Monday, September 19, 2011

last harvest monday of summer

it’s starting to feel like autumn already. we just came out the other end of a cold snap that brought the first rain of summer, although the official total precip for that day is a bit of a letdown: .09 inches. before that, since the first day of summer, we’d had a total of .03 measly inches of rain.



back in early august i started seeds for fall: broccoli (waltham 29 and purple sprouting,) purple kohlrabi, kale (red russian and dinosaur,) fennel and purple orach. i also started holy basil, two containers of sweet basil and two hahms gelbe tomato plants--a teensy-tiny yellow cherry container variety that’s even smaller than tiny tim. those are now potted up and growing indoors on a windowsill.

i harvested an entire head of red russian kale to make room for fall seedlings. i used half of it to make dehydrated kale chips, that was all that would fit in my dehydrator, so the rest is waiting in the fridge. here’s what the area looked like before:

you can see the huge kale and lots of carrots underneath. i also harvested most of the carrots (red core chantenay and cosmic purple):

my soil won’t let me grow long carrots. no matter what they’re short and fat.

they shine like jewels when they’re all washed up.


i saved the kale stem. it’s about 2.5 feet long and a beautiful purple color. not sure what i’m going to do with it.

i’m getting lots of rattlesnake pole peas now--i planted these really late, using the space where sugar snap peas grew once they were done.

my bush beans are producing the majority of their crop pretty late this year for no good reason.

check out daphne’s dandelions for more harvests!

9 comments:

Landbohaven said...

Gode billeder.
Det ser ud til, at du har haft en god høst.
Vi har kun haft tomater i år.

Unknown said...

What a lovely harvest! And great photos too:)
Take care,
Charlotta

Emily said...

landbohaven--tak! ked af dine andre afgrøder fungerede ikke så godt, men i det mindste du fik tomater--de er de bedste alligevel.

madame c--thank you, and same to you! your veggies are so colorful.

Bumble Lush Garden said...

You got such a great tomato harvest this year. I like your stumpy little carrots! :) And the colors are so pretty!

Bee Girl said...

What phenomenal colors! Your tomatoes are gorgeous and your carrots are too cute! Fantastic!

Vetsy said...

I love the color of those beautiful carrots nice harvest! The last carrots looks like a lobster claw.

Emily said...

bumble lush--hehe thanks! i guess i should be more open-minded about carrot size...what they lack in length they make up for in width.

bee girl--thanks so much! i'm determined to grow the most colorful variety of everything i can find.

vetsy--thank you! i was trying to think of what that bifurcated carrot reminded me of, i do see lobster claw.

Veggie PAK said...

Beautiful pics of your harvests! I can't get carrots to grow at all. Yours are beautiful! I like the pic of the crossed-carrot. Is that for good luck next year?

Emily said...

thank you veggie PAK! have you tried growing carrots in containers? that's what i might do next year. apparently if the container is deep enough it works well. i'd love to display the crossed carrot for good luck but it would probably deteriorate pretty yuckishly. but if i eat it i'll absorb its luck strength, right?