Harvest Monday

I find it a bit funny to start sharing my harvest Monday of the year this late in the season, especially now that we’ve entered December, Virginia has endured the first few frosts of winter and I have already done my first dark days post. After all, in previous years, despite being apartment bound I have always had something growing on the porch. But then, I started this year a little behind the curve.

At the end of July, a time when most gardens are in full swing and many a green thumb is looking forward to the slow days fall and winter, I was just breaking ground. I finally got off the community garden waiting list and received a well placed, healthy, but neglected plot. The whole thing was covered with weeds, nothing had been planted that season and though a previous owner had laid cloth and built up beautiful soil on top, the ground beneath was all clay and rocks.  Aside from a large patch of mint and some pungent lemon herb the plot was gifted with three wood box frames that defined the beds.

Knowing that my new garden enthusiasm could fizzle in the dog days of August I assessed the soil condition (best closest to the entry) and decided to start working at the worst corner and work backwards, figuring that if/when I got tired I already had decent soil I could plant in. Every spare moment I headed to the garden to pull weeds, clear rocks, and begin double digging the beds. I ended up planting fall/winter crops in mid-late August. Below you can see the three beds (here shown with the high hoops installed but not covered).

Straight ahead I planted kale a row of turnips, lettuces, a salad greens mix, tatsoi, and pok choy. I had intended to put second and third to the right but never got back to it. In the far left, the worst rocky corner, I seeded a bunch of Austrian field peas as a cover crop. I will dig it in come spring to put some much needed nutrients back in. It’s a great little corner for a perennial. In the bed on the right are beets, carrots, celery, and onions. Cabbage and broccoli are in the bed on the right, though those have been mostly nibbled by insects.

Since September I have been harvesting a few leafs of lettuce, some kale, and accidentally pulled up a turnip but nothing substantial until today. 4 small carrots, a small turnip (not pictured) that had started to grow above ground where I needed to secure the row cover, a head of tatsoi, 2 big handfuls of lettuces, and 3 handfuls of kale. I was tempted to harvest more but I really want to stretch what little I have into the winter to see how things fare in the cold/snow to come.Not bad for a first winter harvest.

Dark Days-Week 1

Dark Days indeed.

Trying to fit in my increased mileage meant that I either pushed it to run in the oncoming dusk, had to peel off to the gym for the treadmill, or switch to morning runs. This plus the the always busy work week meant that I failed to do any prep, shopping, planning or even thinking about the dark days challenge until this weekend. Normally not an issue but since I haven’t made it to the farmers market since Thanksgiving (and all that was used up in the big feast) my pantry was near bare (of SOLE food anyway, I’m almost embarrassed to share the amount of other junk that is in there). I could almost cry to think that I had fail before the challenge had started.

I did manage to stop by the garden plot to finish tucking in the greens, seeing how my row covers faired in the rain and winds of last week, and harvest a head of Pok Choy, 20 leaves of kale, a few baby celery leaves and some mint. I also started rooting around in my packed little freezer and found one last package of pork sausage produced locally.

Granted, the spices and beer used to flavor the sausage probably doesn’t grow around here but I know the pork did. When I can’t get locally grown I guess I will be settling for locally made. This still meets with my goal of supporting a locally based food economy. I then remembered that I still have a bag each of dried kidney and great northern beans from Heritage Farm and Kitchen, a Mennonite Co-Op in Pennsylvania. All was not lost!

I set the great northern beans to soaking overnight and started to search the internet for inspiration

This morning, after I returned from our 5k Run with Santa race, I cooked up the sausage and added in a quart of my home canned veggie stock (all local veg).

Next I shredded the kale leaves and added in about 2-3 cups of beans.

Though one bowl barely passes for a meal and wish I had some other seasonings, the veg broth was flavorful and extremely fragrant, the sausage added a nice bit and the beans were really high quality so after the first sip I forgot all about the missing salt. I hadn’t know it but this was just the thing I needed post run on a cold winters day and thanks to no planning, a last minute panic turned into the perfect –local—bowl.

Harvest Round-up Weeks 10-14

Here is a round-up of what I have been harvesting from my little porch container garden:

Tomatoes are finally showing up in the week 10 harvest. I'm also enjoying a slow trickling of bell peppers and lemon cukes. The green onions are always plentiful.

In week 11 I brought in some chard and harvested more cilantro/coriander seeds.

In week 12, everything continued to produce about the same.


I picked all the remaining tomatoes in week 12 but there the lemon cukes made up for it in week 13.


Week 14 I harvested the bulk of the peppers. The plants are still going strong but it will be a little while before I have any more ripe.

Harvest Monday

I forgot to hit the publish button so this is more like a harvest Thursday.

Here goes my first post to join in on Daphne’s Harvest Monday. This week I harvested lots of small things to make room for my fall plantings and plucked a few jewels too.

The prize this week goes to my first lemon cucumber. It’s a little on the small side but since it was growing on the outside of the fence where children like to run past and in full access to the pounding rains of summer thunderstorms I was worried about loosing it, so I picked it as soon as it looked ready. I’m looking forward to eating it raw or with a salad.

The carrots were about as wide as they were going to get but I knew that they were not going to get much more length being buried under the potato vines which had begun to lean their way so 14 little stub came out.


The beets, while always giving nice greens which were out-competing the chard, were beginning to push up out of the ground way too far and I could see that they too were never going do much so out they came. Speaking of chard, I trimmed off 5 large and 8 smaller leaves. I also brought in a handful of spinach from the next container over.

Next to be pulled were a middle row of onions that were being exposed by the constant drops of water running off the flower planter above them every time it rained or I watered. I found an article from Kiwi magazine about how to braid garlic and onions so these little orbs became my practice set.
I harvested 4 red and 2 yellow mini bell peppers. They are so sweet. I also pulled down all of the peas and beans along the trellis and harvested a few pods of dried half runner beans. None of the beans did too well in this strange weather and in the spots in the containers where I squeezed them in so by the end of the year I might have enough for a mixed bean soup or they may all just be saved for next years seeds.

Lastly, I trimmed all of the largest basil leaves, clipped 10 sprigs of thyme, and pulled up one dead cilantro plant for the dried coriander seeds. I washed, dried and froze the basil leaves whole. I am drying the thyme sprigs.

I’m already looking forward to next week when I should get my first purple tomato, another lemon cucumber, more herbs to dry, and lots more bell peppers.