Harvest Monday - January 2, 2012

This is my first harvest report of the new year so I get to report the final harvests of 2011 and the first harvests of 2012.

Here's the last of 2011:

Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli and a little bit of Piracicaba broccoli

I'm still harvesting shoots off of the Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli plants that I started last spring and was complaining about in my June garden update because they weren't growing and the rats were starting to gnaw on them. Once I figured out that they weren't growing because of invading oak tree roots and dug those out then the plants started to grow and produced a tiny crop by July, a little more in August, and then started producing in earnest in September. I've harvested almost 7 pounds of broccoli shoots from those four plants, plus more that weren't weighed because they had more aphids than I wanted to deal with so they were given to the chickens.

Di Sarno Calabrese florets

Last night I made one of my versions of comfort food - chopped broccoli braised in chicken stock and seasonings with some eggs poached in the pot with the broccoli. Just what the doctor ordered to combat my first cold of the new year.

Golden and Chioggia beets

More beets! These were used in the farro pasta dish that I still haven't written up for my recipe notebook (coming soon, I promise).

Guntmadingen Winter spinach

Some rodent, either rats or voles (they're baaack, dang it), started to mow down my spinach plants so I harvested darn near every remaining leaf off of the plants and covered what was left with row cover again. All of it was used to make sauteed spinach with garlic, raisins and pine nuts - yum. Fortunately, the pests didn't completely destroy the plants and I think they will make enough of a comeback to produce another crop.

Lacinato kale, Di Sarno Calabrese and Piraciciaba broccolis

The fall/winter brassicas are producing, this is the first harvest of Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli from the new plants plus a bit more Piracicaba and enough Lacinato kale to make another caesar salad.

Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli

More destruction by marauding rodents, not sure if it was gophers or voles, prompted me to harvest all of the celery root.  I haven't used any of it yet but the trimmed roots will keep well in the refrigerator for a long time.

Diamante celery root

Diamante celery roots, trimmed

Here's some of the first harvests of 2012:

I thinned out the summer sown patch of beets. The aphids and ants didn't get to this patch of beets very much so I also got a nice bunch of greens (and reds) to use.

Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli, beet greens, Piracicaba broccoli,
Baby Ball, Egyptische Platronde, Chioggia, and Golden beets

I'm going to use the beet greens in a crustless quiche tonight and use the beet roots in a salad with mixed greens.

Not photographed yesterday was the last napa cabbage, a Hybrid One Kilo that came in at well over one kilo, but it looks like it is on the verge of bolting so I'm not sure how good it will be. It's in the count for now but will disappear if it turns out to be inedible.

So here's the harvests for the past couple of weeks:

Baby Ball beets - 14.7 oz.
Chioggia beets - 15.7 oz.
Egyptische Platronde beets - 9.2 oz.
Golden beets - 13.6 oz.
Beet greens - 1 lb., 4.7 oz.
Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli - 3 lb.
Piracicaba broccoli - 8.8 oz.
Hybrid One Kilo napa cabbage - 6 lb., 5 oz.
Diamante celery root (trimmed) - 6 lb., 9 oz.
Lacinato kale - 1 lb., 6.8 oz.
Guntmadingen Winter spinach - 1 lb., 11.5 oz.

The total for the past two weeks was - 24 lb., 3.3 oz.
The total harvests for 2011 were - 582 lb., 5.4 oz.
The total harvests for 2012 have been - 11 lb., 14.4 oz.

The harvests for 2011 were 109.4 pounds less than the 2010 harvests, and no surprise, that was mostly because the summer garden (what summer this year?) was in general far less productive in 2011 than in 2010. The only 2011 summer crops that exceeded the 2010 summer crops were green beans and cucumbers, but only because I sowed a second planting of beans (actually - 3 plantings versus 1) and the cucumbers produced well into autumn this year. On the other hand, many of the cool weather vegetables were more productive in 2011 than in 2010, beets up 15 pounds, broccoli up 12, cabbage up 22.8, Peas up 26.8 (!).  Come to think of it, the lack of summer weather wasn't the only culprit, the rats took a big bite out of the summer (and spring, and fall, and winter) crops as well. Nineteen pounds of strawberries in 2010 and ZERO in 2011 - all because of the rats. Have you noticed the gadget that I call Rat Patrol over there on my side bar? That's my record of rats trapped for a little more than 5 months. It's mind boggling...

Happy New Year everyone - here's to a productive and rodent-free (please please please, at least reduced-rodent) garden in the coming seasons.

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.