Harvest Monday July 5, 2021

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s still berry season for us, and we have been enjoying the fresh blueberries and blackberries on a daily basis. We generally only harvest every other day though, sometimes every third day depending on the weather. My wife picks the blueberries, while I take care of the blackberries. I am trialing Osage and Sweetie Pie thornless blackberries, and both have been giving us loads of tasty, sweet berries. We have quite a few blueberries planted here, but Chandler and Elizabeth are two of our favorites.

blueberry and blackberry harvests

The squash and cucumbers need to be harvested on a daily basis now. We’re getting a good variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I am freezing quite a few for later use in soups, stews and smoothies. And we are eating them fresh almost every day.

squash and cucumber harvests

I have several winter squashes growing that are mostly used in the green stage. Early Bulam is a Korean avocado squash that has drier flesh than most summer squashes and a rich flavor. We use this one roasted or sauteed, and I am thinking the shape would be suitable for stuffing as well. Centercut is a neck pumpkin/tromboncino type that I like at both the immature green stage and as a mature squash. We most often roast the green ones in a cast iron skillet, which brings out the flavor in the dry-fleshed and savory fruit.

Korean avocado and Centercut squashes

The container planted eggplant is keeping us well supplied while we wait for the in-ground plantings to fruit. I am growing three AAS Winners this year: Fairy Tale, Gretel and Patio Baby. The striped Fairy Tale is a longtime favorite, while the white skinned Gretel has equaled it in recent taste tests my wife and I have done. I made a roasted vegetable bowl one day last week for lunch and these eggplant had a starring role, along with some of the Centercut squash. I pulled the last of the Kossak kohlrabi too, and it has been a great year for kohlrabi so far. I will replant in a month or so for a fall crop.

eggplant harvest

The spring cabbages didn’t do quite as well as the kohlrabi, but we have had plenty to eat. The flathead Tendersweet is one of my favorites for fresh use, and this one weighed a bit over two pounds with minimal insect or slug damage.

Tendersweet cabbage

I also made a tabouli salad for lunch one day, which featured a lot of our flatleaf parsley plus a couple of the Red Racer tomatoes. I use the whole grain red bulgur which I find makes a great tabouli salad, along with other dishes too.

parsley and tomatoes for tabouli salad

I pulled what will be the last of the Slobolt lettuce from the greenhouse. It is too hot in there to grow green in summer, so I will replant this fall when the temperatures moderate.

Slobolt lettuce

Our Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is buzzing with bees every day now. We brought it home from a native plant sale in Berea, KY four years ago, and it has grown into a six foot tall shrub that is covered in round white blooms. Butterflies are also attracted to the blooms, but right now it is mostly bees feeding on the nectar.

Buttonbush blooms

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 be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Harvest Monday June 28, 2021

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I’ve got a lot of photos this week, so I’m going to do a few of them in collages so I can share as many as possible.  There were also some notable ‘firsts’ last week too. The berries are coming on strong now, with my wife harvesting blueberries and me picking the blackberries. We have plenty for fresh eating plus we have started freezing them for later use.

blueberries and blackberries

The cucurbit family was well represented last week in harvests, with summer squashes from the veggie garden and cucumbers from the greenhouse. I’ve been freezing some of the squashes, and so far we have managed to keep up with the cucumber harvests. I also pulled four more of the big Kossak kohlrabis, some of which I will likely turn into kraut and kimchi.

summers squashes, cucumbers and kohlrabi

The big news of the week was that I harvested the first eggplant and the first tomatoes of 2021. These are growing in various containers and grow bags, and have given us a jump start on the season while we wait for the in-ground plantings to begin fruiting. Red Racer cluster tomato is a 2018 All-America Selections winner and I have two plants growing in 15 gallon Smart Pots. They are loaded with fruit, and it’s been a dependable performer for me ever since it was introduced.

Red Racer tomatoes

The eggplants came from Patio Baby, Fairy Tale and Gretel, which are all three AAS Winners from years past and some of my favorites for growing in containers. We roasted this modest harvest, and the plants are loaded with more blooms and developing fruits.

first eggplant of 2021

And last but not least I got another head of Bergam’s green lettuce that we used to make a wilted lettuce salad. I still have a few more plants of lettuce to harvest, but the pickings will be slim until the cooler weather  of autumn.

Bergam’s Green lettuce

In non-harvest news, bees both small and large are loving our Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) blooms right now. It was planted here when we bought the place in 2007, and is still going strong. I made the video yesterday morning when the plants were literally buzzing with bees!

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 be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!

 


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Harvest Monday June 21, 2021

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The spring veggies are still coming in even as more summer crops join our meals. I made another cutting from the sprouting broccoli plants, this time Artwork and Burgundy. We enjoyed this batch roasted as a side dish for dinner. It will be all side shoots from this point on, though I have to say that with the warm weather we’ve been having I suspect the broccoli’s days are numbered.

Burgundy and Artwork broccoli

I pulled a couple of the big Kossak kohlrabi last week. These weighed almost two pounds each, and after peeling will be easy to grate into kohlrabi kraut. We also use Kossak for fresh eating, and even at this size they are tender and not woody or tough. These two are destined for fermenting though. They have a bit of slug damage but a lot less than the ones I have planted behind the greenhouse. So far they have also not been splitting either, which I find can be a problem with kohlrabi when we have a rainy spell.

Kossak kohlrabi

giant Kossak kohlrabi

I also pulled the first head of spring cabbage. This is Green Presto, and this head weighed just over two pounds. If I get a cucumber from the greenhouse in a few days I will make a batch of Garlicky Dill Pickle Kraut using the cabbage and cucumber. I didn’t set out a lot of cabbage this spring, just enough to make a couple of jars of kraut plus some for fresh eating. That’s an Astia zucchini hanging out with the cabbage.

Green Presto cabbage

We get modest daily pickings of blueberries now. We have been enjoying these fresh on our morning muesli. My wife is in charge of the blueberry harvests, for which I am grateful.

blueberries from the garden

I also began harvesting the first blackberries last week. This is Natchez, my current favorite of the thornless types. The berries are large and sweet, and I have been eating them fresh along with the blueberries. I also have one plant each of Osage and Sweetie Pie I set out in 2018 as test varieties. They are both fairly well loaded with berries that are not quite ripe just yet. This will be the first year I get a big harvest from these two, and I hope to make up my mind whether I want to plant more of them.

Natchez blackberries

The summer squashes are setting on nicely now. I picked one each of the yellow Tempest, the two-tone Zephyr and the light green Mid-East type zucchini Clarimore. It will be time to start freezing them soon, but so far we have kept up with the harvest by eating them.

summer squashes

I’ll close with a pic of one of our bee balms I set out last year. Sugar Buzz Cherry Pops only gets about two feet tall, and is loaded right now with cherry red flowers. I saw a swallowtail butterfly getting nectar from it recently but I didn’t have my camera ready before it flew away. Bees also love it, not surprisingly given the common name for it! We have an assortment of monarda planted here, but this compact one is definitely my new favorite. The tall ones tend to flop over on their neighbors so I keep them in the middle of the garden next to other tall plants like Crososmia, Ratibida pinnata (Greyhead Coneflower) and Joe Pye Weed. We also have Sugar Buzz Blue Moon planted which has lavender colored blooms and the same compact habit.

Sugar Buzz Cherry Pops monarda

I found an old flag holder in the shed awhile back, and asked the Artist-in-Residence at Happy Acres (my wife Lynda) if she could make a new flag for it. She’s got the base made, and I can’t wait to see the finished product!

flag for Wild Garden

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 be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!

 


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Harvest Monday June 14, 2021

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We are getting a bit more variety in our harvests these days other than the spring greens. I made the first cutting from the Apollo sprouting broccoli plants last week. I sauteed them for a side dish and they weren’t quite as tender as the ones from Happy Rich I cooked up the week before, though still tasty. The Artwork plants are heading up too and should be ready soon. I set out eight plants of broccoli this spring, two each of the varieties mentioned above plus two of the purple sprouting type Burgundy.

Apollo broccoli

I cut a huge head of napa cabbage last week from the Soloist variety that weighed right at four pounds. That is enough to make a half gallon of kimchi, which is what I plan to do with this head. The slugs had a field day with the outer leaves, but it will clean up nicely and once fermented any holes won’t hurt the flavor any. I also have a variety called Wah Wah Tsai planted which is supposed to make smaller heads. Unless I am fermenting it, I really don’t need giant heads of cabbage for just the two of us!

Soloist cabbage

I also pulled a few more kohlrabi that the slugs have been feeding on. Slugs are truly the number one pest we have for the early veggies, and I always struggle to keep them under control. There was over three pounds of them in this batch which was enough for fresh use plus a quart jar of fermented kohlrabi pickles.

kohlrabi harvest

I got the first zucchini of the season from my Astia plant I have growing in a grow bag. There are quite a few of the summer squashes starting to set on in the main vegetable garden, so it won’t be long before we are up to our ears in them. I freeze a lot of it for later use, where it finds its way into soups, stocks and even my morning smoothies.

Astia zucchini

I still have a few heads of spring planted leaf lettuce sizing up in the greenhouse. I pulled one head of the Bergam’s Green last week to use for a wilted lettuce salad. The quality is still good on this lettuce despite the hot conditions in our early summer greenhouse.

Bergam’s Green

Every year I start several different colors of Wave petunias from seed. They give us color in the summer months, plus they get visited by butterflies and hummingbirds. Easy Wave Berry Velour has rosy-red flowers and does quite well for me in containers. I set out these plants by our driveway where they brighten up the otherwise drab concrete. The Wave types don’t need deadheading like many petunias do, though I do usually cut them back in mid-summer if they start getting a bit leggy.

Easy Wave Berry Velour petunias

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 be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Harvest Monday June 7, 2021

Posted on June 7, 2021 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The spring lettuce is about to come to an end. I cut the last of the oakleaf types, and I won’t replant these until cooler weather arrives this fall. I used much of this for a salad we had for lunch one day, topped with fresh fruit, avocado and some homemade croutons from my whole wheat bread.

red and green oakleaf lettuce

lunch salad

I do have several heat resistant leaf lettuces growing that are still sizing up. Bergam’s Green has proven to be amazingly bolt-resistant for me, even more so than Simpson Elite. This head weighed almost a pound, and we used it for wilted lettuce salad one night last week. I also have Red Sails and Slobolt planted now, and they should also hold up well in the heat. My next planting will include Batavian types like Muir, Slogun and Canasta and hopefully they will give us something edible in July.

Bergam’s Green lettuce

We’ve also been adding the leaves of the Miz America mizuna to our salads, and more of it is going in a stir fry I have planned. Also going in the stir fry will be the pac choi I cut last week.

Miz America mizuna

Mei Qing pac choi

We got a modest but much appreciated harvest of cherries from our two trees. One is a sweet cherry, and the other is the North Star dwarf pie cherry. They are shaded by a giant maple tree which limits their yields. Still, we got enough for a cobbler and that was a sweet seasonal treat for us.

cherry harvest

I was somewhat surprised to see the broccoli plants heading up already. Happy Rich is a sprouting broccoli that makes small main heads and lots of side shoots.  These gave us a brief taste of what is to come from the eight plants of spring sprouting broccoli I set out this April.

Broccoli Happy Rich

I got more kohlrabi last week, this time the green skinned Terek and the white skinned Beas. The slugs are having a field day on the skins, but I really don’t care since the damage is cosmetic and we peel the skins off anyway.

Terek and Beas kohlrabi

In non-harvest news, Mama bluebird has been busy and has a new nest with five eggs for her second brood of 2021. I’ve been hosting bluebirds for years, and must have seen a hundred nests by now but I never get tired of seeing them.

bluebird nest with eggs

My wife and I managed a getaway last week to Spring Mill State Park for a picnic and some hiking. The park has several good hiking trails and an old grist mill built in 1817 that still turns out stone-ground corn meal. We had our lunch, then toured the grist mill and saw it operate before going on a little ‘moderate’ rated hike. It made for an enjoyable day, and it was great to see so many families with children out enjoying nature like we were doing. We were also serenaded by a cacophony of cicadas, as Brood X has emerged from underground after 17 years and mating is their top priority. As a bonus we brought home a bag of the freshly ground corn meal which should make some tasty cornbread.

us at the entrance to park

me outside the grist mill

climbing up the trail

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 be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!


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