GreenDragon
Well-Known Member
Bob, what do you look for to know when to harvest them?
let's see your veggie garden {pics}
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With soft neck varieties, I wait for the tops to yellow, and begin to drop. With hard neck varieties--Anka is the only one I've ever grown, I wait about 2 weeks or so after I've cut off the curly scapes.
It's always a compromise. You want them to grow as large as possible, but if you wait too long, the heads begin to split, and "propagate". So you can harvest them too early, and they would be just dandy, but not as large as they might otherwise grow. Harvest them too late, and you end up with a larger proportion of split heads that have to be used first. This summer, none of the heads were split. Last summer about a half-dozen were split.
Bob
It's always a compromise. You want them to grow as large as possible, but if you wait too long, the heads begin to split, and "propagate". So you can harvest them too early, and they would be just dandy, but not as large as they might otherwise grow. Harvest them too late, and you end up with a larger proportion of split heads that have to be used first. This summer, none of the heads were split. Last summer about a half-dozen were split.
Bob
My Garden in Late June
These first two are growing in the ground at the corner of my front porch.
A wise orchardist would have thinned the fruit on these two pear trees. It's looking like about two bushels of pears
This is the first year that my Yellow Delicious is setting much in the way of fruit. My guess is that they'll be yellow and delicious.
With all three of my apple trees, the deer pretty much clear away the low-hanging fruit, as well as the bottom tier of leaves.
The Georgia Candy Roaster squash (a banana-shaped winter variety) has exploded with growth. The green beans should be much further along, but the deer and rabbits have taken their toll. And the deer munched 6 of my original 12 okra plants into oblivion.
Deer like grape leaves. The fruit is pretty sour while unripe, so they leave them alone.
The blackberries are late this season. Prime Jim usually blossoms both early and late in the summer ("everbearing"), but I seem to be getting mostly late blossoms this year.
American Hazel nuts are about 1/4 the size (volume) of commercial Filberts. Each year, they give me about two cups of nuts in the shell. While they are tedious to crack and clean, because of their fingertip size, they do roast up to truly delicious nuts for eating straight (with salt), or diced and sprinkled onto icecream.
Bob
These first two are growing in the ground at the corner of my front porch.
A wise orchardist would have thinned the fruit on these two pear trees. It's looking like about two bushels of pears
This is the first year that my Yellow Delicious is setting much in the way of fruit. My guess is that they'll be yellow and delicious.
With all three of my apple trees, the deer pretty much clear away the low-hanging fruit, as well as the bottom tier of leaves.
The Georgia Candy Roaster squash (a banana-shaped winter variety) has exploded with growth. The green beans should be much further along, but the deer and rabbits have taken their toll. And the deer munched 6 of my original 12 okra plants into oblivion.
Deer like grape leaves. The fruit is pretty sour while unripe, so they leave them alone.
The blackberries are late this season. Prime Jim usually blossoms both early and late in the summer ("everbearing"), but I seem to be getting mostly late blossoms this year.
American Hazel nuts are about 1/4 the size (volume) of commercial Filberts. Each year, they give me about two cups of nuts in the shell. While they are tedious to crack and clean, because of their fingertip size, they do roast up to truly delicious nuts for eating straight (with salt), or diced and sprinkled onto icecream.
Bob
GreenDragon
Well-Known Member
My two pear trees will be ready to harvest in about 3 to 4 weeks.
Bob
Moth
Well-Known Member
A token offering of garlic. Planted and neglected a few cloves in the herb planter last year. Wifey wanted the space for some more basil (we eat it faster than it grows)
If I'm really lucky I can enjoy some garlic bread.
If I'm really lucky I can enjoy some garlic bread.
It's too late for a pic. It's all gone.
With my Candy Roaster Squash that Devoured Georgia--it's a "winter" squash, I robbed the cradle, and picked an 8" x 1" baby. I sliced it, and added it to some freshly harvested, cut-up green beans, a sliced onion and a garlic clove. Simmered for 1 hour with olive oil, lemon juice and a piece of pork fat (from the freezer). I drained half into a bowl, added a hunk of butter and a slice of American cheese, which both melted completely.
The squash was perfectly firm and tasty. The whole mixture was delicious. I still have half of the simmered veggies left in the pot, for a different recipe tomorrow.
Bob
With my Candy Roaster Squash that Devoured Georgia--it's a "winter" squash, I robbed the cradle, and picked an 8" x 1" baby. I sliced it, and added it to some freshly harvested, cut-up green beans, a sliced onion and a garlic clove. Simmered for 1 hour with olive oil, lemon juice and a piece of pork fat (from the freezer). I drained half into a bowl, added a hunk of butter and a slice of American cheese, which both melted completely.
The squash was perfectly firm and tasty. The whole mixture was delicious. I still have half of the simmered veggies left in the pot, for a different recipe tomorrow.
Bob
GreenDragon
Well-Known Member
My two pear trees will be ready to harvest in about 3 to 4 weeks.
Bob
Looks like you are in for a record harvest this year! What are you going to do with all of them? I’m not familiar with the varieties. Are they eatin’ pears (soft) or cookin’ (hard) pears as we say in the Deep South?
My in-laws had hard pears in their yard and I would show up with a couple of 5 gallon buckets to help thin out the crop. I would make half into pear preserves and the other half I would peel, core, and slice, add sugar, spices, and tapioca, and freeze in gallon bags to use as pie filling. Thaw, dump in a pie crust and bake! I miss those trees.
I've never heard of "hard pears". They are harvested when a thumb senses a slight softness at the shoulder. They then must be ripened at room temperature, prior to refrigeration. If allowed to fully ripen on the tree, the center will be brown and soggy. If a pear does not drip onto your chin when you bite it, then it is not yet ripe.
My last big harvest was about 2 bushels, and I didn't even climb a ladder to pick the high ones. I purchase peck baskets from the corner store, then give away pears to my neighbors. I still end up with about a bushel to eat raw or make into jam or whatever. I offered a bushel to the local food bank, but they wanted me to load them into my car, drive them over, and unload them. No dice.
Bob
My last big harvest was about 2 bushels, and I didn't even climb a ladder to pick the high ones. I purchase peck baskets from the corner store, then give away pears to my neighbors. I still end up with about a bushel to eat raw or make into jam or whatever. I offered a bushel to the local food bank, but they wanted me to load them into my car, drive them over, and unload them. No dice.
Bob
Yes indeed. It is possible for us to kill anything that moves.
We nearly succeeded in erasing the bison and the pronghorn from our western lands. On my road trip last month, I was able to show my 12 year old grandson a handful of bisons grazing. The pronghorns that usually graze near the eastern New Mexico border seemed to be MIA. I was also able to show him a Grand Canyon. Yup. The Grand Canyon is still there, but only because of the Sierra Club's frantic activities in the 1960s. We nearly lost it forever. We clever folks (and the powerful, western water interests) were dead set on more hydroelectric dams inside the Grand Canyon, which would have transformed it into a chain of lakes. (Even without those additional dams, the Colorado River dries up before it reaches the ocean.) But it was only the Sierra Club that brought that idiotic plan to the attention of the public. [Our government attempted to crush them in response, by sicking the IRS on them. Oooh. Citizens didn't like that at all. IRS vs. the Grand Canyon! So the Canyon won that fight.]
The world that we love is weaker than the collective power of humanity.
I plant extra veggies for the critters. I enjoy watching the groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels, deer, foxes, raptors, and a vast host of songbirds that reside in and around my property. I have a particular hummingbird who pauses (hovers) to visit me on my porch each day, even when nothing is in bloom--I never put out a "feeder". And one monarch butterfly (his name is Mo) has reappeared on my porch for a number of consecutive years now.
Bob
We nearly succeeded in erasing the bison and the pronghorn from our western lands. On my road trip last month, I was able to show my 12 year old grandson a handful of bisons grazing. The pronghorns that usually graze near the eastern New Mexico border seemed to be MIA. I was also able to show him a Grand Canyon. Yup. The Grand Canyon is still there, but only because of the Sierra Club's frantic activities in the 1960s. We nearly lost it forever. We clever folks (and the powerful, western water interests) were dead set on more hydroelectric dams inside the Grand Canyon, which would have transformed it into a chain of lakes. (Even without those additional dams, the Colorado River dries up before it reaches the ocean.) But it was only the Sierra Club that brought that idiotic plan to the attention of the public. [Our government attempted to crush them in response, by sicking the IRS on them. Oooh. Citizens didn't like that at all. IRS vs. the Grand Canyon! So the Canyon won that fight.]
The world that we love is weaker than the collective power of humanity.
I plant extra veggies for the critters. I enjoy watching the groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels, deer, foxes, raptors, and a vast host of songbirds that reside in and around my property. I have a particular hummingbird who pauses (hovers) to visit me on my porch each day, even when nothing is in bloom--I never put out a "feeder". And one monarch butterfly (his name is Mo) has reappeared on my porch for a number of consecutive years now.
Bob
Moth
Well-Known Member
Except caterpillars /s
I have no issue with killing things that I need to kill.
Bob
Bob
Alpine
Moderator
Ha... my nemesis are (darn) grasshoppers! I am a conscious hunter, but when it comes to grasshoppers... I readily turn into a mad slayer.
pier
pier
This is my largest specimen this season, but they will continue to grow in size for at least another few weeks. I don't get really excited about winter squash, but it's easy to grow, and it's food.
These onions were planted from starts, for use as green salad onions. I kind of let them get away from me. So now I have a dozen or so large, yellow onions.
Bob
Saving Okra Seed
If you plant okra, and grow weary of eating it during the season--it can be depressingly prolific when it decides to be, you can simply ignore it. "I'm letting it produce seed."
In 2018, deer munched away my okra. I harvested, if I'm not mistaken, maybe 3 or 4 pods the entire season. These were happily sliced up and cooked in stews, well buried by all the other ingredients.
In an attempt to outsmart the crafty deer, I planted 10 okra plants for 2019. The deer destroyed 4 of them shortly after they came up. But soon, the huge, scratchy and discouraging leaves of my Georgia Candy Roaster squash guarded the remaining okra. The okra plants raised their eyebrows, smiled at one another, then had a party by simply growing taller than the squash leaves.
Yay! I had okra. And I had okra. And I had more okra. After a while, I just ran out of creative ways to prepare it. Or, truth be told, I just plain grew sick of eating it. So I pretended that the tasty 3-inch green pods were not growing larger and longer and woodier every day.
Today, more than half-way through September, two months of ignoring the okra came to an end. I clipped the now 6-7" wooden pods, and split them open.
The daunting pods split easily, and the rows of large, round seeds just dump right out. They can retain their viability for up to 4 years.
Bob
If you plant okra, and grow weary of eating it during the season--it can be depressingly prolific when it decides to be, you can simply ignore it. "I'm letting it produce seed."
In 2018, deer munched away my okra. I harvested, if I'm not mistaken, maybe 3 or 4 pods the entire season. These were happily sliced up and cooked in stews, well buried by all the other ingredients.
In an attempt to outsmart the crafty deer, I planted 10 okra plants for 2019. The deer destroyed 4 of them shortly after they came up. But soon, the huge, scratchy and discouraging leaves of my Georgia Candy Roaster squash guarded the remaining okra. The okra plants raised their eyebrows, smiled at one another, then had a party by simply growing taller than the squash leaves.
Yay! I had okra. And I had okra. And I had more okra. After a while, I just ran out of creative ways to prepare it. Or, truth be told, I just plain grew sick of eating it. So I pretended that the tasty 3-inch green pods were not growing larger and longer and woodier every day.
Today, more than half-way through September, two months of ignoring the okra came to an end. I clipped the now 6-7" wooden pods, and split them open.
The daunting pods split easily, and the rows of large, round seeds just dump right out. They can retain their viability for up to 4 years.
Bob
GreenDragon
Well-Known Member
I’m the only one in my house that will eat it. Three plants in the square foot garden supplied all my needs last year. The wife wouldn’t let me plant any this year though. I actually had to buy it! 
MadFarmer
Well-Known Member
Have you tried roasting and grinding the seeds to use as a coffee alternative? I'm interested, but my neighbor's trash trees kept my summer garden from producing.
My alternative to real coffee is Walmart Great Value Traditional Roast.
I did a burn test on a woody fragment of a dried pod earlier today. It seemed kind of acrid. But that was the pod. So just now, I burned one of the seeds. I gives off a rich, roasty aroma that vaguely resembles coffee. It might work...if you don't expect any caffeine.
Although I didn't collect all of the dried pods, the whole bunch would have amounted to only about a third of a cup of seed. But its aroma seems like it would go a lot further than a similar weight of roasted coffee beans.
Bob
MadFarmer
Well-Known Member
If it were me, and I wanted caffeine, I'd toast some yaupon holly leaves and grind them with the seeds. I think yaupon holly is the only caffeine producing plant native to North America. I have plans for next summer's garden that involve a few different varieties of okra, and stuffing the leaves like grape leaves in dolma.
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