Topic: kale
We're going to have a frost any day now, and I'm leaving town soon for a couple of weeks, so it's time to harvest everything I can. The Evans (Bali) cherry trees had a good fruit set this year, but they did not all ripen. I've been picking the ripe fruit for a couple of weeks, but 2 days ago I picked every full sized cherry. They are ripening on the counter in an open plastic bag, and I go through them each day and select out the ripe ones to eat. I like them best fresh, but they're supposed to be pie cherries (they are tart).
I harvested 50 potatoes from a round bin about 3 feet across that I placed on my back deck. The potatoes did better than usual, I believe, because I used fish pellets (Organic Alaska brand). Potatoes seem to be hungry. I have black beauty, peanut, and yukon gold.
The carrots that I grew from seed outside are small, three to six inches long. A friend gave me some she started indoors, and they grew full size, but the ends were curled around because I didn't get them transplanted straight. I grew a mix of colors.
It was a good year for Swiss chard, cool and rainy. I've been harvesting and eating it, I've never tried freezing it.
The Red Russian kale and dinosaur kale were my best performers. The collards did well but the ones grown from seed outside didn't achieve their full size - they need to be started early indoors to do best.
There is still good lettuce in the garden. For some reason the slugs have not destroyed it this year, for the first time. Maybe it was too cold for the slugs? I'm not going to even be able to eat it all, but it's too small to give away.
