Harvest Monday: July 9th

 Harvest Monday is brought to you by Daphne's Dandelions and by the letter Pea.  Harvest Monday is a chance to share your harvests and what you do with them with other gardeners and bloggers around the world.

The letter Pea!  Sugar snaps are almost done, the sudden heat is stopping flowering a mere two weeks after it began.

 This week's harvests were outstanding, as I said in my previous post the past week has yielded about 10 lbs of produce.

Small cabbage, onions and carrots.

 The week started out slim with the same old onions and carrots I've been picking for weeks.  After peeling away the layers of nibbled on leaves from the cabbage I ended up with a softball sized head.  Hooray! My husband is going to explode if he eats much more coleslaw.

Graffiti cauliflower and snow peas.

 Next up were the purple cauliflower, I let them go a bit too long trying to get larger heads.  They are a little loose but still delicious.  The snow peas were outstanding last year and they look like they might be just as great this year.  While i eat the sugar snaps for snacks and in salads, i like to blanch and save the snow peas for winter eating in cooked dishes. 

Last big harvest, straight out of the garden...

Last big harvest after rinsing and trimming.

 My largest harvest this week was a mad dash to pull the remaining cauliflower before the heat ruined them, as well as any remaining carrots that were large enough to eat, a few lettuces beginning to bolt, and the final meager harvest of strawberries.  Also pictured are another small cabbage, some fresh sage, a quart of snow peas, and a decent handful of sugar snap peas.  I still have the larger Derby Day cabbages remaining in the garden, and tons of onions, and of course more peas.  For the most part though all of the Spring crops are finished now.

Mina's garden.

 On a final note, I broke down and spent more money on the garden.  I bought two large felt pots from Bountiful Backyard, after seeing how cute they were on Granny's blog.  One says Mina's Garden and the other Alex's garden.  I am such a garden hog and micro-manager that I take up all the plantable soil with my veggies, so I figured it would be nice to give the kids their own small garden spaces to plant whatever they want in.

Mina decided on some medicinal plants: vervain, lemon balm, lobelia, yarrow, chamomile, echinacea and calendula.  Alex will be planting his later today with a giant Sweet 100 tomato and likely, more carrots, and maybe some nasturtiums or other flowers.

Hope everyone finds great ways to have fun in the heat this week!

Alex and Dad enjoying a 4th of July hike