapini and used our sweet potatoes from storage to make hash. The veggies went well with some grilled fish, and the sweet potatoes were still sweet and flavorful after being in storage for almost six months.

fish with collards and sweet potato hash

I mentioned last time that we had some out of town guests coming in to watch the total solar eclipse last Monday. I made veggie soup and baked some bread for the event, while my wife baked cookies and made an apple salad. We had perfect weather and mostly clear skies, and I believe the event was a great success for us. Three of our guests are artists and belong to SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) as does my wife. I got out my Canon DSLR and shot lots of images during the eclipse, and to close out I’ll share three of my favorites. They were taken just before totality, at totality, and just after. I also added a shot my wife got of what it looked like outside when everything got dark, and the sky had a rosy glow much like it does at sunrise and sunset.

just before totality

at totality

just after totality

darkness at totality

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!


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Harvest Monday April 8, 2024

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The harvests last week truly ‘eclipsed’ those of previous weeks, which is an appropriate thing on this Eclipse Edition of Harvest Monday. We’re having guests come in from out of town  since we are in the path of totality for today’s solar eclipse, which will be quite an event for sure. Now for the harvests – and let us begin with lettuce! Green Forest is a romaine type that I’ve had mixed results with. I cut this one before it was fully headed up since it looked like it was trying to bolt. I have better luck with leaf lettuce, which is mostly  what I am growing now in the spring greenhouse.

Green Forest lettuce

The asparagus has really been coming on lately, and we have been cutting a few spears most every day. We had enough for Asparagus Mimosa one day last week, which is a seasonal favorite here. It’s a simple dish, with steamed asparagus topped with grated hard boiled egg, capers, flaky salt and a drizzle of a good olive oil. Served with my morning bake of focaccia it was a winner for me! We used almost a full pound for this treatment, and we have now cut over two pounds so far this season, which started in late March.

asparagus harvest

Asparagus Mimosa

And speaking of focaccia, this was what went with our asparagus. Topped with fresh rosemary before baking, it had a crispy bottom and tender interior. This recipe for Ligurian Focaccia from Salt Fat Acid Heat is my go-go recipe now for focaccia, and I’m baking up another batch this morning to serve for the Eclipse Lunch for our guests.

Ligurian focaccia bread

In other harvest news, I made a big cutting of the overwintered collards, which were beginning to send up flower shoots (aka rapini). These new leaves were so tender, I chopped them up with some of the rapini and sautéed in olive oil. They cooked quickly and had a mild flavor, and made for a tasty side dish.

collard greens and rapini

Parsley is growing lush in the greenhouse, and as a biennial it will soon start to flower and go to seed. I have replacement plants ready, and meanwhile we enjoyed this cutting in a batch of Ikarian Tabouli I made last week.

flat leaf parsley

I’ve also got arugula growing in containers in the greenhouse, and it has gotten big enough for cutting. Arugula is a must for pizza around here, and I got enough from the varieties I have growing (Speedy, Esmee, Uber) to top our homemade pizza last week.

arugula for pizza

I also baked up a loaf of crusty sourdough bread last week to replenish our stock. This loaf used 1/3 Yecora Rojo flour from Breadtopia and I baked it in their oval clay baker. It got a great rise and I love the crumb! It should make a good base for sandwiches.

sourdough bread

crumb shot of bread

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!


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