Sunday, July 31, 2011

The harvest begins!

Well, after months of coaxing the garden along, we're starting to see (and eat) some success.

Last night we ate almost entirely from the garden, steaming carrots, beets and potatoes as well as having three-lettuce salad with tomatoes. Jess was chuffed to eat food she'd grown.

The corn plants continue to amaze with good sized cobs. The fence to the left of the corn is six-feet tall for some scale. The beans and squash I interplanted are also going well but I have not yet seen any beans or squash.

We've started harvesting broccoli (this head was about 8 inches across). All four of the plants we grew have been successful and I expect we'll get a fair number of cuttings from eat.

Not everything has been a resounding success. We also planted four cauliflower plants of which only one is growing well. The only head to form so far is about the size of a marble. I'm not sure what went wrong here (it was a good year for cauliflower say the market gardeners) but based upon the long string of botanical victims I've hidden in the compost pile over the years, I'd say it was likely something I did.

The farmer's markets are also yielding a lot of produce that I didn't grow. We bought, blanched and froze three pounds of green and yellow beans. And some amazing BC peaches were in so I canned two litres of peach jam last night. I'm more of a berry jam guy but the peach tastes amazing.

Up next: I'll continue to ready next year's potato bed--there are bulks to life and chives to pull out. Our onions are about ready to harvest and cure so that will leave room for a fall crop of spinach. And I'd like to pick some saskatoon berries on Monday.

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