Monday, December 28, 2009

Harvest Monday - December 28, 2009

Harvest Monday is here again! My garden is slow to produce at this time of year and I've been even slower to pick. I came down with a nasty head cold last week. It made me want to stay inside where it was somewhat warm and it also took away most of my desire to cook or eat. Lucky for my husband there were leftovers and lots of cheese and bread on hand.

Before my head got too clogged up I harvested a bowl of Meyer lemons and put up a batch of preserved lemons. Can't wait 'til they're ready, they already have a lucious aroma. (I'm on the mend, I can smell things again!)




Yesterday I got out to the garden and picked another bunch of Piracicaba broccoli. I tried to arrange it this time so that you can see the florets.



Each bud in a floret is called a "bead". You can see that the Piracicaba beads are larger than typical broccoli beads. Most of the shoots I picked yesterday were a little more full blown than I would usually let them get, I just wasn't feeling up to getting out in the garden when they should have been harvested.



Fortunately, I've found that even when the beads start to open up, like you can see below, that the broccoli is still good eating.



I also harvested a lot of Opal Creek Golden snap peas. A lot of them have frost scars on them and are not very pretty, but they are still suprisingly crisp and tasty. There's a couple Kefe Beinwil snow peas buried in there also.



The snap pea plants are still growing well. Birds have been munching on the tender top growth but there are a lot of new shoots growing lower on the vines. This is a nice surprise, I expected the cold weather to knock the plants down and I was hoping that I would get regrowth in the spring. It's going to be interesting to see how they fare in the next few months. The snow peas aren't growing as vigorously, but they are still hanging in there and are also pushing out new shoots from the bases of the plants.

Other than lemons, broccoli, and peas I've been harvesting parsley, thyme, sage, and bay leaves. Funny, I don't normally mention my herb harvests for Harvest Monday, but the pickings are so slim at this time of year....

Hey, I almost forgot, I found some perfectly good peppers on my scraggly frost nipped, but hanging in there, Aleppo chile pepper plant. Here's two of the six that I picked yesterday, the rest went into a spicy Indian cauliflower (store bought) dish that I made last night to take to dinner with some friends.



If you would like to show off your harvests, join in the fun at Daphne's Dandelions. Or just head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have harvested in the last week.

24 comments:

  1. I'm drooling over those lemons. My dwarf Meyer lemon tree had buds, but it will be a long time before I have lemons, IF it can survive the scale infestation I'm struggling with these days. I hope your cold is soon a fleeting memory,
    Ali

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  2. Ali, Oh no, scale is a tough bug to beat. Good luck! Hoping you get buckets of lemons someday soon...

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  3. The lemons will be good for your cold - with honey, whisky and hot water I'd recommend! The broccoli looks great and so do the peppers - I can't believe they didn't suffer from the frost.

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  4. Chaiselongue, Head cold or not, the honey-lemon-whiskey drink sounds pretty good, especially on a cold day.

    The pepper plant is in a corner of my garden that doesn't get as frosty. That plant is actually into it's second winter.

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  5. You have talked me into Piracicaba broccoli. I will be ordering a few seeds from FEDCO and Piracicaba is on my list. I can't wait to try it.:)

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  6. Hi Michelle, long time no "see." Sorry about that! I'm getting back around to blogland a bit more and have been really missing your informative posts, beautiful photos, and inspiring recipes. Meyer lemons are my favorite but not an option here in Seattle, unless I had a greenhouse. I always eat some when visiting CA, it's the fruit of the state for me! Nice looking broccoli, is it more of a regular broccoli taste or slightly bitter like broccoli raab?

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  7. Hi Karen, Nice to see you back! We all need a break sometimes. It's nice that you get to come visit and get a Meyer lemon fix once in a while. The Piracicaba is not bitter at all. It makes a great substitute for raab if you don't like the bitterness of raab.

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  8. Oh those lemons look fabulous. I would so be having them with my tea if I were sick. Heck I'd drink them with my tea anyway. Lemons are wonderful.

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  9. The piracicaba is tempting, since raab grew well but I grew heartily sick of it. I occasionally have the lone pepper hanging out, but the plants need pulling soon.

    Meyers! I have a leftover jar of preserves as I don't do Mediterranean all that often. This batch has to be juiced. We had Meyer sorbet for Christmas, and it was very nice.

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  10. Love that lemon shot, the bokeh tree in the background is awesome. The sprouting broccoli looks wonderful, that ought to cure what ails ya :-)

    A note on the opal creek peas. I order some the other day because I couldn't resist not growing them this spring. I am still up for a trade though if you would like. I will get my seed list to you soon to see if there is anything you are interested in.

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  11. Hi Michelle - Mahalo for your comments on my blog! That's so cool you still have a harvest in December in Carmel! I used to live in Santa Cruz and it got pretty cold there by the end of the year. I'm inspired by your peppers - you grow so many interesting varieties and your harvests are prolific. And your lemons are gorgeous!Wishing you a wonderful New Year!

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  12. Look at that lemon tree!!!! I would kill for a tree that size. Knowing me, I'd probably be out their counting every single lemon.

    I can't wait to grow that variety of broccoli next summer. I was lucky enough to receive it as a gift in the mail. From what I've read, it sounds like such a tasty variety!

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  13. I am so jealous of those of you who can grow such beautiful citrus! Beautiful harvest photos (as usual!). The broccoli variety looks very interesting and I bet it is quite tasty. Does it produce heavily for the garden area occupied - or is the production lower than a typical large headed broccoli variety?

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  14. Daphne, I'm not a big fan of lemon in my tea. I do like lemonade made from Meyers, though cold lemonade on a winter day - brrrr, no way! I found that an herb tea and hot apple juice combo was very nice.

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  15. Stefaneener, There's a bunch of raab getting going in the garden right now. I like both, but fortunately the raab doesn't produce a long as the broccoli.

    It may sound strange, but Meyer Lemon Ice Cream is delicious. There's a recipe on epicurious.com that I used.

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  16. Dan, I know how it is when you just have to grow something. Besides, better to get your seeds now than to wait for my seeds to come in, there's no guarantee that I'll be successful! I'm sure there'll be interesting seeds to trade later in the year.

    That lemon tree is a delight this year. There was a freeze a few months before we moved into this house, about 3 years ago, and the previous owners did nothing to protect the tree. It took a full year for that poor tree to recover and produce half as many lemons as are on there now.

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  17. Hi Jane, You could grow some really incredible peppers in your climate. The chinense types would love your garden, probably grow like weeds!

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  18. Thomas, I'm really happy with that tree this year. It's got more lemons than ever on it, but I'm not counting them. I think that the hummingbirds have helped. There's a feeder right next to the tree and I see the hummers sipping at the lemon blossoms all the time. I think that your tree is amazing - growing indoors in a pot and producing beautiful fruit.

    I hope you like that broccoli. I think it's really good, but I know other gardeners who were disappointed, probably because they were expecting something more like regular broccoli. Piracicaba is more leafy and looser heading.

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  19. kitsapFG, You really shouldn't be jealous of those of us growing Meyers in California - they grow like weeds here. It is by far the easiest citrus for home gardeners.

    I've not grown regular heading broccoli before so I can't really give you a straight answer. I've only grown sprouting types like De Cicco, which Piracicaba equals in production. Over time, the sprouting broccolis put out enough shoots to far surpass the amount contained in one large head of broccoli. I've been harvesting Piracicaba shoots for a few months now and the plants are still developing new shoots. I suppose the productivity would depend on how long you can devote the space to the plants. Not sure that that answered your question, but maybe it helps anyway...

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  20. Head colds are so annoying. They are just bad enough to make you lethargic, but not bad enough that you don't get bored lying around.

    Hooray for peppers! They are good for head colds, too. Since I grew up in New Mexico, I put them in EVERYTHING.

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  21. An inspiring year of bountiful harvests, Michelle. I hope 2010 is even better, if that's possible.
    Happy New Year - Jamie

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  22. I'm drooling too and I'm jealous too - I'm movin'

    Happy New Year Michelle!

    Hugs / Tyra

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  23. Susan, exactly right about colds, I still felt antsy but didn't have enough energy to get anything done. Although I did manage to put on a rather good Christmas dinner. Too bad I couldn't really taste the fabulous wine that my FIL brought.

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    Jamie, Thank you and Happy New Year! There's always room for improvement in my garden... new bugs, weird weather, you name it, there's always something.

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    Hi Tyra - Happy New Year! I'm sure you'll feel different when your beautiful long summer days come along...

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