Monday November 19

I haven’t posted on the bean patch in awhile.  There hasn’t been much to post about.  I did harvest 3 butternut squash a few weeks ago, the total winter squash harvest for the year.  The plant was seeded the first week of August, so it’s pretty amazing that I got those squash.  I was worried that they had not ripened enough since an early October frost killed the foliage and there was a bit of green in them, but the one I tried was just fine. 

This weekend I pulled up the rest of the carrots, almost 4 lbs of Danvers, Cosmic Purple, and Nantes.  I took some pictures of them after they were hosed off in the yard, but I managed to delete the photos in the camera before downloading them.  The rabbits found them last week and had chewed off most of the foliage, so it was time for them to come out.  Strangely the bunnies ignored the young spinach plants next to the carrots.

I also picked a rosette of tatsoi.  That pic was deleted too but I pulled the plant out of the refrigerator and took another pic.  It has been cut in half to fit in the bin.  This is a plant that I grew for the first time this year and plan to grow next year.  The stems taste like bok choi, just a little smaller.  The leaves are edible and delicious when stir fried quickly.  Next year I'm going to omit planting bok choi and go with this. 

Some more brussels sprouts were picked and there's plenty more on the plants. 

This is the bed with the remaining brassicas.  There’s kohlrabi, Starbor kale and chinese cabbage.  The chinese cabbage is heading up and can be picked at anytime, but the heads aren’t firm yet.  The kohlrabi and kale are growing very slow.  They only get about two hours of direct sun now, the rest of the day the sun is filtered through the woods to the south.

The spinach is also going very slow.  This patch was seeded in mid-September.  A few weeks later I seeded spinach in another bed for overwintering, and later seeded some Tatsoi in the same bed, so I know I'll get spinach early next spring.  Yields for the week:  carrots 3 lb 15 oz, tatsoi 1 lb 6 oz, brussels sprouts 12 oz

These are the totals for the year (click on the spreadsheet for a readable version).  All in all, an awful year for growing.  Record heat, epic draught and then an early frost.  Tomatoes took the biggest hit - only 15 pounds from two plants when I expected 50 pounds (I got 40 pounds last year from two heirlooms).  The parsnips haven't been pulled yet but even with those it's a long shot to reach 200 lbs.  Time to plan for next year.