The long-awaited rain in our area finally arrived the last few days, very much welcomed. For some crops, though, it was not ideal ... namely the bush beans. I have several varieties of beans this year for drying, with some already falling over and laying on the soil. Although some were not quite mature enough, I decided to pull all of the beans to avoid further damage. I will let them dry out for a week in their pods and then shell them for storage. The baskets above include black turtle beans, Vermont Cranberry, Jacob's Cattle and Canadian Wild Goose (although how much of each I'm not sure as they got all mixed together during the harvest).
With rain in the forecast, I also decided to pull the onions. I had decided not to grow any this year as I don't seem to have much success generally, but somehow ended up planting some anyway. Although they aren't particularly large, I am actually pretty satisfied with what I got this year (but will remind myself not to grow them again next year!).
Most of them are between golf ball and baseball size, but are delicious and will be useful when salsa making time starts in a few weeks.
And these peppers will be useful in many ways! These are Xanthia, but I also harvested about the same amount of other varieties including jalapeno and some other sweet bell pepper types. Some of the pepper harvest came from this broken limb of King of the North peppers ... the plant had fallen over from the weight of the fruit and I did a terrible job staking it and the branch broke off.
I've still only had a handful of tomatoes but was not expecting a lot this year anyway (and have not bothered to take pictures). But I am still getting lots of great greens including more of the Croatian Chard (delicious, and tastes more like spinach than Swiss Chard), Tuscan Kale, Swiss Chard and the frilly looking green on the left is Fizz Kale.
While cleaning out the main bed with the bean plants, I realized that several of the potato plants nearby had been overgrown with weeds. Oh well ... potatoes are one of those plants I don't spend a lot of time on. I have volunteer potato plants popping up elsewhere so I'm not too upset. But I will dig them up soon and see if there is anything under the weeds. In the meantime, I had a potato bag that also wasn't overly successful with only a single plant (out of three planted in the bag) that produced and here are the results (along with some chocolate cherry tomatoes):
This is my submission to Harvest Monday hosted by Our Happy Acres. Please check it out to see what other gardeners are doing this week.
Your onions look great to me! Baseball size is about as big as mine ever get, and the smaller ones are good for me because I don't always use a lot of onions at one time anyway. Your Xanthia peppers are lovely too. It's good they are producing, given the seed was pricey as I recall.
ReplyDeleteYes, they were pricey pepper seeds but are producing very well!
DeleteI agree with Dave, I would be happy to have baseball size onions and I don't use a lot of large ones anyway. And your million dollar Xanthia peppers are looking like a million dollars.
ReplyDeleteOK well I guess I don't feel so bad about the onions ... and thanks about the peppers! They really are some of the best I've grown.
DeleteThose peppers are awesome! And I'm having a bad onion year this time round, so (to join in the chorus), a baseball sized onion is pretty darn good! I'll be out in the garden this afternoon, doing a bunch of harvesting in preparation for the rains we are expecting tonight. I don't think my dried beans are ready to come up yet, though, so I'll likely leave most of them anyhow.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you are having a bad onion year, I definitely struggle with growing them usually. My dried beans were a mess and needed the clean out even though many weren't quite ready.
DeleteSuch nice variety in your harvests and they look great even if they were up to your expectations. The Xanthia peppers really are good looking, the color is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMake that were NOT up to expectations... duh.
DeleteNot up to expectations for sure but from the comments here, maybe I was expecting too much. :)
DeleteI would be very happy with baseball-sized onions! And volunteer potatoes--a bonus! Good idea about picking the beans before they get damaged; I'm sure they will be fine even if they didn't dry on the vine.
ReplyDeleteI do love the volunteer potatoes! Yes, I think most had sized up so assuming they will just dry off the vine instead. I'll see in a few days how they are coming along.
DeleteI concur with what everyone else said- baseball-sized onions are impressive!
ReplyDeleteThanks Julie! Maybe I WILL grow onions again, LOL, and just not have such high expectations.
DeleteWhat gorgeous peppers those are! I've never heard of a Xanthia before! Does it have heat or is it a sweet pepper?
ReplyDeleteHi Melissa! The pictures don't quite get the true colour, they really are a gorgeous dark orange. But if I leave them longer, I think they will go red as well. They are sweet and tasty with zero heat.
Deletefrom Kathy:
ReplyDeleteReally interested in your drying beans as this is something we grow quite a lot of. Love the name Wild Goose... I shall try to look out for some of these for next year! Our most reliable is Cherokee Trail of Tears