August 6, 2012 My 200 garlic plants have been harvested and dried. The stalks get removed and the garlic bulbs are ready for use and storage. If the salsa making goes well a lot of the garlic will be used for that as well as some for various pickled recipes. I will still have a year's supply left for regular kitchen use though. One fifth of the biggest of the bulbs will be saved for planting next year's crop. The planting happens in mid-October. I still have many of the garlic "scapes" removed about a month before this harvesting and continue to use in my cooking. The garlic plants harvested without scapes removal had smaller bulbs, but I only missed a few scapes.
It is time to start canning pickles! This is the first harvest of cucumbers and so my first batch of bread and butter pickles will be made today. Hopefully an abundant ongoing harvest will yield many, many jars of various varieties of pickles. I am somewhat worried about my tomato harvest as only a few are now starting to turn red and the plants don't have as many green tomatoes as I had expected. Maybe if the summer last long and stays hot that will change and new tomatoes will keep forming. I will have plenty of tomatillos as usual for green salsa though. They self-seed and hence new tomatillo plants emerge all over the place.
This year will be my best for onions. I tried very hard to keep the onion rows weed-free and it has worked. I start with onion plants rather than "sets" or seeds. I believe this method is best and potentially yields the biggest onions. I have only harvested half my crop so far and as you can see the onions are quite large. They should keep well and be a major player in my pickle and salsa making. I don't expect to have enough for a year's supply for daily cooking though. I better plant more next year! I dug my first potatoes yesterday and was very pleased with the yield and especially the size of them. I have only dug one half of one of the seven rows and have about 12-15lbs., so if you do the math it means a very large harvest and a good supply for maybe the entire winter. Again I can report these potato rows receive a lot of care with regular weeding, bug patrol and the hilling of the plants this year. It sure made the difference.
As previously reported the strawberry jam making was bountiful this year. I can report good results with the blueberries as well. I am still picking them and still making jam. Blueberries are more versatile than strawberries so are used in several bake products. I have made scones, blueberry buckle and a blueberry crumble. they taste great on cereal and can be easily frozen for future off season use. The blackberries are now ripe and the quantity is huge on my plants. I need to begin some jam making with them and tackle other uses. Blackberries do not keep long after picking like blueberries so need quick attention.
The berries are the mainstay of fruit harvesting for me. I do have a modest harvest ahead of some peaches and some pears from my young dwarf trees. The neighbor's peach tree usually brings me a bushel or so of peaches so that can mean pies, jam and canned peach halves. They are almost ready but look pretty small is size this year. It is a bad year for apples in my neighbor's orchard. I have access to these apples that really can only be used for cider and juice....or maybe some apple sauces. The trees are old and have not been taken care of for years and years so don't yield good apples for eating or pie making.
