Monday, September 1, 2014

Weekly Harvest - Welcome September


As Summer slowly fades, the pace of harvesting and preserving increases. Each week it seems more and more of the fruits and vegetables in the kitchen garden are ripening and needing immediate attention. This week, for the first time, I had ripe tomatoes on all five plants. I was able to pick a platers worth to bring into work and share. I pretty much stripped the "Bloody Butcher" plant of all of its fruits. This might be the end of the harvest for that variety. But it started producing back on July 14th so I can't complain. It has been a nice, early variety for me. In contrast, I was able to pick the very first two "Indigo" Amethyst Jewel Cherry tomatoes this week. They are a shocking hot pink color with dark purple shoulders. Unfortunately, the initial review back on them was less than stellar. "Bland" and "Tasteless" were my co-worker's thoughts on this new cherry. Maybe it will improve as the season progresses. Here is this week's tomato harvest:
  • "Bloody Butcher" - 19 fruit - 1 lbs. .4 oz
  • "Moonglow" - 1 fruit - 7.5 oz
  • "Indigo" Amethyst Jewel Cherry - 2 fruit - 2.8 oz
  • "Bumblebee" Sunrise Cherry - 11 fruit - 4 oz.
  • "Black Plum" - 12 fruit - 12.1 oz.


I spent part of Sunday harvesting my main onion crop. The "Candy" sweet onions have been ready to pull for a while but the weather has been so hot and dry they were just fine staying in the ground. The tops on the "Frontier" yellow storage onions had fallen over recently, so it was time for them to come out now too.


I planted 15 "Frontier" yellow storage onions back on April 30th. All 15 plants settled in and grew well. The largest onion in today's harvest weighed 11.7 oz and the smallest was 6.7 oz. The average onion size was 8.29 oz and my total  "Frontier" harvest was 7 lbs. 12.4 oz.

I had planted 12 "Candy" sweet onions in April and still had 11 of them in the ground today. The largest onion was 9.2 oz and the smallest was 4.1 oz. The average size onion was 6.9 oz. and my total "Candy" crop weighed 5 lbs. 2.8 oz.

6 comments:

David Velten said...

The Bumblebee toamtoes are really cute, and the Black Plum. How do they taste? I tried Balck Pear this year and It did fine. And really nice onion harvest. Everyone is growing Candy so I may have to try those next year.

Daphne Gould said...

Those are really pretty onions. Mine usually have a lot more dirt on them. I try to clean them off when I bring them in, but I'm not always successful.

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

Interesting comments on the Indigo tomato. I grew the Indigo Rose when it first came out and I was not impressed at all. Now they have a whole line of Indigo tomatoes they have bred, but I am not tempted after my experience with Indigo Rose.

Stoney Acres said...

Your Onions look great!! Our weather was so weird this year that our crop was made up of a bunch of small onions. So I'm glad to see someone getting a few large ones!!

Margaret said...

My Bloody Butcher plants are pretty much done as well - I think I have only a few very small tomatoes left on them. Completely agree that they are worth it as they were producing at least a couple of weeks before any other variety. Beautiful onions - love the colouring on the Frontier and they got to a really nice size too.

Eight Gate Farm NH said...

Lovely onions and tomatoes. I like to learn about experiences with your crops, good and bad.