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Harvest Monday

May 21, 2012

Happy Monday everyone!

Well, I finally surrendered to the removal of all our over-wintered greens in an effort to (hopefully) fully thwart the leaf miners that refuse to give up their happy homes.  I pulled what remained of the spinach and chard and left the only beet and kale plants that have gone to seed, removing instead, all of the affected leaves on a daily basis.
In the greens department, we’re left with one over-wintered kale plant that has been remarkably unaffected but that is producing slowly and a second plant that volunteered this spring in another bed that is tiny and already trying to bolt.  
If I were to guess, I’d say the garden is about 95% planted out with just a few pockets still left to push some seeds into.  With our super warm spring, everything is way ahead of last year at this time.  The one space I haven’t planted out are the pallet beds.  I am excited to figure out what to do with them, but just haven’t figured it out yet.  I think I’m a bit intimidated by their vertical stance.  We’ll see…I have to figure it out soon, so I’m sure I will 🙂

While I was messing around in the beds pulling greens, I decided to go ahead and pull the majority of what remained of the over-wintered carrots as well.  All that’s left in that one bed now is a short row of Parisienne carrots.  That bed is mostly planted out now, around the carrots, except for a couple of spots.  I’m trying out bio-intensive planting in two of our raised beds by planting sweet corn, beets and bush beans.  I have my fingers crossed that it’ll work!

In pulling so many carrots this year, I’ve been very interested in learning how to use the greens!  Yes, it is true…I have never used carrot greens before in cooking!  It seems like such a waste to just throw all that nutrition to the birds, so while it will be a huge learning curve for me (and us), I’d like to try out a few new-to-us recipes using carrot greens 🙂  I found this great website all about the many uses for carrot tops and I’d love to hear any recipes, suggestions and tips you might have!!!

This weeks totals:
  • Carrots = 6 lbs 3 oz
  • Chard = 2 oz
  • Kale = 2 oz
  • Spinach = 4 oz
  • Eggs = 24 eggs
Hope everyone has a fabulous day!
Happy harvesting!
Linking up to Harvest Monday @ Daphne’s Dandelions

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28 Comments on “Harvest Monday”

  1. Your shy carrot, crossing her legs so demurely is adorable!!!

  2. Thanks for the link about using carrot tops. I’ve made radish top soup before, but I’ve never tried carrot tops before. Have you tried any of the recipes?

    1. I haven’t tried any of the recipes yet…it’s been a killer week so far 🙁 My hope is that they’ll last until Saturday when I can devote some time to them and experiment with a couple of the recipes 🙂

  3. I’ve never eaten carrot tops myself. Usually by the time I have carrots I have so many other things that they just don’t make the grade.

    1. Yeah, it been totally off my radar until recently! I have been trying to think of ways to stretch our harvests as far as possible so I’m willing to at least give them a try 🙂

  4. How nice that you have overwintered veggies to harvest right now. We will have to try that next year. If you find something good to do with the carrot tops let me know!

    1. Thanks, Megan! I highly recommend over-wintering your carrots! We grew ours in our hoop house and they did great! I’ll definitely post about the carrots tops once we’ve done some experimenting 🙂

  5. I feed my carrot tops to my chickens. I’m not adventurous enough to eat them myself. I also give my chickens sorrel, nasturtium leaves, beet greens, chard, kale, mizuna, old lettuce or whatever I’m not eating enough of in the greens department. It makes their egg yolks higher in Omega-3 oils, the good ones. Store-bought eggs look positively anemic next to our girls’ eggs.

    1. Oh! You’re not kidding! I haven’t eaten many store bought eggs recently, but the few I have had are absolutely sad looking! It’s funny how spoiled we’ve become with our beautiful and delicious eggs!!!

  6. You do a wonderful harvest with a compact space … I so admire you for all you do.I love the fact that you have chickens on your land. BTW, when I make a fruit/veggie juice I always include the carrot greens as well as the carrots.

    1. Awww…Thank you! I appreciate your kind words! It’s been a lot of work, but it’s all been worth it! Thanks for the reminder about juicing the tops! I think we’ll do a bit of that this week as well!

  7. I’ve never used carrot tops either. I just throw them on the compost pile. And I’m with Liz, I want to see what you do with the pallets!

    1. Soon, Dave! I had (what I think is) a great idea today! To be announced shortly…we’ll see if it works or not 🙂

  8. I’m in line with the rest. I have never eaten the tops, but do they smell so wonderful and rarely have any pest or problems. Go figure. Looks like you had a good carrot harvest.

    1. You know, now that you mention it…of all my overwintered veggies, the carrots are the only ones that haven’t had an issue…hmmm…

  9. I had no idea you could eat carrot tops! Thanks for the link!

  10. carrot tops just seem so strong flavored, and not a flavor I really like. I will keep feeding mine to the hens, gives them nice orange egg yolks! But your harvest is amazing and lovely.

    1. Oohhh…I didn’t know that it improves their yolks! I guess I’ll keep splitting the tops between us, the chickens and the compost 🙂

  11. I hope you do not mind if I am first to comment at 4 in the morning. 😉

    Those carrots look gorgeous. Such a long time to grow. It will be a big disappointment to myself if they do not come out sweet and delish!

    I’ve not had any miners that I am aware of. The mustards have tiny holes in them but overall unaffected. A few plants have nibbles but nothing major. Perhaps at this point I should prepare with having neem and pepper sprays on hand. 🙂

    1. Oh…they are sweet and absolutely delicious! While it takes a lot of patience, it sure is nice to pull something other than greens out of the garden this time of year 🙂

      I hope you remain bug free for as long as possible! It is definitely not fun!

  13. I think I will keep feeding my carrot tops to the compost pile rather than to us. Your carrots look good and it sounds like your garden is really coming along.

    1. Ha! Yeah…we have so many that some of them are still going to the chickens and the compost 🙂

  14. I was hoping you would have planted your pallet beds – I want to see what you do, I got a pallet but I keep looking at it thinking, nah tomorrow….

    1. I got an idea today! I’ll post about it as soon as I figure it out all the way through…in the next few days is the plan 🙂

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