Monday 4 July 2016

Harvest Monday

This week has involved (surprise)....more strawberries...that's over 18kg picked now. I've been harvesting my friend's as well and he's had about the same amount, crikey. There are still more to go so it looks like I'm going to beat last year's 19kg. I had to take my trolley down to the plot last time I harvested them all as they're too heavy to carry back (4 big tubs at a time, phew).
 
As well as more baby chard leaves, I've picked the first lot of bigger leaves. These are from self sown chard I transplanted a few weeks back, as single plants under wigwams for cucumbers to (hopefully) climb around when they finally get going. In the meantime the chard plants seem to have liked the space and horse poo. We had some of the chard with scrambled egg and some tonight with posh baked beans (cook-up a few different veggies like chard, mushroom, onion, garlic, and then add a tin of baked beans for protein and sauce - easy)
And the posh baked beans went nicely with some of these potatoes

I'm just back from the plot actually - I've had a busy few days and not had much time to get down there apart from for a few slug patrols and strawberry harvests. The other day I noticed that my redcurrants were ripe but that some had been stripped off the strigs (presumably by the blackbird I saw nearby). I was worried the blackbird might have been really tucking in, not leaving me with many (I love fresh redcurrants, yum). So tonight, on first glance it seemed like that may have been the case, but when I began lifting branches for a lookee underneath, a mass of currants was revealed, hurray.

 

My raspberries have also started ripening (possibly my favourite fresh berry), so I've been munching away on them (none have made it home yet, sorry Jan). But tomorrow I'm planning a big harvest day - strawberries, redcurrants, raspberries, broad beans and....my first tiddler courgettes, just about big enough to be worth harvesting.

 

And it won't be long before the gooseberries are ready, I found a couple of juicy ones tonight, though the rest are still a bit hard. Plus I spied my first couple of teeny runner bean pods. Despite all the losses to slugs and snails, it's starting to feel like things are picking up now...

 

Oh, but I have found the small caterpillars of the diamond-backed moth on some of my brassicas. They munch away causing a sort of lace effect, so it's easy to notice if you have them, but it's a bit laborious to go round checking all the leaves. You can give the plants a shake and the caterpillars drop themselves down on a thread, making them easier to deal with (i.e. Squish or whatever). But do check the leaves for the cocoons as well. They're quite hard to spot and often seem to be tucked in along a vein making them even harder to notice.

 

There don't seem to be many cabbage white butterflies around this year so it looks as though the moths will be the pest to watch out most for on the brassicas.

 

In other naturey news, the cockchafer beetles were all out last night at dusk....they're quite big and very noisy (buzzy), so are easy to see. I expect the bats are having a feast on them.

 

Thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

10 comments:

  1. That's almost 40 pounds of strawberries, which is so amazing! It must be a lot of work picking them since they grow so low to the ground. Your potatoes and chard look great and it sounds like your summer vegetables are starting come in.

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    1. Thanks Phuong, yes it can take quite a while to pick all the strawberries. The strawb beds are on a slope so I've made slightly raised beds to level the area, which means on one side I don't have to get right down to ground level....saves my back a bit!
      Yay, the summer harvests will come thick and fast soon (hopefully!).

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  2. Wow - that is crazy with the strawberries! How old is your patch? And YUM to those potatoes! I'd not heard of diamond-back moths - but with all the netting up for the cabbage white butterly, it's not surprising that I wouldn't realize there is yet another pest that I'm protecting them from.

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    1. Hi Margaret, yeh the freezer is getting well-stocked with strawbs! I think the main patch (two beds) is 3 or 4 years old but I can't quite remember when I first made it. My friend Andrew gave me a load of his runners which I think I let get established a year or so before I took out my old patch (which I think was two or three years ago...it's so easy to lose track, I should have made a note tho I probably have some photos somewhere which would help date it). I transplanted a few of my old plants as well, so in addition to the main area I have a few plants dotted around the place. Because they have done well again, I will probably leave it another year before starting a new patch and winding down the current area. In Spring I'll just give them a weed and sprinkling of chicken poo pellets, which seems to do the trick (I have a 'mulch' of stones under the plants which makes it difficult to add any other kind of compost).
      The moths apparently usually get wafted across from the continent on the wind, but in high numbers this year. So hopefully you don't get them over at yours. I think they're quite small though so needs a fine mesh size to keep them off the crops.

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  3. That is a lot of strawberries indeed! My back is having sympathy pains just thinking about harvesting them and lugging them all around. I had a big patch I used to pick and sell when I lived on the farm, which is probably why I don't like to mess with them anymore! I do like to eat them, and I can imagine yours are quite tasty. And I will confess that some of my produce doesn't make it in the house either, especially the first couple of cherry tomatoes I found this year!

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    1. Ha ha thanks Dave. Actually my back has been fine picking the strawbs, most of them are in a slightly raised area and I tend to crouch / squat rather than lean over (my leg muscles definitely get stronger during the main harvest season!) . I can imagine it being a tough job picking them to sell, that's a lot of strawberries.
      Hehe, yes it's a benefit of being the harvester, a few tasty treats whilst picking. With the very first strawberries I did bring them home to share but not with the raspberries tehe!

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  4. Red chard and beautiful strawberries, ours are being eaten by the bugs mostly :( I keep meaning to sow some chard seeds its one leafy green I adore growing in my plot. I just keep forgetting, hopefully this weekend

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    1. Hi shaheen, yes I've lost a lot to beasties aswell but luckily still have plenty left. A lot of my bean plants have completely been munched away yet again (after second and third sowing!) but I think enough have made it through to still get a reasonable crop. Actually I might nip in the back garden now for a quick slug check!
      I let a few chard plants go to seed each year then get lots of self-sown plants pop up...usually enough to outgrow the pests. Hope you get chance to sow some :)

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  5. Our redcurrants are ripe now too. They are under net so safe from blackbirds as I don't want it pick them until we have time to process them.

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    1. Hi sue, yes it does take a while to go through processing red currants so it's good they keep nicely on the bush when ripe, unlike raspberries.
      I usually lose a few currants around the room when they ping off, and then end up treading or sitting on one (definitely wear old clothes during the processing!)

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