Carrot Harvest

We picked all of our carrots today.  We had really good germination and growth rates.  Our total harvested weight was 30-40 pounds with the tops. 

Summer carrot harvest

 I surprised Debbie by coming to the house with the entire bunch on my shoulder.  As we were processing them outside, Debbie couldn't resist the urge to make vegetable soup for dinner.  It smells so good in the house right now.  Fresh garlic, onions, zucchini, squash, carrots, green beans, and canned tomatoes from last year.

We also had some more zucchini and squash to pick.  We will cut some of the squash and zucchini up and freeze for the winter.  We also like to shred the zucchini and freeze it that way for making zucchini bread all winter long.

Zucchini and squash harvest

Now I will wait 3 weeks and plant 256 more carrots for a fall harvest.  The fall ones have been a lot sweeter carrot for us. 

Zucchini, Squash, and Beans - Oh My

It has been 1 week since our first bean harvest.  Our first week of harvesting beans has netted us 35 pints of beans.  And that was during a week where the temperature was regularly above 90 and hit 98 several times.  The high temps meant harvesting beans at dusk and once with a headlamp after the sun went down.  The cool thing about beans is that if you continue to harvest them religiously every 2-3 days, you will be rewarded with more beans.

We've been getting 4-5 large zucchinis every 2-3 days as well.  And now that the crooked neck squash is coming in as well, I think we'll be having some veggie only meals.  Our peppers look great and are just coming into harvest with 1 or 2 ready to pick.  Also our cucumbers have produced several fruits.  Too bad there aren't any tomatoes ready yet so Debbie can make a tomato and cucumber salad (for herself).  But I'm not going to cry about the tomatoes not being ready yet because in a few weeks it will be crazy in the garden.

Besides the beans, the onions are all out of the ground now and drying in the barn.  I have a 36" barn fan set on low to keep the dry air moving around them.

The garlic is done drying and ready for storage.  Debbie tasted it raw last night and couldn't believe how much stronger it was than the stuff she was buying at the store.  In order to plant 256 heads in the fall, we will only have about 4-5 heads for eating this year.  But then in 2 years from now, I should have enough to grow 1/2 acre.

Tomorrow I will pick about 75% of the carrots.  The rest aren't quite ready yet.  I've picked 2 test carrots and they were beautiful.  8-9 inches long, 1 inch in diameter, and very sweet.