After the planting season and the tender loving care we give, next phase is the harvest. Read on to see what we got from our no dig summer garden harvest.
I have been intending to write about our harvest since about 3 weeks, but so many unexpected projects around the house and garden kept creeping up. We could accomplish a lot in these past weeks. My husband did a lot of Diy around the house and the garden. I was as usual busy reorganizing, cleaning and canning. The summer vacations just flew by and its almost autumn now with falling temperatures around here.
All our Diy’s need a separate post by itself, its really very interesting and useful too. Now, I really have to stop boring you with more details. Let me get to the bottom of this post.
If you want to skip the post and watch the video, click on the link below.
OUR SUMMER VEGETABLE GARDEN
We planted heirloom seeds in spring due to the shutdowns and all. Our no dig summer garden harvest was successful with some of the vegetables and some were almost negligible. We had a relatively cooler summer as a result some of the special plants didn’t thrive as we hoped.
Its such a gamble with some of the plants, we probably took them out of the green house too early and they were slow in catching up outside that environment. Because of the wrong timing and the lack of enough warm days, these vegetables didn’t do that well. We have given up on a couple of them.
Well we have a few successes this year. Since its learning and experimenting as we go along with the flow.
NO DIG SUMMER HARVEST SUCCESS
HARVESTING ONIONS
We planted a couple of onion varieties, the red and the regular white one. Since it was a wet summer, the onions got plenty of water and they grew to a good size compared to last year. We also planted them in a different location and that has helped.
We choose a really sunny and hot day to harvest because, after harvesting you have to let them dry a little on the ground before storing inside. The above photos show the harvest.
NO DIG GARDEN POTATO HARVEST
As always we planted potatoes because everyone here loves potatoes and they are usually easy to grow in this climate. The trick to planting and growing potatoes is to never plant them in the same patch. You will have to rotate the patches once in 2 years. Well this year we planted a few varieties other than Charlotte potatoes.
We harvested the potatoes in batches. Since this was our main storage crop. It is best to wait until the foliage turns yellow, then cut and remove it. Leave it for 10 days before harvesting the tubers. Dry them for a few hours before storing.
Storing in jute bags in a cool, dark and dry place is good. We used to store them in wooden crates usually. But these crates were all over the place in the cellar, so we made a nice storage unit.
One of our projects was to make a potato storage unit in our cellar for long term potato and pumpkin storage. The key to storing potatoes is to never store them along with onions or apples. I know it is tempting to store them in the same cellar and shelves to maximize space. But the onions and apples will emit ethylene gas which will hasten the ripening of potatoes and that they start forming shoots.
CHILLI HARVEST
Since chilies need a warmer climate, we planted a few in our greenhouse. We planted only heirloom chilies and planted half of the green house with chilies and bell peppers. The chilies are really producing better than the bell peppers this year.
Looks like we planted the extremely hot variety. I don’t know the name of this chili. While they were still green, I made Indian pickles out of it. Next I fermented the green ones and made fermented chili sauce too. We now let the chilies ripen and I fermented them again and made a fermented hot chili sauce. Will try to post that recipe soon. We are now trying to sundry a small batch for later use.
MORE SUMMER GARDEN VEGETABLE HARVEST
Some of the other vegetables we harvested so far are lots of cucumbers, lettuces, spinach, salad radishes, zucchinis, herbs and the usual Rhubarb. In addition to that we harvested a lot of strawberries ( less than last year though ). Some blue berries, and Physalis in the green house.
We had a great cucumber harvest and I fermented about half of the harvest. The lacto-fermented cucumbers are a great snack and also served as a side dish. We could also share the cucumbers with our neighbors.
At the beginning, it didn’t look we will have much to harvest, but towards mid of July and August I have been cooking only what we grow. We could also harvest our first pumpkin.
With fall temperatures creeping on us, we have the fall garden harvest to look forward to. My husband started planting the fall garden vegetables last week.
YOUR FEEDBACK IS VALUABLE
Are you also growing your own food, considering the turbulent times with the supply chain shortages for food ? If you have been growing your own veggies, I would love to hear from you tips on gardening.
Thank you for taking the time to read our no dig garden summer harvest post. Leave me a comment, I’d really love to know! Also Tag me on Instagram @swisshomegardenofficial
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