I think the picture speaks for itself. Tomatoes galore and homemade apple juice. =) I like Autumn and harvest time.
Showing posts with label harvest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harvest. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tomato harvest for today
I think the picture speaks for itself. Tomatoes galore and homemade apple juice. =) I like Autumn and harvest time.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Front yard harvest
As with last year, our front yard was able to produce a lot more than was allowed in our back yard. This year we were able to get a ton of cucumbers (Armenian and green), watermelons, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, different types of chiles, a dozen apples(there wasn't supposed to be any... I tried to cut them all off so that the tree could just grow this year), lots of black raspberries that I didn't get to can because I kept eating them, a bunch of grapes, tons of artichokes and asparagus and some other things... now that I look back on it, we actually did pretty good. I was starting to feel like a failure for not being able to plant out as much as I wanted... but I guess we actually did pretty well.
We also have corn that is ripening and some eggplant coming in. Zucchini is also coming in and some of the beans survived the great bunny devastation. We've harvested basil for pesto and herbs for cooking.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Crop failure 2011
It seems as if every year we manage to have one crop that totally flops or just gets ruined. Last year our poor trees kept on getting nommed, this year - our potatoes.
I planted three different types of potatoes in the front (one of which was the purple viking) and we were able to get those to produce some but that all came to a tragic end when the uppity bunnies decided to eat my plants and the cats decided to try to use the raised potatoes as a kitty litter and dig up my potatoes. So in an effort to save those we dug them up and we got a small harvest of about maybe 7lbs of potatoes from just 3 lbs. So not a good return, but we saved some of those that we harvested to plant for next season.
In the back we planted 4 different types of potatoes with zero return because the poultry all decided that they just had to eat our potatoes. We had also planted some organic sweet potatoes. About all that they all managed to do was sprout, get mounded up once before the birds all descended on them and left nothing but open trenches where potatoes used to be.
I did have some non-organic sweet potatoes sprout in the drawer. I planted those in the front yard and they seem to be growing well. We'll see if we get any by the time the cool weather really sets in. Hopefully next year will prove better for our potatoes.
I planted three different types of potatoes in the front (one of which was the purple viking) and we were able to get those to produce some but that all came to a tragic end when the uppity bunnies decided to eat my plants and the cats decided to try to use the raised potatoes as a kitty litter and dig up my potatoes. So in an effort to save those we dug them up and we got a small harvest of about maybe 7lbs of potatoes from just 3 lbs. So not a good return, but we saved some of those that we harvested to plant for next season.
In the back we planted 4 different types of potatoes with zero return because the poultry all decided that they just had to eat our potatoes. We had also planted some organic sweet potatoes. About all that they all managed to do was sprout, get mounded up once before the birds all descended on them and left nothing but open trenches where potatoes used to be.
I did have some non-organic sweet potatoes sprout in the drawer. I planted those in the front yard and they seem to be growing well. We'll see if we get any by the time the cool weather really sets in. Hopefully next year will prove better for our potatoes.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Harvesting Mustard
During the scyth-a-thon we ended up picking some mustard as well and peeling it to get the seeds. Needless to say that took forever and we didn't get many seeds. After thinking about it, I came up with a different method to harvest the seeds and we were able to try out the technique today.
I cut off some stalks of mustard and put them on a blue tarp. I then rolled them up like a burrito and started stomping on it. Jed was kind enough to build me a flail and we started working together on harvesting the seeds. After we flailed the mustard we lifted the blue tarp and scyphoned the mustard into a glass container. We then moved the seeds into a metal pot through a sieve, and finally we winnowed the seeds between the pot and a basket.
To put the harvest in prospective... One day of harvesting by peeling the pods = 1/2 tablespoon of seed for 4 hours of work.
One hour worth of collecting, flailing, scyphoning, seiving, and winnowing = 3/4 lb of seeds
That was just with a few sections of mustard.. we still have the whole 1/3 of the back yard to go through and collect the seeds... I think people are going to get mustard for 12th Night presents this year.
I cut off some stalks of mustard and put them on a blue tarp. I then rolled them up like a burrito and started stomping on it. Jed was kind enough to build me a flail and we started working together on harvesting the seeds. After we flailed the mustard we lifted the blue tarp and scyphoned the mustard into a glass container. We then moved the seeds into a metal pot through a sieve, and finally we winnowed the seeds between the pot and a basket.
To put the harvest in prospective... One day of harvesting by peeling the pods = 1/2 tablespoon of seed for 4 hours of work.
One hour worth of collecting, flailing, scyphoning, seiving, and winnowing = 3/4 lb of seeds
That was just with a few sections of mustard.. we still have the whole 1/3 of the back yard to go through and collect the seeds... I think people are going to get mustard for 12th Night presents this year.
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