Monday, August 10, 2009

Harvest Monday - 8/10/09


I didn't take very many photos of the harvests last week, how many shots of zucchini can you look at? Last Monday's harvest is shown above. Zucchini.... , a Serpent cucumber, a handful of Pimento de Padron peppers, a handful of Piracicaba broccoli sprouts, amaranth greens, and carrot thinnings.

There's the harvest from Wednesday above. More zucchini and an ounce of caper buds.

Not shown this week:
  • another zucchini haul, including one "boat"
  • a big bunch of Portuguese kale
  • Lacinato kale (Cavolo Nero) for the chickens
  • more Pimento de Padrons
  • 2 Piment doux Long des Landes sweet peppers, picked green
  • 2 additional Serpent cucumbers
  • numerous clippings of basil


Next year I'm not going to start the Lacinato kale until late summer for fall and winter harvests. It has been such an aphid magnet this summer that it has not been worth giving up the garden space for it. At least the chickens have been loving it. The Portuguese kale is quite good and nowhere near as aphidy so I will grow that again for next summer.

The Serpent cucumbers have been a disappointment. Three of the four plants died from what I believe was bacterial wilt. The surviving plant is limping along and I picked the remaining 2 cucumbers from it yesterday. It doesn't even have any flowers at the moment. The Japanese cucumbers that I started when the Serpents started to decline are a long way from producing, so I guess I'll be buying my cukes at the farmer's market for a while. I've grown Serpent cucumbers before and never had such a hard time with them, I wonder if it's because my seeds came from a different source this year.

Share your weekly harvest - go on over to Daphne's Dandelions and link to your harvest post.

9 comments:

  1. That is interesting that you are growing capers. Do they grow on a bush? Perennial or annual?

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  2. Hi Dan, capers grow on a shrub. A happy caper bush should live 20 to 30 years.

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  3. Michelle,

    You can take all the photos of zucchini you want, we are deprived of them this year! So far we have picked 2 zucchinis and about 25 patty pans. The patty pans are real good if you don't let them grow to the size of softballs. And guess what the CSA we belong to has been sending us more Patty Pans...

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  4. LOL Randy, when it rains it pours! Guess your CSA had the same problems you did.

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  5. You're still getting capers! Do they carry on all summer? The zucchini look good. Ours are slowing down now, but we're still finding some that grow too big because they've been hiding!

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  6. Chaiselongue, the capers are really slowing down now, I may get a couple more pickings or perhaps I'll just let them bloom. I think the zucchini may start slowing soon, I've seen the first spots of powdery mildew...

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  7. Wow that is a lot of zucchini. I think I would run screaming the other way with that much. I have four plants but they just aren't producing well. Maybe next year.

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  8. Daphne, I'm nearly on the verge of abandoning some somewhere. I did grate and freeze some for future batches of zucchini bread, but I can only eat just so much.

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