Harvest Monday - July 25, 2011

An update on the duck that I blogged previously.  Yesterday evening, the duck was fluffing and spreading wings quite often and during this process, we could see some movement underneath its wings.  Ducklings!!!  Eggs are finally hatched.  Kids were glued to the windows to see some glimpses of the little ducklings and to count how many there were.  We were expecting them to be gone this morning, but the mama duck is sitting on the eggs/chicks with a couple of ducklings' faces visible around her body.  I could see a few, but there were about 8 eggs in there.  Not sure when she'll leave with the ducklings. Perhaps there are some more eggs to be hatched....

Can you see the duckling underneath the wing?

Onto Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Mondays.  This week was when I finally dug out the Yukon Gold potatoes.  Kids were excited to dig and find some.  I have them in the container, so it is easy to dump the contents onto a tarp and go through the dirt.  It is hard to miss any potatoes that way!  Also, cherry harvest continued.  Will be making a pie today :)

Yukon gold potatoes

Sour cherries

Beans and cherries

Yellow raspberries

Yellow squash

Beans and some peas

Green Bell Peppers and Red onions

Yellow squash, 2 tomatoes, sweet banana peppers

Green beans

Dill

Mint

What the ....$@#%^&*#@#$%^?

I was out last evening checking up on my plants and found this...

Hunh, does this look like Yard long beans to you? 

Now this is the packet that got planted and some dried asparagus bean pods(dried from last year), so why am I picking regular beans(or is it pole beans)?  I'm so confused. I went out again this morning to see if I could spot any yard long beans, but I saw this....

   and this....

and plants vining on the trellis.....

and upclose................

But no signs of yard long beans.   Quite a few of them have started to run up the trellis, can someone ID if they're pole bean plants?  I've always grown bush beans.  It was a terrible let down not to have any yard long beans(so far atleast!!).  I'm absolutely certain that I planted asparagus beans packet in that space, since this is not the first time that I've planted them.  I also plant regular beans but in a different location.  They're both planted at different times - bush beans in early spring and asparagus beans later in June. 

I decided to call Burpee and complain.  The customer service rep talked nicely to me and said it could be human error and offered to replace or refund.  I chose replacement seeds.....but they won't be planted until next season(:

Now, this is something interesting. We found a Spiderman among our cherries.  Yes, you read right, it's a SPIDERMAN!!!  Not sure what he was upto, with all those sour cherries :)

Spiderman, spiderman, the friendly neighborhood spiderman....

Shouldn't he be listed on ebay??????

Harvest Monday - July 18, 2011

Cherry trees are loaded with cherries this year!  They're sour cherries, but look really delicious.  We picked a container full yesterday.  I think I will juice them and what else?  Do you have a favorite recipe for sour cherries? 

This is also the week I pulled out my garlic.  Since this is my first year growing garlic, it was very exciting to the garlic bulbs as I pulled out the plants one by one, all twelve of them :)  Some were really large, most medium size.  I've to cure them for 2-3 weeks before I can use them.  Also, not pictured were  zucchini, beans and basil.  I used them right away and forgot to get their pictures.  All in all, it was a good week.  For other harvests check out Daphne's Dandelions.

Sour cherries

Garlic

Garlic (upclose)

Red onions, basil and first tomato!

Dill

Oregano for drying

Golden raspberries and a red one!

Zucchini and two tomatoes

Green beans

Green Peas

Harvest Monday - July 11, 2011

I've had a great week in my yard, inspite of the deer eating some cucumber plant tops.  Some new harvests, some - same harvests in larger quantities!  Garden is doing great.  Heat is picking up and I can see the plants respond to it and grow every day.  I will pick my first tomato anyday now :) 

Kids are enthralled by a duck that is sitting in between a rose and a peony plant, in the front yard.  It's right in front of our window, by the walking path, so they have the first row seats to everything that she is upto.  She probably has some eggs laid and sits there all day long except for couple hours in the evening.   We haven't been up close, but tried to peek through the window to see if we could spot any eggs(when mama duck takes off), but couldn't see anything except her feathers all around.  It must be underneath them.  Kids are now, not allowed to go out the front door as I'm worried they'll disturb her.  Finally I got around to read up on ducks' egg laying habits online and it seems that it takes about 28 days for the eggs to hatch.  That is a long time for the kids to be watching her and for us not to be able to go out the front door :) 

Duck sitting on its eggs!

Ok, I deviate, but I had to show you the duck!  Here are my harvest pictures for the week -

Strawberries(possibly last big harvest)

Yellow raspberries(similar quantity picked every other day)

Fenugreek(methi) leaves

Shelling Peas

Green beans harvest#1

Green beans #2

Green beans #3

Golden beets

This is how beautiful the golden beets looked - shredded.

Green cabbages

First harvest of zucchini

Beet Greens (to be steamed)

Also, not pictured potato leaves.  What can I say, it's been a wonderful week in the yard!  For other harvests, head on over to Daphne's Dandelions.....

Growing and harvesting Fenugreek(methi) leaves

In our house, dishes made from methi leaves are very popular.  It is used in various curries or parathas.  Here are some of its health benefits and recipes. Whenever we can find fresh bunches of methi leaves in Indian stores, we always get a bunch or two.  But that is not very often.  Wilted bunches or no methi at all is much more common.  I've heard friends growing methi in their backyards, in summer.  My attempt so far has always met with failure. I couldn't quite figure out what went wrong.  They never seem to grow much more than an inch and a half before leaves turn yellow and the plants bolt.

Methi plants gone to seed (:

The ones available in stores or even in farmers market grow atleast a foot tall with several sets of leaves.  This year, I researched online to see what everyone else had to say about growing methi at home.  I happened to find this on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-11YUUw2Uo, which was very helpful to me as my plants were at about the same height.

Second attempt to grow methi, this year.

I decided to make use of the existing leaves since I had a feeling that they too would bolt soon.  So I clipped them off, just like in the video above.  I got a container full of leaves, which will be used in two different dishes.  Really glad I did, as they were fresh and crisp and the dish prepared for dinner was very tasty.  I plan to plant more seeds in a few days.  It took about a month from seeding to harvesting, which is a really good turnaround time :)

Clipping off methi leaves

That's how tall(or short) they were!

I got a container full :)

Harvest Monday - July 4, 2001

Happy 4th to everyone!!  I don't have too many pictures this week!  This is the time when spring is almost over and summer is not yet here, so spring crops are mostly done with, but summer crop is yet to be ready.  My bush beans however gave a small first harvest today :)

In addition to the following harvests, we used a lot of mint(not pictured) this week.

Lettuce

Strawberries #1

Strawberries #2

Green beans!!