Monday, July 28, 2014

Harvest Monday 7/28/14

Someday I will stop changing my blog banner!  I can't seem to settle on a design.  At the moment this banner makes me happy, we'll see what next week brings.

Anyway, I thought last week as a big week with 42 lbs.  Well, this week broke the record set last week.  This week's harvest was 66 lbs!

Here's some of the harvests that are taking over my kitchen:


I finally harvested a cabbage head.  This is the biggest head while the rest of the cabbage are tiny.  I probably should just stick to cabbage as a fall crop instead of trying to plant it in the spring.


The biggest harvest this week was tomatoes at almost 28 lbs.  I've made two batches of tomato sauce and eaten plenty of tomato salads this week.  The runner-up crop of the week is cucumbers at almost 14 lbs.  I have made 26 jars of pickles this season!  The cucumber plants are starting to die and I think I'm ready for the cucumber and pickling marathon to end.  We have had plenty of cucumber salads too.


I did get one nice ear of corn that I promptly cooked and devoured.  My late planted corn may produce more than the early corn.  The stalks are still short, but the ears seem to be filling in more on some of the stalks. The summer squash has slowed down to just a few per week.


The peppers, however, have picked up production:

I'm not much of a hot pepper fan.  I usually plant one or two hot banana peppers for J and then plant lots of sweet bell peppers.  Well, it appears I have seven hot banana pepper plants this year!  So what happened?  I had these seeds that were labeled as Cubanella.  It was my first time growing them, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew they were supposed to be sweet peppers.  Well, they started growing and they looked like banana peppers and then I tasted them.. definitely not sweet!  I'm guessing I got sent the wrong pepper seeds.  Now I have no clue what to do with all these banana peppers.  J likes them on pizza, but that's a ton of pizza to keep up with the pepper production.  I've been giving them to the neighbors and I might pickle some.  Any thoughts on what to do with lots of banana peppers?

Also this week I picked the first of the winter squash, two butternuts.


I have been complaining recently that my harvest basket just couldn't keep up with the garden, so my mom sent me a much larger wire basket.  It can handle all the tomatoes and even the melons.  I have still been on a melon binge.  They are just so delicious and juicy that once I cut into them, I can't stop eating.


Weekly harvests (lbs):

Lettuce 0.04
Onion 0.41
Summer squash   3.19
Peppers 7.42
Cucumber  13.89
Beans 0.81
Carrots 0.83
Tomatoes  27.71
Corn         0.29
Melons 7.71
Cabbage 1.92
Winter squash 1.59

Weekly total: 66.1 lbs
Yearly total: 220.75 lbs (surpassed the 200 lb mark this week!)

That's all the harvests coming from my garden this week.  To see what others are harvesting check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

22 comments:

  1. Wow - your harvests are crazy! Almost 60 lbs. of cucumbers this year? Very impressive! I just canned some pickled banana peppers this past weekend - we love using them on pizza and salsa. Just last night we sprinkled some on tacos. Thomas at Seeding the Good Life also had another great idea recently (that I have yet to try) and that is to roast the peppers first. Not sure how he preserves them, by freezing or canning, but I'm thinking of doing that next. Love the basket - I have always wanted a wire basket to add to my expanding collection.

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    1. I will have to try roasting the peppers and see how they taste and I'll definitely pickle some as well. I know what everyone will be getting for Christmas this year ;) And I agree that I have had an insane amount of cucumbers this year.

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  2. I make hot sauce with my hot peppers. And the sauce keeps for a long time. I also dry them and make paprika/chile powder. I love the current header photo too!

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    1. Thanks! I'll add hot sauce and chili powder to the list of things to do with all these peppers. I really need to get a dehydrator and some gloves. Last time I cut some peppers I didn't think they were that hot. They didn't burn my hands, but let me tell you when I took out my contacts I was crying!

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  3. We didn't plant any hot peppers this year because they didn't sprout from see so I said the heck with it. I see your tomatoes do the same growth spurt ring the same as mine. Oh well. Melon looks great!

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    1. I think my growth spurt rings are because of the crazy downpours we keep getting. I thought I was only going to have one banana pepper plant because my seeds were old and didn't germinate well, guess that mislabeled seed packet fixed that problem!

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  4. Wow, 66 pounds in one week! Everything looks so yummy. And I like your banner photo but it's also nice to change things up a bit.

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    1. Thanks! I think this banner pic may stay awhile. I'm still in shock over 66 lbs. I've definitely never had that much in a week before.

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  5. Such plentiful harvests! Beautiful.

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  6. Fabulous harvests. I really envy those melons. I have three small melons that have set so far, but are just about 4". Last year I got around 10 so the plants had better start picking up. I want my own melon binge.

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    1. It seems that when my harvests end for a crop, yours begins. So I'm sure I will be jealous of your melons when I have dead vines.

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  7. Wow, that's a big haul you have there! You have tons of work ahead in preserving the harvest.
    I like the header banner, it's cute.

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    1. Thanks! It's definitely going to be a busy couple of weeks around here.

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  8. Huge harvest. And canning 26 jars of pickles, what are you going to do with all of those? Talking of late corn, I sort of envy the length of your growing season (but not the heat). And I like the banner.

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    1. I don't even like pickles that much! I will be giving them to everyone I know. Another downfall that comes with our long growing season is bugs, so many bugs (two life cycles of vine borers in one season!) and all kinds of fungal diseases because of the heat and humidity. The good is that we get more than one chance with most crops.

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  9. Wow, what a great harvest! I'm particularly envious of your melons. Mine are still tiny. Your pickles look great as well.

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  10. 66 pounds!!! You are doing great!! I like your banner but then I love dogs so that touches my heart! Nancy

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  11. Incredible harvest, 66 pounds would freak me out a bit (overwhelming?!), so much to deal with at once! Banana peppers are my first choice for pickling (nice with the different colours) but any leftover just get left on the counter to dry out and get used up eventually.

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  12. Oh, and about your banner ... I love it. I'm still not very experienced with blogger and don't really know how to make custom made banners so I always appreciate what I see on other blogs.

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  13. Your blog is very impressive ...

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  14. It's wonderful your infos. Thank you very much
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