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Harvest Monday - July 12, 2010

Posted on July 12, 2010 at 12:12 AM

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s interesting to see what everyone else is harvesting from gardens in many different regions.                   

 

       

 

     

   

        

 

       

 

The pea patch was picked late on Sunday afternoon after I returned home from a road trip to Spokane.   I stripped the entire patch and got 13 pounds of peas which is just a little less from the same size bed last year.           

    

Before the harvest....                                            

            

 

 

And after the harvest...                                          

           

     

 

 

    

      

The three of us watched a movie Sunday evening and together shelled the peas.   We got 4 ½ pounds of shelled peas from the harvest.                  

     

     

   

I then blanched them for 90 seconds and bagged them up in gallon zip lock freezer bags – 2 ¼ pounds per bag.   These went into the freezer for winter use.                                                                

          

      

 

Harvest totals for the week of July 5th through July 11th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).                                    

                      

Broccoli 1.25 lbs

Celery 1.00 lbs

Onions 0.25 lbs

Peas (regular) 13.00 lbs

Peas (sugar snap) 1.00 lbs

Zucchini 1.25 lbs                          

            

Total 17.75 lbs            

 

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Categories: Harvesting, Preserving, Vegetables

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16 Comments

Reply Thomas
08:32 AM on July 12, 2010 
That's a lot of shell peas. I've decided to grow more for next year since they were so incredibly sweet and tasty. Definitely requires a bit more work than snow peas but well worth it.
Reply vrtlarica
09:45 AM on July 12, 2010 
Wonderful pea harvest! Your fingers must hurt from all the shelling. I don?t blanch peas, just freeze them. Taste is perfect.
Reply Allison
12:10 PM on July 12, 2010 
WOW - the peas!
Reply villager
02:21 PM on July 12, 2010 
I've shelled many a batch of peas while watching tv. Of course I get them all over the place while doing it!
Reply Daphne
02:31 PM on July 12, 2010 
That is a lot of peas to shell. I'm the same way with beans. I turn on the TV and watch something to make the shelling go faster.
Reply Jeana
03:42 PM on July 12, 2010 
That is a very nice harvest! I would like to try growing peas if I can find some more room around the yard.
Reply Michelle
04:05 PM on July 12, 2010 
I can't believe that amazing bucket of peas! That is so worth the effort of shelling them. And the rest of the harvest looks great too.
Reply Lori
04:23 PM on July 12, 2010 
Wow! I've never seen that many peas! Pretty impressive with all of them sitting there in the bucket. Like the before and after pics of your peas. Thanks for sharing!
~~Lori
Reply thyme2garden
10:06 PM on July 12, 2010 
I'm with Lori, I don't think I've been that many peas before. This is what happens when you grow up in a city thinking that peas always come neatly packaged in 1 lb bags in the freezer section. Thanks for posting the before and after pictures of your pea patch. I'm always curious to see what the actual garden looks like where all these glorious harvests come from, so this was a real treat! Your broccoli looks really great, too.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
11:50 PM on July 12, 2010 
Thomas - I grow a big patch because this is our winter supply of shelled peas. I could really grow even more because we always have to ration them out to not gobble them up in the first two months of the winter!

vrtlarica - All three of us were glad to get down to the last pea pod in our piles!

Allison - I love the feel of the bowl of shelled peas - almost like running your hands through treasure!

villager - I found a pea pod under the edge of the couch this evening and expect we will find a few stray peas in odd places for the next several days. :D

Daphne - I always feel guilty about watching tv unless I am "doing something" at the same time - folding clean clothes, shelling peas, and snapping green beans are some of my favorite things to do while watching some tv or a movie.

Jeana - They are a wonderful crop but do require a fair amount of space to get enough to really make it worth your while. If space is at a premium, I would grow sugar snap peas before I grew shelling peas - as they produce more per square feet of growing area used.

Michelle - They are definitely worth the shelling process. Since I am able to recruit my husband and daughter's help in shelling them each year - it really makes the task much more manageable.

Lori - I am glad the before and after pics were of interest to you. I wanted to give folks a sense of the size of the patch and what it produces. I also wanted to show that I do one harvest - removing the plants and stripping them of the pods at the same time. I use my horizontal support system and a garden area measuring 4 feet by 12 feet to get the kind of harvest you see here.

thyme2garden - It truly can be a real learning process to get more actively involved in your own food production. I think it is one of the most rewarding things we can do for ourselves and our families - and it is a lot of fun as well!
Reply mac
12:18 AM on July 13, 2010 
Whoa, lots of work to shell those peas, lovely harvest.
I like how your horizontal trellis and raised bed system work together.
Reply Dan
07:54 PM on July 13, 2010 
That is one nice pea harvest! I think I ended up with one of your shell peas too. I thought that doesn't look like a snap pea, ha.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
11:03 PM on July 13, 2010 
mac - I definitely increased my yields by switching to the horizontal trellis. I think I am going to work on improving the design over the winter as my annual "shop project".

Dan - Oops! Maybe I got some cross pollination on my saved peas?!
Reply Matron
02:05 PM on July 14, 2010 
That is a lot of peas to sit down and shell in one session! I just did a couple of portions at a time and that takes long enough! It will be worth it though, in the middle of Winter when you get that fresh home grown taste.
Reply Mike
08:52 AM on July 15, 2010 
It looks as though you timed the pea harvest perfectly and what a fine harvest it was. I am going to start picking some of ours tonight. One of my favorite meals is pea soup with homemade bread in the middle of winter.

I had to smile when you said that you watched a movie while shelling peas...we often leave the shelling of peas or processing of beans for later in the evening while watching a movie.:)
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
01:08 AM on July 16, 2010 
Matron - Peas are one of the joys of the home garden, so much better than what can be purchased.

Mike - I have not had pea soup in a very long while and it sounds good now that you mention it! Is there any other way to snap peas or shell pea than to watch a movie while doing it?!