Any 2018 harvest yet?

[Dani]

This morning I picked a little red wagon full of cucumbers. Then in my big basket I got a few green beans, 3 banana peppers, one Roma tomato, 3 zucchini, 6 patty squash and 3 butternut squash. My honeydew melons are about softball size right now and cantaloupe are not too far behind. One eggplant is only days away from harvest.

 

[Dutchs]

This morning I picked a little red wagon full of cucumbers. Then in my big basket I got a few green beans, 3 banana peppers, one Roma tomato, 3 zucchini, 6 patty squash and 3 butternut squash. My honeydew melons are about softball size right now and cantaloupe are not too far behind. One eggplant is only days away from harvest.

That's great Dani! I love it when things start getting harvested...

 

[timmie]

just now starting to get cucumbers, squash, peppers, blackberries, and blueberries.

 

[Bacpacker]

I finally started picking Blueberries this week. Also have spotted our first tomatos and jalapeno peppers. Wont be long now.

 

[Dutchs]

Took up some red taters today......

 

[NannyPatty]

Got a canner load of green beans going.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

How you going with everything you are harvesting @Dutchs are you preserving fast enough for your harvests and learning lots of new preserving skills ?. The trouble with growing lots of vegetables is it creates more work to turn those into advanced supplies of food . But really we wouldn't have it any other way.

Harvested 4 smaller cherry tomatoes from the gardens yesterday, we have bred a frost resistant variety and they are doing well by saving seeds from plants that survived the frost over 4 years they have become acclimatised.

 

[Dutchs]

How you going with everything you are harvesting @Dutchs are you preserving fast enough for your harvests and learning lots of new preserving skills ?. The trouble with growing lots of vegetables is it creates more work to turn those into advanced supplies of food . But really we wouldn't have it any other way.

Harvested 4 smaller cherry tomatoes from the gardens yesterday, we have bred a frost resistant variety and they are doing well by saving seeds from plants that survived the frost over 4 years they have become acclimatised.

I have done some dehydrating, some freezing and am making some B&B pickles right now. I'm getting better at it and of course I've given some away to some very appreciative folks. Your right. I wouldn't have it any other way. Loving every minute of it!

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Good on you @Dutchs for taking the leap into self sufficiency with great gusto and enthusiasm. It is all a steep learning curve but well worth it for the money it saves us in our budgets on food. Lets face it you cannot get any fresher than plucking it from the vegetable gardens, bringing it inside and cooking and or preserving it straight away. After you have grown your own you realise just how tasteless most of the store bought varieties are.

Love you red potato harvest that is awesome .

 

[Dutchs]

Good on you @Dutchs for taking the leap into self sufficiency with great gusto and enthusiasm. It is all a steep learning curve but well worth it for the money it saves us in our budgets on food. Lets face it you cannot get any fresher than plucking it from the vegetable gardens, bringing it inside and cooking and or preserving it straight away. After you have grown your own you realise just how tasteless most of the store bought varieties are.

Love you red potato harvest that is awesome .

Right again, right again! It's great fun to me. Hard work but fun and very rewarding.

 

[Dutchs]

Today's harvest! Wow.....so much more than I've ever expected....made some bread and butter pickles too....

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Dutchs yes that is what our house looks like regularly and not to mention the spiders and lady beetles that crawl across the counters when we are processing and preserving the vegetables too . Also I can guarantee the moment my kitchen looks like a natural disaster has happened all my friends will pop in for a visit too, most are not gardeners and just look at me like I keep my house like a pigsty . I just say oh hang on I will just catch that spider and or lady beetle and put it outside and don't worry I will sweep and mop when we are finished.

 

[Dutchs]

Just ate some green beans with red potatoes and ham! Awesome! Fresh is so much better.. nothing like the stuff from the grocery. I'm jonna be spoiled now...... I hope the pickles are as good as everything else has been....

 

[Tank-Girl]

@Dutchs No doubt my house will look like yours shortly BUT I would rather my house look like that than go hungry again.
Been there and it's soul destroying.

I scraped enough money together out of the loose change jar to buy two more punnets of zucchini seedlings to replace the ones
the chickens destroyed.

I'm harvesting turnip leaves.
Wow I LOVE these raw or cooked.
I don't like peppery leaves like rocket but these have enough spice to make them interesting.

 

[Dutchs]

@Dutchs yes that is what our house looks like regularly and not to mention the spiders and lady beetles that crawl across the counters when we are processing and preserving the vegetables too . Also I can guarantee the moment my kitchen looks like a natural disaster has happened all my friends will pop in for a visit too, most are not gardeners and just look at me like I keep my house like a pigsty . I just say oh hang on I will just catch that spider and or lady beetle and put it outside and don't worry I will sweep and mop when we are finished.

That's so funny! I just don't let it bother me. I just hope a mouse doesn't decide to visit while someone's there!!! It's hard to control it all in a weekend camper.......I do use the bugbombs and mouse poison but they go away for awhile and just come back. I keep fighting them!

 

[Dutchs]

@Dutchs No doubt my house will look like yours shortly BUT I would rather my house look like that than go hungry again.
Been there and it's soul destroying.

I scraped enough money together out of the loose change jar to buy two more punnets of zucchini seedlings to replace the ones
the chickens destroyed.

I'm harvesting turnip leaves.
Wow I LOVE these raw or cooked.
I don't like peppery leaves like rocket but these have enough spice to make them interesting.

Sorry to hear you had some rough times TG. Let's hope it's better now and your plants all grow up to be awesome! I left my damn turnip leaves out cause it rained so much and wasn't paying attention and let them all ruin danggit......

 

[Tank-Girl]

Sorry to hear you had some rough times TG. Let's hope it's better now and your plants all grow up to be awesome! I left my damn turnip leaves out cause it rained so much and wasn't paying attention and let them all ruin danggit......

There are very quick varieties of turnip called Hakauri and Tokyo Market that have a 40 day turn around from planting to harvest. They're small, white and sweet and you harvest when the turnip is the size of a gold ball.
The root is very sweet and can be eaten raw in salads.
I'm eating the Hakauri turnip greens and they're all sorts of wow.
Maybe it'd be worthwhile to plant a short row of those just for the greens.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Here is the 518g of cherry tomatoes we picked from the gardens today and even the postie told us that we had ripe ones sticking through the front fence saving us $6.21 over purchasing in the supermarket. The reason is probably because we are getting frosts and we have kept the seeds from our ones that survived each frost for 4 years and now we can grow them all year round. We also separated 109 g of organic rosemary that we dried after picking it from the gardens too saving us another $21.68 over purchasing it locally.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Tank-Girl I very much relate to having no food at times in my life and I would much prefer also to have food and a messy kitchen and home too . Thank you for the information on the varieties of sweet turnips I will have to try them.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Yesterday we harvested about 3 x 9lt buckets of thyme from the gardens and put them on a screen to dry on the front veranda behind shade cloth.

Today we harvested 2 turnips, 9.5 bunches of silver beet and 3 large carrots from the gardens. The turnips and carrots are for dinner tonight along with a medium sweet potato from the front veranda.

Incidentally we only have 6 more bags to go on blanching and freezing the sweet potatoes to have a years worth in the freezers for the 2 of us and the rest we will take to church and give them away and give a few to each of our neighbours on either side of us. We also blanched and froze our silver beet we picked from the gardens today making another 11 more meals for the freezer

 

[Dutchs]

Yesterday we harvested about 3 x 9lt buckets of thyme from the gardens and put them on a screen to dry on the front veranda behind shade cloth.

Today we harvested 2 turnips, 9.5 bunches of silver beet and 3 large carrots from the gardens. The turnips and carrots are for dinner tonight along with a medium sweet potato from the front veranda.

Incidentally we only have 6 more bags to go on blanching and freezing the sweet potatoes to have a years worth in the freezers for the 2 of us and the rest we will take to church and give them away and give a few to each of our neighbours on either side of us. We also blanched and froze our silver beet we picked from the gardens today making another 11 more meals for the freezer

That's very awesome that you have enough for you and can help others who need it. that's what it's all about @Sewingcreations15 .......I harvested some more Cukes, Squash and onions, Froze some Greens beans and Pickled some cukes..... New pepper plants are looking really nice and watermelons and Sugar cube melons are coming along very nicely! Corn has ears on it and The Watermelon seeds i planted 3 weeks ago are giant plants now. Okra looks fantastic and flowers are coming up!! Found out I have some MAYPOP growing wild too...Waiting for them to ripen and going to use the leaves for tea and smoking!

 

[Tank-Girl]

My greens are starting to come on-line with daily harvests of turnips and greens, snow pea shoots, red Russian kale, coloured Swiss chard and beet greens.

Giant dutch spinach is taking a lot longer than I hoped and I've given it more complete blood and bone to speed it up.

Starting to see flowers on my determinate and indeterminate tomatoes and I'm thrilled to see
that the seeds I saved from last season's Tromboncino zucchini are throwing true to type.

 

[Peanut]

@Dutchs Looks like Crimson Sweet watermelons you have there... It's a bad year for watermelons, cantaloupes and peaches. Where you live you need a dry late May and early June, me, I need a dry June. The last month melons and peaches get ripe, they need dry weather. Dry weather concentrates the sugars. Lots of water (rain) dilutes the sugars in the fruit and melons, even squash, lots of squash but not a lot of flavor. We've had tons of rain in the last 30 days... Not a good fruit or melon year, that's the way the ball bounces...

But, rain like this produces tremendous sweet corn, okra and peas. It's always a trade off... some plants do great, some, not so good.

I saw all the photos you posted about the watering system you installed, a good thing. Watering all of your plants the same... not a good thing. All of them need plenty of water at certain times as they grow, there are times when they don't need water, water is the last thing they need.

Next year I kindly recommend you plant your veggies next to each other according to water needs. You will have a pleasant result.

 

[Meerkat]

I am so happy for y'all but not so much for us. Started way too late this year so only a few winter,summer squash now and then.

 

[Dutchs]

@Dutchs Looks like Crimson Sweet watermelons you have there... It's a bad year for watermelons, cantaloupes and peaches. Where you live you need a dry late May and early June, me, I need a dry June. The last month melons and peaches get ripe, they need dry weather. Dry weather concentrates the sugars. Lots of water (rain) dilutes the sugars in the fruit and melons, even squash, lots of squash but not a lot of flavor. We've had tons of rain in the last 30 days... Not a good fruit or melon year, that's the way the ball bounces...

But, rain like this produces tremendous sweet corn, okra and peas. It's always a trade off... some plants do great, some, not so good.

I saw all the photos you posted about the watering system you installed, a good thing. Watering all of your plants the same... not a good thing. All of them need plenty of water at certain times as they grow, there are times when they don't need water, water is the last thing they need.

Next year I kindly recommend you plant your veggies next to each other according to water needs. You will have a pleasant result.

The watermelon seed bag says Hybrid Sangria, I don't know much about that stuff yet but that"s what it said Peanut. I do understand the need or lack thereof for water though so I made sure each stretch of irrigation row has an on or off valve on them so I can full on water- partial- or not at all by individual row. Unfortunately where I am in Florida we have had one of the wettest May and Junes on record. Just been pouring the rain nearly every day. looks like it'e dying down now but I have lost some watermelons to rot on the vine and all my Lima Beans I got 20 individual beans from them, All the roots rotted.....Live and learn....Nothing i can do about Mother Nature.....

 

[Meerkat]

The watermelon seed bag says Hybrid Sangria, I don't know much about that stuff yet but that"s what it said Peanut. I do understand the need or lack thereof for water though so I made sure each stretch of irrigation row has an on or off valve on them so I can full on water- partial- or not at all by individual row. Unfortunately where I am in Florida we have had one of the wettest May and Junes on record. Just been pouring the rain nearly every day. looks like it'e dying down now but I have lost some watermelons to rot on the vine and all my Lima Beans I got 20 individual beans from them, All the roots rotted.....Live and learn....Nothing i can do about Mother Nature.....

Us too.It has rained or been cloudy for last 3 months or more. Humidity not quite as bad today though.

 

[Dani]

It's been a hit and miss year for me. Tomatoes and peppers are not doing great. And neither has my yellow squash or zucchini. They are just trickling in. The patty squash butternut cucumbers cantaloupe okra and honeydew all are doing great. So did my corn which I harvested all now and put up in both the freezer and canned. I need to get out to till and replant but with work, trying to get everything preserved and work on the grandbaby quilt who will be here before I know it, I just haven't gotten out there yet.

 

[Dani]

Oh and the pan to the right is some pears that will get canned up so hunny can take to work to snack on.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

That's a good harvest @Dani and we also had hit and miss with a few of our crops here too. Silver beet we had to plant a number of times but finally got success, broccoli seems to not want to co-operate either but cauliflowers are doing well, our corn was a flop too as we got lots of rain after we planted them and they got a fungus thing happening on them. Not to worry we have a carry over in the freezer from last season which will carry us through and we will have broad beans producing beans in a few months and the sweet potatoes outdid themselves this year.

 

[Dutchs]

That's a good harvest @Dani and we also had hit and miss with a few of our crops here too. Silver beet we had to plant a number of times but finally got success, broccoli seems to not want to co-operate either but cauliflowers are doing well, our corn was a flop too as we got lots of rain after we planted them and they got a fungus thing happening on them. Not to worry we have a carry over in the freezer from last season which will carry us through and we will have broad beans producing beans in a few months and the sweet potatoes outdid themselves this year.

My sweet potatoes aren't doing that great. My sweet peppers look great though and I lost all my Lima beans but a couple dozen beans to rot from the rain. Watermelon looks great and sugar cube melons look great too. Red potatoes seem to be liking it and okra is getting big. Got all my onions up and it was a fairly good crop great flavor although not huge size. Still very good though. Looks like the rain is taking it's toll on radishes too. Asparagus is getting nice and big for first year they look great.