Harvest Monday - August 22, 2011

At last, the first ripe tomato! Meet Katja, the only tomato to ripen so far this "summer".  No wait, I take that back, I picked one little Galinas cherry tomato that never made it before the camera or onto the scale. But don't hold your breath waiting for photos of the tomatoes to come, the rest of them still pretty darned green.

Here's another first from the garden this year, Rosa Bianca eggplants. And a sort of first, the first ever August harvest of fava beans from a volunteer plant (what the damned rats left for me). Also on the tray are Green Fingers Persian cucumbers, Piracicaba broccoli, and Pimento de Padron peppers.

Green Fingers Persian cucumber is my new favorite cucumber. It's smooth skinned when young and very tasty. These are a little larger than what you might find at the store. I first tasted Persian cucumbers from Trader Joe's and knew that I had to try growing them myself.

No seediness here, even when they get larger. Aren't they beautiful. Unfortunately, the rats have developed a liking for these and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to pull the plants out now that the vermin have figured out how to get past the defences that I put up to protect the plants. Oh well, at least I can buy my second favorite cucumber, Japanese cucumbers, at the farmer's market.

I am so PO'd about the rats. I cried this weekend as I pulled out all my strawberry plants. They had to go, I wasn't getting any berries, I kept seeing all the berries disappear, even the green ones. It is time to stop feeding the rats. It doesn't seem to matter how many rats I trap (50 in 3 weeks!), they keep coming. I have to stop attracting them with easy food. The strawberry plants are in the compost, the cucumber plants will follow as soon as I can screw up the fortitude to yank out those lovely healthy productive plants. I told my husband that when the seed for his bird feeders runs out that the feeders have to go (the A No.1 spot for catching rats). Crap, it's depressing. I can't bear to think about them discovering my ripening tomatoes...

Ah well. I have so many other things to be thankful for. Gotta keep this in perspective. I surely won't starve because of the marauding vermin. Thanks for letting me vent my frustrations here.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Piracicaba broccoli - 9.6 oz.
Capers - 1.3 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 2 lb., 11.3 oz. (everything large enough to harvest)
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 1 lb., 7.9 oz. (ditto above)
Rosa Bianca eggplant - 1 lb., 13 oz.
Fava beans - 7.6 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 5.9 oz.
Katja tomato - 6.8 oz.
Zucchini - 1 lb., 14.3 oz. (the rats haven't developed a taste for these yet)
Zucchini blossoms - 4.2 oz.

The total harvests for the week were - 9 lb., 11.9 oz.
The total harvests for the year have been - 266 lb.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.