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Monday, August 11, 2014

Monday August 11, 2014

Again another very productive week from the beds.  No surprise, it's August, but this is an exceptional year.  The mild temperatures have slowed some of the hot weather vegetables but everything else has more than taken up the slack.  A few Silver Queen okra are starting to develop, as shown here with the ubiquitous summer squash:

The summer squash plant hit a new peak this week, over 8 pounds of squash.  I grated up a good bit of it and put two cup portions into freezer bags.  I don't have the equipement to blanch/steam the grated squash so I'll probably need to use it in the next few months.  As if I didn't have enough squash someone left two yellow crooknecks on my front porch.  You'd think they could leave a calling card so I can return the favor.  Squash dumpers!

Also lots more beans.  Roma II, Provider and Fortex left to right in the picture.  The Tribute strawberries I planted this spring are bearing enough to provide a nice snack a few times a week, and they are delicious.  I didn't expect much the first year so this is a nice bonus.

More beans, squash and a few carrots.  Nearly 6 pounds of beans were picked:

Tomatoes early in the week:
I picked the first Marconi sweet peppers on Saturday, as well as Jalapeno and Serrano peppers.  The Diva cucumbers are showing signs of disease pressure.  The blemishes are only skin deep however:

With the tomatoes picked earlier I had the makings for a batch of salsa.  I canned 7 pints with an additional pint for the refrigerator.  I've got to say, canning salsa is a LOT of work - deskinning tomatoes, blending, fine chopping onions, peppers, parsley, cilantro (and somewhat painful when dicing the Serranos) then the final boil in the jars. It helps to have a very sharp knife.

And of course the potatoes, shown in the previous post - 27 and 1/2 pounds.  Combined with the Irish Cobblers dug up last week I got nearly 40 pounds of potatoes this year, not quite as much as last year.

All in all a good week, 54 pounds out of the garden, and 193 pounds for the year so far.  To see what other people are growing head on over to http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/

 

4 comments:

Daphne Gould said...

That looks like a lovely harvest. When I used to make salsa I sometimes wore gloves so I wouldn't have the serrano problem. If I didn't I would always rub my eyes after I was done and thought I'd washed my hands well enough, but of course I didn't get all that heat off and ouch.

Mark Willis said...

What you say about canning is so true. This is why we tend to eat all our produce fresh - and indirectly the reason why I grow small quantities of lots of different veg. Beans freeze well though, and are easy to prepare.

Cristy said...

I love that you are getting okra in. I have never grown Silver Queen. It sure is pretty. I have found that Stewart's Zeebest works nicely in my garden, so I just stopped buying new varieties.

Funny that someone would sneak the squash onto your porch. I guess you can be glad they only left 2 squash, instead of a bag full. I had a friend that got so much squash one year that he would walk down the street in his town. If someone didn't lock the door to their car, he would deposit a bag of squash into the passenger seat. He called it "drive by squashing!" :)

I wish they would have done that on my porch. I don't have any luck with squashes, because of SVB's.

Margaret said...

Those are some very nice harvests! Especially love the peppers & gorgeous potatoes...I really want to expand my hot pepper varieties next year. This year I only grew one variety which is nowhere near enough.

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