Monday, April 16, 2012

Harvest Monday 4/16/12

It has been an exciting and colorful week in the garden.  The main excitement has been the ripening of the first strawberries!  I harvested and ate (while reluctantly sharing) 5 oz of strawberries this week.  The first ones did not survive long enough to have their portraits taken, but two today did:


Strawberries are so delicious and I was trying to think of places I could plant even more.  My solution was to replace all the lawn with strawberries!  Sounds delicious to me with the added benefit of no mowing!

Not to be delegated to the harvesting limelight was a colorful bunch of beets (14.6 oz) along with a little carrot that was accidentally pulled while weeding:


We have passed our last average frost date here, so it was time to clear out some of the fall and winter crops to make way for the spring and summer ones.  This included pulling the carrots (14.8 oz) that were planted back in October:

 
As you can see, I finally got some other carrot colors besides white and honestly I can't really taste a difference in the colors.  However, look how pretty they are when they are sliced:


The greens are feeling a bit neglected this week with all the colorful harvests.  So last, but certainly not least was 1 oz of lettuce, 10.3 oz of spinach, and 2.5 oz of swiss chard.  Please admire the lovely bowl of spinach, so that they do not feel neglected (there's nothing worse than pouting spinach!):


Weekly total: 3.0 lbs
Yearly total: 23.98 lbs worth $48.23

To see what others are harvesting check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

Happy Gardening!

14 comments:

  1. Homegrown strawberries are so delicious! I accidently grew a couple one year. I'll try again soon. Your carrots look great as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you grow your carrots from seed? If so, did you plant straight into the ground or start out indoors? I'm just learning, and I want those carrots! Gorgeous harvest.

    And my aren't those spinach flirty?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I grew the carrots from seed. They can take awhile to germinate and you have to make sure they don't dry out. I've never tried transplanting carrots, but I doubt they do well with root disturbance.

      I will let the spinach know they got fan mail ;)

      Delete
  3. Why is it that spinach just has to be the center of attention? (earmuffs-spinach) Those beets look amazing. Last year was my first year with decent success. Do you hill them as they grow?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think spinach heard that they made the super foods list and thinks that means superstar! Anyway, I've never made hills around my beets, but it might be something to try because my beets never seem to get very big.

      Delete
  4. Lovely colors of carrots! I think the Purple Dragons are a little stronger tasting than some of the others, but mostly carrots taste like carrots. However all the different colors might entice some children to eat more veggies and I'm thinking the darker colored ones might have more of those.....mmmm lost the word anthrocyanins or something like that....it helps your immune system or something.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know about kids, but the colors make me want to eat the carrots. I have always heard that the darker colored veggies, especially reds and oranges, have more anthocyanins so you can't go wrong with pretty colors and more antioxidants!

      Delete
  5. It all looks so delicious. We don't get strawberries here for a bit, so I'll just stare longingly at your pictures.
    A question if you don't mind, How do you know when beets are ready? I have lots of good foliage, but I'm not sure when to start pulling. I planted them in Oct/Nov so they should be ready soon.
    Also, did the carrots seem sweeter than usual? I read somewhere that overwintering carrots turns some of the starch into sugar and makes them sweeter. I don't know if its true, but I'm going to try it in the late fall.
    Right now all we are harvesting spinach, pac choi, green/red leaf lettuce and radishes, but springs slowly arriving and then the fun begins!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For beets I sometimes try to lightly dig around the base to try and take a peak. Often you can see the top of the beet without digging. This time I harvested them because I needed to clean up the bed and get ready for spring crops. My beets never seem to get really big, so perhaps I don't leave them in the ground long enough.
      I've also read about carrots being sweeter in the winter, but we've had such a warm spring (plenty of 80+ degree days) and mild winter that I don't they had any reason to convert starch to sugar. (I assume they do that to get energy stored as starch in the roots when it's too cold or not enough light or both to photosynthesize enough).
      Enjoy your greens and I'm sure your strawberries will be so delicious when spring comes!

      Delete
  6. I really must try harder with carrots - I always get too impatient and harvest them early and then get annoyed that they are really tiny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree the carrots are too slow. These ones have been in the ground since October! That is a really, really long time to wait.

      Delete
  7. Yeah the spinach is really easy to overlook when you have such beautiful carrots. Just stunning colors.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, what a colorful harvest. I bet you really enjoyed gathering around the table this week. We can't wait 'till our strawberries come in. They are flowering now.

    ReplyDelete