Harvest Monday - November 17, 2014

This is it....and by IT I mean my harvests are officially at an end for the 2014 season.

I messed up this past week…and instead of a harvest, it was more of a salvage operation.

When temperatures first went down earlier in the week, I didn’t realize that they would go quite so low or be as sustained.  I went out to the garden the other day and all of the brassicas that were left in the beds – Russian kale, pak choi & some tiny broccoli heads - had a decidedly droopy appearance.

Temperatures have been a lot colder than average.  Last year was pretty bad, but prior to that, I’m pretty sure the ground wasn’t even frozen yet by the end of November.  Our average temperatures at this time of year should be around 6°C (43°F) with lows around -1 (30°F).  In the past few days, I don’t think we got past 2°C (36°F) with lows of -4°C (25°C).

In fact, I see that we are expecting lows of -8°to -9°C (17°F) for 5 days in a row this coming week….yikes.  We don’t normally get that cold until the end of December.  I guess when they said it was going to be a bad winter this year, they also meant that it was going to be an early winter.

So I went out to the garden and harvested what I could of my droopy, frost bitten veg.
 

Frozen Harvest on a Snowy Deck
Yup....winter is officially here

The kale was not too bad.  Normally I had been using this variety in salads, but in it's droopy state, I decided to blanch & freeze it instead.

Final Harvest - Red Russian Kale
 

The broccoli was ok too.  I also picked some of the tender top leaves and the whole lot was made into a cream of broccoli soup.
 

Final Harvest - Munchkin & Packman Broccoli
 

The pak choi didn’t fare as well.  The leaves were useable but the constant freeze & thaw took its toll on the stalks.  So unfortunately, the stalks ended up in the compost.
 

Final Harvest - Joi Choi Hybrid
 

There was one other harvest, so to speak, in that the coriander seeds were dry and I was able to pack them up.
 

Dried Coriander Seeds
 

I took Michelle & Dave’s suggestion and picked the flower heads while most of the seeds were still green and then left them in the garage to dry.  Originally I wasn’t going to include these in the tally as I thought they would amount to maybe a few grams.  But in the end those few plants gave me over half a cup of seeds!  And wow - were they ever fragrant!  No more store bought coriander seed for me!!

And….drumroll please…..I managed to just squeak past the 500 lb. mark.  And when I say squeak I mean SQUEEEEEEK – it was the cilantro seeds, of all things, that brought me over the top. 

Hip hip hurray!  I was so sure - as I reluctantly cut off the frozen pak choi stalks - that they would have made the difference between being over or under the 500 mark.

Broccoli - 190 grams (0.41 lbs)

Chinese Cabbage – 372 grams (0.82 lbs)
Kale – 200 grams (0.44 lbs)
Cilantro Seeds – 36 grams (0.08 lbs)

Total for Week – 798 grams (1.76 lbs)

Total to Date – 226.83 kg (500.06 lbs)

Back in the spring, I didn’t even hazard a guess as to what my harvest total for the year would be.  Not only did I expand the garden by 3x the original size, but I was also growing a number of crops that I had never tried before.

In the grand scheme of things, a pound here & a pound there makes very little difference.  But knowing how much you harvested is really gratifying.  I also like to see how changes in culture and variety, together with factors such as weather, impact on the harvest.  I have been tallying my harvests since the beginning – long before I started this blog - and I will definitely continue doing so in the future.

To see what everyone else has been harvesting over the past week, head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Mondays.

And now I will leave you with what we woke up to this morning....

First Big Snowfall of the Season
 

Other than the fact that I hadn't covered my garlic/strawberry beds with straw yet - I am NOT looking forward to that - the first big snowfall is always exciting.

Till next time…☺