Monday, June 4, 2012

It's Monday and I found 12 lbs to fill it with.

Happy Harvesting everyone!

The lettuce bed was a bit thick lately. A number of it was bolting and more than bitter. It was about time to clean it up, mulch it, and get it ready to plant something else. As I currently see it, that will be the Dino kales from the east garden. They should become more prolific in the sunny front. At least this is the hope!

8lbs 14.3 oz of lettuce. Of which half was so bitter and bolted to be non-useable. It headed to the compost pile. Sad to see it not being consumed. We tried. It was just too much salad to keep up with. Plus Michigan has had a string of hot weather. Weather is rather wonky this year. Lack of winter etc. You all know what I mean. You have lived it.

Still adding the total amount to the yearly count as its not the beds fault that I didn't bother to use it. It was produced. Just "wasted". That is the whole point to the tally of course. Seeing how much the beds will produce through what actions are being done to them. Giving us a direction for when we purchase that acre and build the Stay at Home Farm. Sipping tea with a cool breeze....hanging out by the solar array. Cat jumping through the air in an attempt to catch the white cabbage moths. *dreams*

Well, not really dreaming as its bound to happen relatively soon. IE year or two. At least that is the plan.

In addition to the lettuce there was 3 lbs 1oz of red kale. This will be turned into dinner tonight. :) That should be enough "stimulation" to shoot the plants back into over-drive.

How did the day turn out for all of you?

- Cloud

Kiki and the 9 lbs lettuce Harvest
3 lbs Red Russian Kale

19 comments:

  1. Have you tried to offer it to local people? you'd be surprised by the demand level once they know about it :) I've been feeding people in my office all spring with all extra greens :)

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    1. I probably should have bothered to think about it more. That is, at the point when realizing that we are unable to eat most of it. It should have dawned then to push it off onto the neighbors. :D

      I might still do that with a few heads as there is still 5lbs of it to be eaten....

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  2. Man, and I thought I grew a lot of lettuce! I harvested nearly 59 pounds of it in 2011, and only weighed what was actually consumed. Of course, we had the pet rabbit then and he ate a lot of it, and I gave a lot of it to my two sons. I'm trying to restrain my lettuce growing a bit this year. Uh, should I mention I just bought three planters for the patio....to plant more lettuce?

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    1. LOL. Funny, Granny. Well, all I can say is that this was from the seed flat of lettuces in the basement in january. Most of them decided to live and suddenly they became prolific. Headed up and poof. Simply couldn't keep up. It wasn't for trying! I'm going on a limb here to say we ate salad 4-5 days a week.

      It was primarily mizuna based though. Then we started noticing all the others heading up etc.

      59 pounds is a lot of lettuce! Is that just lettuce or greens of all sorts?? This was the last pulling of them and it comes near to 12 lbs worth. I'm really happy with the red kale production as well. It is an abundant plant if you give it a breather for a week or plant enough of them.

      Don't worry. In the short first season of the 2012 garden I have already figured out what to do next time. Plant whole beds of things so they can be cut and come again before bolting. Namely the spinach. Also entire beds of beets etc. Im not sure why I left the other beds fallow so long. We could have harvested things by the time the tomatoes and peppers we put down. Or even the cabbage planted. Go figure. :D

      Just wait until I get an acre to play with, Granny!

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    2. Perhaps we should get a chinchilla....

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    3. No, that was all lettuce. I kept a spread sheet of each day's individual crop harvests, along with the totals. It looks like my largest one day lettuce harvest was 51 ounces in 2011:

      https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjgTZYcA2NTGdDJtWlZDX29wcFM3RHc2VHJ0YzQzX1E


      I'm keeping my 2012 totals here:

      https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjgTZYcA2NTGdEY0T081a1JqaThJTWp3MXA2WnFpc3c#gid=0

      If you scroll to the bottom you can see a comparison of 2009-2010-2011 and current year totals, which are in pounds harvested.

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  3. My lettuce days are done until fall too. It just gets so bitter- yuck. You may need a vermicomposting bin to feed that lettuce too. That way at least someone eats it ;)

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  4. Good lord that's a lot of lettuce. We couldn't even eat that much here with 2 adults, 1 teen boy and 2 young boys.

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  5. Wow! That's a lot of green! How wonderful to have such a bountiful harvest!!! I've moved away from planting so much lettuce in favor of spinach and kale since I can preserve them when they're in abundance :-)

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    1. That sounds to me like a very good approach as well!

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    2. What preferred method of preservation do you utilize? Freezing? I would suspect that.

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    3. We definitely freeze it. When Belle's in a hurry she blanches and throws it in a ziplock for future use.

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  6. Jane is right, compost worms or ..... bunny rabbits! They are great at eating extra produce and turn it into lovely manure for the compost pile in return. :)

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    1. Rabbits would be neat to have on a small acre plot. :)

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    2. Seems at odds those to have them to eat the extra produce. Giving manure to compost. On the other side, erecting fencing all over the place to keep out the native ones.

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  7. It breaks my heart when gorgeous lettuce goes bitter? I also tend to grow more than we can eat. Ours tends to harbor earwigs so I am reluctant to share with neighbors. I am pretty sure they would freak out if they found bugs hiding in the base of their lettuce.

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    1. *shudders* I might be reluctant for the lettuce with the wigs as well. :) Have yet to cross that bridge, but yes, a bitter and yet gorgeous healthy lettuce plant is quite a shame!

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