Harvest Monday - November 29, 2010

Swiss chard, radish, kumquat, Napa cabbage.

We had our first snow shower yesterday, it's cold and windy here, I haven't been checking and working the garden lately except to give the plants some water.   Some of the veggies have been frost bitten, this maybe the last harvest of Swiss chard for the year,  I'm letting it overwinter under row cover and see how far I can push it.  Growing undercover are spinach, mustard, bok choy, Napa, savoy cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, Romano cauliflower, turnips, radish, carrots, and some green onions.  I'll have to work on getting the garlic in this weekend before the weather turns really nasty, that's all I have for now until next week.

Harvest for the week:

Napa cabbage 4.25 lb

Radish 0.53 lb

Swiss chard 0.51 lb

Total harvest this week:  5.29 lb


Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, head over there to see more garden harvests.

Harvest Monday - November 22, 2010

Napa Cabbage

Whew~~~no cabbage worms!

Shanghai Bok Choy and Green Daikon Radish

This week's harvest:
Napa cabbage 5.7 lb

Daikon radish 1.2 lb
Bok choy 0.38 lb

Total for the week:   7.28 lb


Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions head over there to see more garden harvests.

The Huntington

Conservatory for Botanical Science

Galleries of American Art

North Vista Art Gallery Garden

Conservation and Research Center

The Huntington Library

Bookstore

I'll take you through The Huntington botanical gardens in the coming weeks, in the mean time you can read about The Huntington here.

Wordless

The Blue Boy 

(Huntington Gallery)

Pinkie

(Huntington Gallery)

The Grand Canal

(Huntington Gallery)

Huntington Gallery

Huntington Gallery

Harvest Monday - November 8, 2010

Young ginger roots can be pickled or use in stir fry.
(These young roots cost about $6.99/lb at local Asian markets.)

Napa cabbage, Chinese mustard greens, Swiss chard,

Kohlrabi, Tokyo Cross turnips, Chinese radishes.

The ginger roots have survived night temps of high 20s in the past few days, I'm pleasantly surprised at how cold hardy they were for tropical plants, I decided not to push my luck any further and ended the experiment. 

Here's what I learned from growing culinary ginger -- it does not liked high intensity sunlight of our region, it prefers filter light and shade; it is comfortable to be on the cool side, but temperatures in the 90s or above fries the leaves at high altitude environment. 

I grew the gingers in three different locations:

A) In raised bed with full sun exposure -- I got a tiny unusable root and dry brittle leaves.

B) In a container with 6 hrs of morning sun -- it didn't do well, the leaves never unfolded and stay twisted, no significant growth and not worth digging up the roots (if any), I'm overwintering this one indoor to monitor its behavior through winter and spring.

C) In a container with 6 hrs of filter morning sunlight and afternoon shade -- it did very well, the roots in the above picture were from this container. 

Harvest for the week:

Lemons 0.7 lb

Lettuce 0.2 lb

Napa cabbage 3.1 lb

Mustard greens 2.1 lb

Swiss chard 1.5 lb

Turnips 0.25 lb

Radishes 0.84 lb

Kohlrabi 0.69 lb

Ginger 1.15 lb

Total  10.53 lb

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, head over there to see more garden harvests.

Pork Ribs Daikon Carrot Soup 青紅蘿蔔湯

Green daikon, carrots, baby back ribs.

Wordless

Micro Mini Roses

Harvest Monday - November 1, 2010

Meyer lemons and green daikons (Chinese radish).

Edible chrysanthemum flowers.

Chrysanthemum tea flowers (ju hua 菊花)

Lately I've been picking these flowers every morning to dry for tea.

Mustard, Kohlrabi, Turnips

Shanghai Green Stem Bok Choy

This week's harvest:

Meyer lemons 2.53 lb

Green daikon 1 lb

Chayotes (final) 1.23 lb

Total for the week 4.76 lb

Drop by Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see more garden harvests.