When you don’t post Harvest Monday until Thursday, the next Monday rolls around pretty darn fast.
This past week was a busy one in the garden. I worked on compost bin #1 all weekend, digging out finished compost from the bottom door. The compost was positively crawling with worms, handfuls of them, so I picked some out and gave them to my happy hens. The compost itself went into raised beds #2 and #3.
After adding the new compost, I set up a string net trellis along the long side of bed #2. Then I added some E.B. Stone Sure Start organic fertilizer and planted Kentucky Blue hybrid pole green beans and Summertop hybrid Japanese cucumbers in bed #2, both from Kitazawa Seed Company here in California. I haven’t grown either variety before. This is a summer of firsts for my garden.
I’ve also continued on my garage clean-up and organization project, and found a couple of ancient Russet potatoes on the shelf where I store extra food. They might be able to collect Social Security they were so old. One had molded, but the other had sprouted. I’m not one to waste things, so I cut it in half with a sprout on each half and planted them in the raised beds. The moldy one went into the compost bin. Maybe I’ll get some Russett potatoes from the two cuttings and maybe I won’t.
My German Butterball potatoes in the Smart Pot are doing well, as are the sweet potatoes, Japanese eggplant and winter squash. I like the Smart Pots so much that I just bought a couple of others. I want to grow some King Edward potatoes before its too late to plant them.
On to this week’s harvest, such as it is. Someone or something is getting all of the strawberries. Since I have them in a strawberry pot in front, and I know that the little neighbor boy likes to pick them, it could be any number of human or animal suspects. I certainly don’t begrudge our cute little neighbor any berries, but I’m getting really tired of critters eating my fruit before it’s ready for me to eat.
FRUIT
14 oz Apples, Granny Smith (10 little green ones fell off the tree when a branch broke. Maybe I can put them into jam with some other fruit. That’s a third of my potential harvest.)
2.5 oz. Apricots (the squirrel got the biggest one, and I got the other two)
5.5 oz. Peaches, Babcock (I picked the few that were left so the squirrel wouldn’t get them, but they’re hard and green. Not sure that they’ll ripen)
1 0z. Strawberries (only 3 berries for me)
SUBTOTAL 1 lb 7 oz. FRUIT
VEGETABLES
1 oz. Komatsuna
4 oz. Tomatoes, Early Girl (3 little ones)
SUBTOTAL 5 oz. VEGETABLES
TOTAL 1 lb, 7 oz produce plus 5 eggs
That’s PATHETIC! Even the chickens aren’t laying this week. Henny Penny keeps stepping on her eggs and breaking them and Henrietta is still molting. I sure hope your garden is doing better than mine. If you had a harvest, visit Daphne’s Dandelions and post on Mr. Linky.
Lou Murray's Green World 
You’re complaining about your small harvest, and I’m elated that I can grow anything edible at all! I guess I’m still in the gardening honeymoon period. I have yet to harvest over 1 lb of anything in one week, so when you think that you’re not getting anything out of your garden, just think of me and you can feel productive again. 🙂
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Any harvest is better than none at all and your total is pretty good! How nice to harvest apricot 🙂
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Hi Allison and Thyme2Garden. You’re right. Two apricots are better than none. It’s just that my expectations and reality weren’t in sync. There’s always next year.
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Sorry about your strawberries, it’s still a very good harvest with assorted fruits, I don’t have any fruit at all, our new garden is too small for fruit trees unless I give up my raised beds, I’m not ready to do that yet.
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Hi Mac. I wouldn’t give up my raised beds either. I didn’t know anyone had a smaller garden than mine. I do what I can with the space that I have.
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I cant wait for my apples to ripen. There are so many of them, but they are all still green.
I should check my compost bin. I just keep adding stuff without checking it.
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Vrtlaricaana, you have such a lovely garden allotment with space and full sized fruit trees. I hope you get a good apple harvest.
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Oh critters! I need to keep squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice, gophers, rabbits, and voles at bay if I want any harvest at all.
My strawberry pot by my front door is also feeding someone other than me. It turned out to be a ground squirrel. Oh well…
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Oh how sad. I hate the the squirrel eat the harvest. Especially the fruit and tomatoes. They just go to town on them.
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Daphne and Angela, our urban wildlife really can decimate a garden, huh?
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Oh I know how you feel about critters. I had to come up with a way to keep the rats from eating my strawberries, the fruit this time, not the plants.
Henny Penny needs to learn some chicken etiquette! Or should that be eggtiquette . . .
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Eggiquette. Funny, Michelle.
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