Harvest Monday - Oct 14th

It's that time again, Harvest Monday.  This series is hosted by Daphne and is a great place to see what people are harvesting all over the world.  So head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and take a peak.

Here is what I harvested this week.  I made a gift basket of veg and herbs for a friend that often gives me rides to our Ultimate games.  I play Ultimate (frisbee) regularly, if you've never heard of this sport you should check it out is a great combination of football, basketball and soccer strategies.  It is excellent exercise and fun for all skill levels. Back to the harvest:  I harvested some lettuce regularly for salads, herbs such as basil, parsley and oregano was given away to friends.  I'm still picking cucumbers which is awesome!!  There are still several egg plants also (I gave this one away to another Ultimate friend and he made eggplant parmesan with it and said his kids loved it!).  There are still lots of leeks in the garden as well varying in size, this one was a big one.  And hot peppers, oh my I feel like I'm over run with hot peppers.  I have been giving these away to work and ultimate friends.

This was probably the most exciting harvest of the week, my first parsnip ever!  I was making Chicken pot pie and needed a parsnip - check my post about that recipe.  So out we went to harvest one.  We were going to leave them all till after the frost but when a recipe calls for parsnip you pick parsnips!
I went to pull on the green tops like I do to pull up carrots, but the tops just popped off the root.  So I dug to the root and was shocked to see how big it was.  It was over 2.5 inches in diameter.  I tried to pull from the top of the root but it wouldn't come up that way either.  We needed to dig all around to get this massive parsnip out of the ground.  We did damage it a little trying to remove it but there was more than enough goodness left for what I needed.

Here are two of the smaller leaks that also when into the chicken pot pie.

The grape tomato plant is the only one left as I removed my other two (health kick and ultra sweet) last week.  This one still has several tomatoes but they need to be picked a little early or they are splitting on the vines.

And more hot peppers!!  Cherry bomb, habanero, and cayenne.  I am not surprised by the number of cayennes or even the habaneros as they have been on the plant green for a while and just needed to turn colour.  But the cherry bombs came out of the no where, we thought this plant was almost done about  a month ago, but then all of a sudden it started producing many new fruit very quickly, more than it was making mid summer.

I've got to get on clearing some space in my garden for my garlic to over winter.
What are you still harvesting?  Are you planting anything to overwinter?  Let me know in the comments.

Harvest Monday - Oct 7th

I can't believe it's October already, probably because the weather here has been summer hot for the last week or so, 25-35 degrees most days.  It's that time again where we get to show off our harvests from the previous week and look at what others are harvesting around the world over at Daphne's Dandelions.

The harvests are definitely slowing, but I still got a good haul this week.  I picked the last of the tomatoes as they were starting to split like crazy on the vines, so they will ripen inside.  I've been making lots of fresh salsa (I love homemade salsa!).  I've continued to pick hot peppers, and theres no end in site for these.  I've got tons in the freezer and I'll dry some more.   I also picked the last of the rainbow carrots.  One of them was a big fatty and delicious as a snack.  Also the fall radishes, only three out of the 6 created good fruit.  They were tasty I think I'll try this variety again in the fall, now to find right packet of seeds to identify which variety they were.  I'm also still harvesting leeks.  This week for my Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it! series I posted a leek and potato soup recipe with crispy potato skin and bacon bit topping.

I've pulled out two of the three tomato plants, the grape one is still going and ripen fruit on its own.  so I'll leave that till the first frost warning.  I am wanting to make room for my fall planting of garlic.  How close to frost do I plant the garlic, this will be my first time and any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Harvest Monday - End of Sept & Still Producing :)

Lots of stuff still producing in the garden, and it doesn't look like I'll get a frost for a least another week.
Still cucumbers, tomatoes, fall lettuce, leeks and tons of hot peppers.  A couple of carrots (I wish there were more). As always I'm linking up with Daphne's Dandelions for harvest monday, head over there to see what others are harvesting.

Harvest Monday

This was another busy week for me. Some really late days at work (7am-8pm at the school). But I did get some harvests in. 

I've got to make some sweet pickles with all the cucumbers. There's still more on the plant. Hopefully I'll have some time this week. 

Harvest Monday

I didn't get much harvested this week as I was pretty busy. This weekend i competed in the provincial disc golf championship and finished third! I also got my first ace (equivalent to a hole in one in ball golf). So that was pretty exciting!!!
But I manage red to get one good basket and a couple other things. I harvested some ultra sweet beefsteak tomatoes (they are so big a meeting and delicious) some more hot peppers, lettuce, an eggplant which I gave to a colleague, some beets, a couple carrots and a cucumber. I still have fruit ripening on most o my plants and I'm hoping I can get another couple weeks before I have to take everything off.

Harvest Monday - Sept 2nd-9th

This week we harvested our first red bell peppers.  I don't think I'll grow full size bells again next year, they don't produce enough and take too long to ripen.  I think I'll try mini bells.  The grape tomatoes continue to produce enough for me to pick a good handful everyday for snacks and salads.  Below are two of our weird shaped cayennes.  They are normally long and skinny like the ones in the last photo.  I thought it was cross pollination but apparently that doesn't produce two different types on the same plant.  They taste like cayennes still though so thats all that matters.

I also harvest lots of herbs for meals this week.  Here is a shot of what I picked one day: Rosemary and Thyme for marinating chicken that I used in this recipe.

The cherry bomb peppers are still doing great.  Ripening a couple a day or so.  And the cajun bells (but I don't have a pic of my harvests of them).  The cajun bells are great for snacking so I tend to pick one at a time for lunch veggies.

Our fall lettuces are really starting to take off.  I have been harvesting some baby greens for salads.

This day was a good haul.  I thought these would be some of the last cucumbers we'd get as there was no more fruit or flowers starting, but the day after I picked these there were tons of flowers on the plants!  Also excited to still be getting little bits of broccoli on the one remaining plant.  There is also the tiniest of habaneros on the left (the orange pepper - it went into a marinade).  There is one lone carrot there that was delicious as a snack.  Oh and a cajun bell, I guess I did get one in a shot.

A health kick tomato (took this one to work and just eat it sliced up as a snack!) and some more peppers.

More peppers a pathetic white carrot and, the last of our snow peas.  The snow didn't work out this year because the plant got hidden by the broccoli and brussel sprouts, but I will try them again next year.

 Lots of peppers for my homemade hot sauce!!!  Turns out I only used about 12 of these cayennes.  Oh my I'm gonna have to make a lot of hot sauce!

I also wanted to thank Daphne for hosting Monday Harvest, head over to her site to see what others are harvesting around the world.  Also check out my new Linky for posting a weekly recipe highlighting local food.  Please link up each week so others can see what you're cooking!  Click the image to see this weeks series and link-up.

Harvest: Aug 26th - Sept2

Sorry i haven't been posting much. This is the first week of school so i've been busy getting prepared. I think i've got a new system down though. I'll post on the bus ride on the way into work via my phone.

Last week was a very successful harvest.   The carrots are almost gone (will plant more next year).  Here is a good batch of them I picked when my parents visited last week.

Monday Harvest - Aug 19th-26th

This week was a great week in the garden.  The tomatoes finally started to turn red!  We continued to harvest as needed for meals - thats mostly what our garden is indended for, so you wont see the same large harvest that other have posted over at Daphne's Dandelions but its exciting non the less.

Below you see one of our large mishapen cuks, this cucumber was against the fence and so it turned half way through growing.  The tomatoes are grape tomatoes which we have been harvesting all summer, and health kick tomatoes which we have been waiting for all summer.  Health kick are a roma variety although ours were not shaped much like a roma.  The special thing about health kick are they have tons of lycopene which makes them extra bright,  and tasty.  Many health claims have been made about lycopene as well but all are still theoretical.  All I know is they taste delicious and look amazing on a plate.  Many of my health kick have been cracking though as you can see in the picture.  Have you had cracking on your tomatoes before?  If so what was the cause?  I have read that cracking could be due to many sources - drastically changing temperatures (and therefore growing rates), too much water, too little water, poor nutrients in the soil, etc.  Please let me know what your experience has been with tomato cracking in the comments below.

Harvest (not monday) - Aug 12th-19th

Ok so I've been behind on blogging this week, but I'm gonna post a couple today.  Summer is coming to an end and I went back to work this week.  In our school board we run an orientation program for incoming grade 9's.  I teach that program and it ran mon-thur this week.  I enjoy doing it because I get to meet the students a head of time.  I teach 4 classes of grade 9's this year.

Alrighty on to the garden stuff!!!  So this past week I had a pretty good harvest with a variety of crops.  I picked more beets, which I need to pickle and can ASAP.  They were a very nice size.  I still have a small row growing for fall harvest.  There was a continuous flow of grape tomatoes, but still no larger ones (soon though).  I harvested some basil for making salads.  I also was excited to harvest the first of my onions.  They are not that big because I didn't get them thinned out.  I will also plant them in rows parallel to the fence and bed next year instead of perpendicular to it like this year.  Because they were perpendicular the greens were reaching for the sun and leaning on each other which caused them to flop over early.  Live and Learn!  That is kinda my slogan for this year as I planted lots of different things to see what would work best.

 This is a runt of a cajun bell pepper. Not sure why this little guys didn't grow big but he was tasty!

 I also harvested a couple small groups of rainbow carrots.  I will definitely plant more of these next year.  I also did a saturday spotlight post on these last weekend.  Look at how beautiful the colours are!

This is part of a series of posts that called Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.  Check out what other people harvested this past week as well.

Monday Harvest - Week of Aug 5th-11th

This week I am linking up with a series called Monday Harvest over at Daphnes Dandelions.  Each week she hosts this series where Gardeners from all over the world post their weekly harvests.  It is great to see what everyone is getting out of their gardens.  Beautiful little community!  Head over to check it out.

This week saw me in Edmonton as GMF was collaborating with colleagues from the University of Alberta.  It was a nice relaxing getaway for me.  As they worked during the week I wandered the city casually looking in neat shops and taking in peaceful walks along the rivers.  If you are ever in Edmonton I highly recommend eating at Tres Carnales.  This mexican restaurant was definitely a highlight of the trip.

While I was away I was lucky to have a friend watching our garden.  I told her she could harvest some things but she did not take advantage of this.  Which left us with some huge flowering broccoli and bitter lettuce when we arrived home but her harvesting would not have helped the lettuce it needs to come out and new lettuce sown.  I am so appreciative of the great job my friend did watering the garden diligently.  All my herbs and veg were in excellent shape when I got home!

But alas I will move on to the more productive harvest that took place when we arrived home on friday.  We were going to my brothers house for the saturday night for our Nephews birthday and my parents anniversary brunch sunday morning at the amazing Ancaster Mill.  There were some things in the garden that could not wait till sunday to be picked though.  Because the cucumber plant had not been harvested there were 6 very large cucumbers.  And the radishes were also ready and getting over sized. One was so large it was the width of the cucumbers and almost 2 inched high.  The texture of these radishes was quite woodsy, they were definitely left to long.  I am still looking for a great radish variety. I love radishes but I'm looking for a milder variety.  Anyone have a great radish they could recommend?  I also picked the last couple broccoli side shoots before removing a couple of the broccoli plants as they were starting to rot :(.  

Since I harvest so many cucumbers I decided to make a yummy cucumber and tomato salad to take to my brothers.  So I harvested a bunch of grape tomatoes that were ready as well as some basil.  I'll write a post on this salad this week.  

The carrots were also looking like they were close to ready so I harvested on just to see the size of them.  As you can see they are still a little skinny so I think I'll leave them a bit longer.  But this one had a great shape.  I planted a rainbow mix with orange, white, yellow and purple carrots.  This yellow one looked beautiful cut in half and tasted sweet and delicious as a snack.

We also harvested one of the eggplants for GMF to make eggplant parmesan for his dinner.  I need to grab some pictures of him creating this meal.  He has been eating it often as we have lots of eggplant.  I unfortunately do not eat cheese so this is a meal all for him.  Which is ok because it reheats really well.

Thanks for reading about my harvest this week.  I look forward to what is to come.  I think I will start to have some larger varieties of tomatoes soon.  

Help me find a great radish:  What type of radish do you grow?  How would you describe that type?

Today's harvest = Dinner

Today we harvested our first cucumber. It was so delicious.

Also harvested were two beets but they didn't make the picture because they were already roasting in the oven to go on top of the salad with some sweet potatoes (the only thing in our dinner that we didn't grow).

Today's Harvest

Today's harvest includes 2 beets one large one normal sized,  2 grape tomatoes, my first ever head of broccoli, 2 celery stocks, some romaine lettuce and some red leaf lettuce.  I'm going to make a nice salad for lunch.  For dinner I'll make a nice veggie stir fry, yum.