Monday - Thursday I picked the last of the sugar snap peas. They had terrible germination, but the plants that did grow produced well. I'll definitely grow them again next year (Sugar Lace), but I'll give them the support of a small bunny fence—even though the package says no support needed. It lies.
On Thursday I picked the first St. Valery carrots and two gorgeous fennel bulbs. I had my eye on this soup recipe to break in my new pressure canner, but I didn't have enough carrots for it yet. I used some of the fennel fronds to make fennel tea, which was quite delicious.
Sunday was a day of garden transition. We picked the last of the snow peas (an entire gallon bag full) and ripped them out. They'll be planted again next year as well (Mammoth Melting) but with a much taller fence to climb. I ripped out the fava beans that never produced (planted too late), and harvested the rest of my 5' x 3' bed of carrots, which included St. Valery, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White, and a rainbow mix. For some reason, the white carrots never really want to do their thing. I'd estimate I got about 10 pounds of carrots total. Plenty to make the soup, which made a delicious Sunday dinner.
I also got my first handful of green beans, and my second head of broccoli. I'm eagerly awaiting the first zucchini.
The snow peas were replaced with chiogga beets, the carrots were replaced with red bush beans, and the favas were replaced with more carrots. If I can keep the soil wet so they germinate, this will be my first year with a semi-successful mid-summer plant rotation.
To see what other gardeners are harvesting this week, check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.
Good luck getting your seeds to germinate. I'm working on the mid summer sowings too. I think my carrots are up though. I seem to have an easier time in the summer than in the spring with those.
ReplyDeleteI was pleasantly surprised with how well my spring-sown carrots did. I'm hoping the fall crop gets much bigger, though.
DeleteThat is gorgeous fennel and I bet it will be very tasty.
ReplyDeleteThe bulbs went into the soup, which is good. I've got a few more out in the garden that I'll probably roast or eat raw. The fronds, however ... I still have tons of those in the fridge.
DeleteThose pea packages don't seem to tell the whole truth. I planted several varieties and used the information about height to determine which variety was the tallest to go in the back and the shortest to go in the front. Well, the supposedly short ones took over and shaded out all the other ones!
ReplyDeleteWell, now that I know how they actually behave (and that I like how they taste), I'm going to be sure to grow exactly the same kind next year. If they're consistent, I'll keep them. Peas should be so easy, but they haven't been the easiest veggie for me to grow.
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ReplyDeleteThose summer seed sowings are always tricky. I need to get carrots going here myself before long. I've never tried growing white ones, but the purple ones did great for me this year.
ReplyDeleteThe purple ones were good sized, but short. The orange St. Valery did the best for me so far. The white ones didn't really size up (although they got really long).
DeleteThanks for commenting, Dave! I read your blog all the time, although I'm not very good about commenting.