summer bounty

I am so lucky this year to have such good food, free for the harvest from my gardens! These are photos of some of my harvests from the past few days. My favorites are the beets, potatoes, carrots, beans and even the overabundant squash. Just one? - my real favorite this week is probably the Chiogga beets and tender greens.

The potatoes are also one of my favorites. Tonight I had dinner guests and before the meal, we headed over to the garden and dug in the potato patch. I didn't remember what I planted where, but I ended up finding 6 or 8 very good sized Russets. We popped them in the oven and ate them with butter. Soooo good!

Cheers to August! The best month of the year.

I read last night the chapter of Micheal Pollan's "In Defense Of Food" where he says that we (in the US) need to spend more time preparing our food and enjoying eating it. I took this to heart tonight and did my best. With our baked potatoes, we ate grilled local pork tenderloin, Lutz and Chiogga beets with greens, green beans, local bread, garden salad with orange, black and pink tomatoes, and blueberry pie. It is certainly is nice to take the time to grow, harvest, prepare and enjoy a meal with your family (and a martini!).

Cucurbita pepo (squash)
Daucus carota
potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvests

These are vegetables I harvested this week. Beet, lettuce and arugula from my plot and tomatoes, kale and an apple from my home garden. How about that apple! My first one.

My kale is delicious now. I'm still eating my spring crop. I pick the newer leaves - not the newest and not the big ones. Very nice in a quick saute with kielbasa. I mixed them with beets, since for one reason or another, I had beets but not beet leaves. I have a fall crop of kale planted out at my community plot but its still very small.

(As an aside, I hate those little holes that show up in tomatoes. Its from the stem of another tomato when you carry a bunch of tomatoes together. I should remove the stems when I pick them.)

harvests from my vegetable gardens
Apples (Malus domestica)

cheers to the harvest!

This is my first non-lettuce harvest of the year. Sugar snap peas, broccoli buttons and a radish! Yippee!

Gretta warned me that spring broccoli around here tends to button. She said it goes to fast from cool to hot. I would assume that's what has happened to mine. Little tiny heads. I picked them because they look ready - like they're about to open into flowers soon. My 15 year old son ate them and the peas and I heard no complaints - that means they were at least good.

But the radish I ate and can attest was awesome. Spicy and crisp. For the past couple years I've tried to grow radish to no avail. The plants bolt and don't bulb. This first radish is still pretty small as I was just thinning the row. But its a real round red radish! I am thrilled!

The difference is my new sunny garden. I planted the same radish seeds at the same time at both gardens. This one is from my sunny (community) garden. My shady garden radish are bolting and have no bulbs (yet again).

Radish is one of my favorite martini additions - along with onions, cucumbers, peppers and of course olives. So its a perfect celebration. (By the way the fresh uncooked peas look good, but they don't taste good in the martini - just decoration.) Cheers to the spring harvest!

Topic: martini!
harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvest

This is a collection of photos of my harvests from the past two weeks.

We took a big bag of vegetables up to a cabin in New Hampshire and enjoyed these while on vacation. They are shown in the last photo above. I spread all the vegetables out on the chopping board. One of the consequences of sharing vegetables with a garden photographer is that you need to wait until the photos are taken to eat. My family was very nice to put up with this!

Upon returning home, many more vegetables were waiting in the garden.

I continue to have a great abundance of lettuce, which is a real garden treat. Every day we have a pile of fresh garden greens on our dinner plates.
harvests from my vegetable gardens

two types of broccoli

This year I grew two varieties of broccoli: Green Goliath and Green Sprouting Calabrese. Unfortunately, I don't know which plants are which. But I do notice that some of my plants make compact heads and some make taller sprouts with very small heads. I suppose the compact heads are Green Goliath and the taller sprouts are Green Sprouting Calabrese. I planted seeds on March 22 and am harvesting now.

Green Sprouting Calabrese is an Italian heirloom that was brought to America in the 1880s. It is supposed to have 5"-8" heads and many side shoots.

Green Goliath is a large headed, tight budded, blue-green variety bred especially for the home gardener, to give an early and extended harvest. Center heads mature over a three-week period, not all at once. Good side shoots follow after center head is harvested.

Gardeners around here have mentioned small broccoli heads. My heads are about 2-3 inches (above). I think the weather warmed up too fast for the plants to form large heads. Maybe my fall harvest will be better though the small heads taste great too.

My dad got much bigger heads from seedlings I gave him (below). A good 4 inches! He's located a bit north of me and his garden is almost a full zone cooler.


harvests from my vegetable gardens

my dad's garden

Brassicaceae

fall fava beans

I'm trying again with fava beans. Early this spring I planted a crop that was overcome by black aphids. Since I had some seeds left over, I thought I'd try again this fall. I planted the last of my seeds September 19, a month ago. I now have 20 small plants from about 30 seeds. And the best thing - NO APHIDS!

I'm curious to see if I'll get any beans from these late plants. Time to harvest for favas is about 85 days. That would be December 13. Favas are pretty cold tolerant (down to 0F), but I'm wondering if they grow and produce beans at cold temperatures. I figure gardening by the trial-and-error-method is a good way to learn what works in my garden.

Last year, my garden's first hard frost was November 21 (a low of 31F). The plants I covered survived this one and grew until early January when temperatures plummeted. It seems every year, our fall is a little warmer.

Vicia faba
harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvest

I'm really pleased with the crunchy red lettuce and bright pink radish from my community plot! I pulled four radish today. Two were round and two were woody and thin and went to the compost pile. Just one head of lettuce makes more than enough for two servings of salad. Its prime lettuce season! I'm not so pleased with how much sun my hands are getting. I try to remember the sunscreen, but I usually forget...

harvests from my vegetable gardens

radish (Raphanus sativus)

weekend potato harvest

With a bit of help from my 15 year old son, I harvested a nice box full of potatoes on Saturday. I suppose if we were a bit more careful we wouldn't have pierced so many of them with the digging fork. We did our best.

I have mostly white fingerling potatoes, but also some big Russets and reds. They are delicious now - crisp new potatoes. I'll hang these in a paper bag from the rafters in the basement. I think they will last us a few months. A good harvest. Next year, I'd like to grow a few more large Russets. They are delicious.

potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
harvests from my vegetable gardens

this weekend's harvest

I picked the last of my shell beans and most of my green tomatoes this weekend. I cleaned up most of my home garden (except for my giant kale plants). Though the weather is balmy, nothing is really growing anymore. The sun is very low and days are shorter. I spread a good layer of winter rye seed that should get off to a good start if this warmth keeps up.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a visit to my community plot. I haven't been there at all in the past THREE days! (A long absence for me.) My plot is still growing nice escarole, beets, carrots and radish.

harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvest from my garden

Yesterday's harvest: endive, pea tendrils, baby dill, many radish, a big head of escarole and some red lettuce. A nice salad!

harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvest of greens

Well, they don't look as pretty as summer greens, but I picked a lot from my garden plot today. I think this week may be the last for many greens, so I might as well pick them. The escarole, peas, lettuce and beet greens are getting damaged by the cold weather. The dill looks cold. But some veggies still show no sign of being bothered by the cold, including the Chinese greens, arugula, kale and carrots.

Today I picked escarole, red and green lettuce, a nice handful of baby dill, lots of arugula, beets, radish, pea tendrils and some Chinese greens.




Here's some photos of Skippy hanging out while I harvested.



harvests from my vegetable gardens

radish (Raphanus sativus)

a week of harvests

This is my harvest this week. I picked the last of my green tomatoes, peppers and chiles today. And I picked a bunch of pretty little yellow signet marigolds and fleabane (weed) flowers. I have been regularly pulling escarole, red lettuce, arugula, beets and still-way-too-many-radishes. I had enough to give my parents a nice bag of storage potatoes, onions, a giant Brandywine tomato, radish and some greens. I also picked two more birdhouse gourds to total five this year.


harvests from my vegetable gardens

today's harvest

I'm thinking of declaring this "The Year of the Radish" in my garden!

From top left: broadleaf escarole, winterbor kale, chiogga beets, lots of multicolor radish, red and green tomatoes, a few tiny tomatillos, habanero, cayenne and Anaheim chiles, a couple green beans and a tiny green birdhouse gourd I accidentally picked.

I made a real nice cooked salsa tonight from the chiles, tomatillos, green and red tomatoes and some onions. The perfect amount of spiciness with one habanero and one Anaheim chile. Chop everything, saute chiles, 1 onion and 1 green tomato and 3 small tomatillos about 5 minutes in olive oil. Add 2 red tomatoes and cook briefly. Nice on fajitas.

Now all I need is a radish recipe. I usually just chop them in a salad. Fortunately I love them.

harvests from my vegetable gardens

first kale harvest

I'm so pleased to get a good harvest of kale. Midsummer, my kale leaves were filled with holes from the green caterpillars of the white cabbage butterfly. To holey for me to eat. I've had the plants covered with garden fabric since them. Now the leaves are very nice. I sauteed them with garlic, then added water and blanched about 5 minutes. Very tasty. I've read they are sweeter after a frost so I'm looking forward to eating the rest of the leaves this winter.

The variety is called Dinosaur Kale. Seeds were from Seeds of Change.

Brassicaceae
harvests from my vegetable gardens
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

cheers! the cukes are here!

My first cucumbers are ready for harvest! This is a variety called Rocky. A very nice slicing cucumber. Also nice in a summer martini.

I hesitated to post this photo of my hand. It is too brown this year. And my nails are dirty and ragged. One of the consequences of gardening I suppose.

In any case, cheers! I hope you too are enjoying a good summer harvest.

Topic: martini!
harvests from my vegetable gardens

harvest day

The photos here are all from last Sunday, October 21. My tomatoes continue to produce more fruit than I can eat, but its fun trying. Especially with basil and local handmade mozzarella cheese! Today I should cook a batch of sauce. Nice eggplants too (although those yellow ones underneath were past ripe and went to the compost bin).

harvests from my vegetable gardens