Happy Monday everyone!
Things are, happily, continuing their slow roll out of the garden and into the kitchen!
The Yellow Taxi Tomatoes are slowing their production and there are only a handful of them left on the plants. It’s OK though, because there are many other varieties that will follow them shortly. I’m thinking the Romas will own the next wave.
We harvested a ton (er…a few pounds) of apricots from our tiny tree and have been busy eating and canning them. There is probably another pound or so on the tree that will ripen up this week and then we’ll be done for the year. I’m not sure I can properly convey my love of apricots or how wonderful it feels to be growing my own…Tool Lady and I were talking about it the other day and the best I can figure is that, since we don’t have much fruit beyond apricots and a few apples that grow in abundance here I ate a lot of apricots growing up and so it reminds me of those carefree days of childhood. Apricots and Pinon…yum!
I also harvested the last of the broccoli which was really just a few side shoots. This was my second attempt at growing it and I’m not sure I’ll try it again. It doesn’t have as much bang for the buck as I’d like to get out of our little space even though it is quite delicious fresh from the garden :-/ The plants themselves were pretty trashed and didn’t look like they’d produce much more (if anything) so I pulled them and planted some spinach seeds in their place.
In addition, we got a handful of cherry tomatoes and a couple more Happy Hot Peppers (and yes, they are hot).
I also harvested some herbs and mint. The herbs were used immediately in meals (hence, no pictures) and the mint was hung to dry in the pantry. I am hopeful we can harvest enough chamomile, lemon balm and mint to make some yummy tea to give away when the weather turns chilly again 🙂 The rest of our herbs are really filling in, too, giving me hope for many delicious future meals!
- Apricots = 3 lb 10 oz
- Broccoli = 2 oz
- Chamomile = not weighed
- Dill = not weighed
- Garlic = 1 lb
- Lemon Balm = 1 oz
- Mint = 5 oz
- Peppers = 1 oz
- Tomatoes = 9 oz
- Eggs = 31 eggs
Chamomile, lemon balm and mint tea…. yum. I love collecting them in the summer, hate waiting until the weather turns cool to fully enjoy the warming benefits, thank goodness for cool nights 😉
Ha! Yes, thank goodness for cool nights indeed!
Ooh, I covet your apricots! It seems to be impossible to buy a good tasting apricot these days and once you’ve had a ripe one straight off the tree, well, nothing else will do.
Very true, Michelle!
I know it’s not the same as tree ripened, but if you can find a fairly ripe bunch of apricots at the store you can put them in a brown paper bag in a cool dark place for a couple of days and they’ll ripen and soften up a bit more 🙂
My garlic looks like that too in some places. Some that I planted only got a little head, others just started to get multiple cloves. I think the weather definitely has something to do with it.
Everything looks beautiful! Enjoy!
Silly garlic! I’ll be curious to see if you’rs is stronger this year, too. It’s all very interesting to me!
I think the only way to enjoy apricots are fresh from the tree having been ripened in the sunshine, i have memories of eating them off somebody’s tree as a child and i love their smell. Yours look beautiful and a good size too.
There is such an amazing difference in taste and texture when fruit is properly ripened on the tree. It’s quite amazing!
I have the same feeling about plums that you do about apricots. They were part of my childhood and eating a perfectly ripe, dark red juicy plum (hard to find in the green grocers) sends me straight back there. last year I planted my own tree along with a couple of apple trees so hopefully this summer we might get to taste them, though more likely we’ll have to wait til the next one. Your apricots look delicious.
Oh, I’m so glad you’ve planted s few fruit trees! While the wait can be a bit daunting, the end result…even if it’s just a few fruits…is so worth the wait! I do hope to one day, on our eventual farm, have a few plum trees, too…I just love them!
Happy hot peppers? I’ve never heard of them. Yours look wonderful. We love trying different hot peppers. I’ll have to check into them.
I doubt I grow broccoli again either. It takes up a lot of space for no more than what you get. I need my space for things that grow abundantly and produce more than one or two harvestings.
The Happy hot Peppers are part of a growing experiment I’m participating in hosted by Dave at http://www.ourhappyacres.com/ He had a single variety split into both hot and sweet peppers a few years back ad he’s trying to figure out if the seeds are stable and will continue to grow as both hot and sweet 🙂
I’m with you about things growing in abundance! Absolutely neccessary when growing in small spaces!
Oh fresh from the tree apricots are soo good, well any fruit that is actually tree ripened is wonderful!
Very true!
Thats interesting about the garlic, did it form cloves? There is something very exciting about growing your own fruit isn’t there – I guess its the time it takes the trees to grow but its so satisfying.
It did form cloves, luckily! And most of it formed several cloves (a few only had two or three). The fruit has been an amazing gift! We’ve purchased dwarf and espalier varieties so take take up so little space, which makes them even better!
Apricots are one fruit that grows very well in the garden here in Utah. Because of that everyone plants a tree and this time of year the whole world is trying to give them away. So we have never bothered to plant a tree because it’s pretty easy to find someone with some to share.
I have the same feelings as you on garden broccoli, you sure don’t get much for they space they take up. We are blessed with a pretty big garden so I will continue to grow them but your right, I think we got about 3 pounds of broccoli from a 8 x 4 bed. That’s pretty small production.
Ha! Yeah, years like this year when everyone has apricots falling down around their ears are a little frustrating for me since it seems that so much goes to waste. We’re planning a fieldtrip to pickup fallen (but still salvageable apricots from the streets 😉
Thank you for the perspective on how much broccoli you’ve grown in a 8X4 bed. Pretty crazy. But you’re right…if you have the space, it is worth it to grow your own broccoli! It’s just so good!
I share your love of apricots. Too bad they are so iffy here. The blooms usually get frozen out.
Some of our garlics didn’t like the warm winter, though most did. It’s always dicey trying to figure what the weather will do!
The flowers usually get frozen off of the apricots here as well. Our warm spring did wonders for the apricots here this year though…there are apricots littering the streets everywhere!
You’re right about the weather…you never really know until you’re in it…and that doesn’t help in planning the garden ;-/
All those apricots sound very delicious. I haven’t had the best luck with broccoli either, but I keep trying because I love it so much. I have found it grows much better as a fall/winter crop than a spring crop around here.
Yeah…I might try one more time with an earlier fall planting (like in a couple of weeks) to see if they do better…that is, if I can find a space for it 😉
Apricots remind me too of my childhood. Our house was built in an area that used to be truck farms that grew produce for St. Louis. Our backyard was part of an old orchard, with a big plum tree, a couple of peaches and an apricot. What a treat to have fresh peaches and apricots every summer.
Oh, how wonderful to have an old orchard in your backyard growing up! Ripe, warm, juicy plums and peaches would be a wonderful treat on hot summer day!
Fresh tree ripened apricots, I am sooooo jealous. Still waiting for flowers to appear on my tomato plants, with the heatwave we are experiencing maybe all the heat loving plants will start to leap.
I don’t doubt that your tomatoes will leap with the heat. It always amazes me how quickly they explode once the weather gets just right!
Fresh ripe apricots would be wonderful to have as a garden harvest. Our spring planted crop of broccoli were pretty well played out so I removed them (fed them to the chickens) over the course of the past week. I have their replacements for the fall crop started and growing indoors under my lights. Your garlic looks like it formed good heads for you even if it was giving you confusing signals with the different top growth behavior. My garlic is giving indications it is ready to harvest but the bulbs don’t feel like the cloves are well separated yet on the test plants I pulled, so I am hesitant to harvest quite yet. Some heat would really help them I think.
I will hope for some heat for you so your garlic fills out a bit more 🙂 I think problem with our garlic was the continued dry heat for months.
Looks like you garden is progressing very nicely.
It’s pretty crazy these days 🙂 It always amazes me who quickly everything fills in once it gets established!
Tomatoes! That’s what I’m waiting for. How wonderful to have apricots! They are a real luxury to me; they don’t grow around here.
Yes! Apricots and tomatoes are both luxuries in my book 🙂 So amazing to pull food from the garden!