Harvest Goal

It's July and the Fruit and Veg Harvest tally is ticking along! I'm not sure if I ever formally announced my harvest goal for the year. Last year I did 180lbs of food. So my goal this year will be (drum roll, please) 350lbs of food!

More strawberries today, but still not enough for jam. I collapsed the holes where the varmint comes up to steal berries so I can figure out which one(s) to place traps by. By the size of the holes and teeth marks on the strawberries, I'm thinking the rat trap is in order.

The apples are a little larger than golf ball size now. The Alkemene tree is so loaded, even with thinning the apples out to 6" or more, I'm going to have to prop up a branch or two. The tree was weakened a bit from all the wet snow we had late in the year. I did go out and brush it off the tree at the time. It was bending terribly, so I'm glad I thought of it. One neighbor lost a huge branch off their 15+ year old flowering cherry.

Unfortunately, the cherries were a wash this year. The cold, damp spring inhibited pollination, and many cherries succumbed to fungus. I'll just have to get them from the farmers' market, or mooch off a neighbor. His always do really well.

I missed the boat on the broccoli. I have a really hard time deciding when the head is big enough, and I wait too long. Tomorrow I'll chop off the flowering heads and harvest any side shoots.

Lots of thunder today, but little in the way of rain. Too bad. I love a good thunderstorm, and the yard could use some water.