Transitioning From Planting/Mulching to Harvesting

 

Finally, after one early morning session with our garden, I feel as if we are finally caught up with it and can sit back and relax a bit. As you can see above, we have mulched more of it to keep the weeds at bay and to preserve the moisture which has been lacking for the last two weeks and is not predicted in the upcoming two weeks of forecasts. The straw is thin in spots where we replanted some okra that failed to come up earlier this spring and some newly transferred eggplants from the greenhouse. The unmulched square in the back right corner is where our late sweetcorn patch was planted. Once they sprout up to where I can see the rows, I'll mulch them too along with around the eggplant and okra and then we will be done except for the reaping which is the part I really enjoy.

Speaking of reaping, I bought two different types of potatoes to plant this year. Some golden ones which don't store well for new potatoes and some red ones that store a lot better that will hopefully last well into winter in our basement. We were pondering how long we should wait for the new potatoes and eventually decided to just pull up a potato plant and see. As you can see, they are already a bit beyond new potato size and so we will start harvesting them as we need them from here on out. I love to roast them in the oven with other root vegetables to go along with our meals. Occasionally, we will cut some up into fries for the girls using the mandolin or dice them and use them in Filipino dishes like torta which is a dish of sauteed beef, diced potatoes and carrots along with some other spices that is served over a bed of steamed white rice and is like a comfort food.