Harvest Monday - September 29, 2014

Yesterday we harvested these:

Freshly Picked Apples
 

To bad they didn't come from my own garden.  That was a bit of tease, wasn't it ;)  My family and I visited a local apple orchard and had a wonderful time picking a load of apples, primarily Empire.  We will likely go back in a couple of weeks when the Ida Reds are available.  Apparently, these can last in cold storage until late spring.

Harvest Monday - September 22, 2014

The harvests this week were meagre but the tally was large.  The onions were originally harvested back in August and have been curing in the garage.  A good chunk of them were included last Harvest Monday.  This past week, I got around to cleaning up & tallying the remaining onions.

Onions - All Cleaned Up

Most of the onions seem to have some leek moth* damage although the damage to each individual onion seems to be relatively small.  I’ll dish out all the details when I do a post on the onion harvest later this week.

What's Happening in the Garden - Mid-September - Part 2

In Part 1, I talked about the 4 beds in the small veg area.  Now on to the 9 beds in the main veg area, 5 of which were new this year.

 

The tomatoes are done, done and done – I have cut down a lot of the vines but many still need to be removed.
 

Tomato Bed
Harvest is finished & only the final cleanup is left
 

What's Happening in the Garden - Mid-September - Part 1

The garden has been winding down – REALLY winding down – in the last week.  Our days have been cool & our nights have been cooler – many in the mid-single digits (less than 50°F).  As the weather channel put it – it's September but it feels like October.  I guess that’s about right, considering we had September weather since early July.  We have not had a frost yet, but I’m sure it is just around the corner even though our official last frost date isn’t until October 3^rd.

Many of my beds are either done or almost done.  I originally thought that I would be planting more fall crops, overwintering spinach, etc., but I have decided to let those ideas go for this year.  I still have a ton of general maintenance work to do in the garden - things that I have been meaning to do all summer but never got around to - like moving the rest of the triple mix & mulch from our driveway onto the hill area (where I plan to place a few more raised beds next year).

So on to the garden tour.  Firstly there is the small vegetable bed section with 4 raised beds – all new this year.  This is where the onions, beans, cucumbers and most of the squash were placed.

The two onion beds are pretty much empty now that the storage onions have been pulled.

Onion Bed

All that green is bindweed – my weed nemesis - which requires a whole other discussion, including the reason why I haven't pulled it out yet.

Harvest Monday - September 14, 2014

Our weather this month has been cooler than usual – what’s new? – and the garden is really starting to show it.  Most of the tomato plants are on their last legs & I have ripped out three quarters of the vines.  The only plant that is still doing relatively well is Mountain Magic – a blight resistant hybrid.

Before I ripped out each vine, the last of the ripening tomatoes were picked:

Tomato Season is Almost Over :(

Harvest Monday - September 8, 2014

This past week was all about tomatoes.

 

Clockwise from the top:
Aunt Ruby's Yellow Cherry, Genovese & Gypsy
 

And then there were the tomatoes.....and more tomatoes.....all 67 lbs of them – in one week.  This was my kitchen table this past weekend:

 

Boatload of Tomatoes
 

Garlic & Shallots 2014 - The Results

I harvested my garlic back in mid-July and hung it in the garage to dry.  This past weekend, I finally got around to cleaning, trimming & weighing it.  The results are in and they are not overly impressive.  I planted 95 cloves of garlic & my total harvest was 2,314 grams (5 lb 2 oz).  That averages out to 24 grams (less than 1 oz) per bulb.

 

2014 Garlic Harvest
Left to Right:  Czech, Ichelium Red, Porcelain, Salt Spring Select & Persian Star
 

Harvest Monday - September 1, 2014

Our internet has been down all morning so I have been back & forth between home & Tim Hortons trying to get this post done & the pictures uploaded...unsuccessfully.  The upload speed was brutally slow and I also had formatting issues.  The internet went back up for about 30 minutes during which time I was able to upload the photos.  Now it's down again and I have to upload this through my husbands phone...hopefully it works.

It’s the first Monday of September and we have yet another statutory holiday here in Canada – Labour Day.  This also normally marks the last day of summer vacation.  The kids are back to school tomorrow and I’m kind of sad and kind of happy at the same time.  It has been a wonderful summer – didn’t get as much done as we wanted to but isn’t that always the case?

Now on to this weeks harvest.  New to the harvest basket was a Gold Nugget winter squash.


Gold Nugget Squash