Monday, August 9, 2010

Harvest Monday - August 9, 2010



There's a few new items in the harvest basket this week. The first Garafal Oro pole romano beans were harvested. I prepared them in one of my favorite ways for a large flat bean by simply tossing them with a little bit of olive oil and then cooking them on a ridged stove-top griddle until they had browned spots from the griddle and were tender. Sprinkled with a little flakey pink salt and fresh ground pepper they were a good accompaniment to some pan roasted Oregon wild salmon. I made a quick tomato sauce for the salmon by sautéing some chopped green onion and fresh tarragon in some butter and then added some grated tomatoes and a splash of white wine and cooked it all down quickly. Quick and delicious.

I also harvested the first Ananas Noir tomato which is sitting to the right of the beans in the photo above. And the Gigante Kohlrabi finally had to make way in the garden for the lacinato kale seedlings. That baby really lived up to its name, trimmed of all its leaves it came in at 6 lb., 5 oz.! I haven't cut into it yet so I don't know if it is even edible.


The rest of the harvests were more of the same which I certainly can't complain about. Here's most of one day's take, part of which is shown at the top of the post.


Here's the numbers for the week:

Garafal Oro romano bean - 13 oz.
Piracicaba broccoli - 14.25 oz.
Capers - 3.25 oz.
Chamomile - 2.75 oz.
Golden Chard (caught up on the harvest) - 6 lb., 4.25 oz.
Gigante kohlrabi - 6 lb., 5 oz.
Ananas Noir tomato - 14 oz.
Aunt Ruby's cherry tomato - 12.75 oz.
Galinas cherry tomato - 2 oz.
Gigantesque tomato - 18.75 oz.
Katja tomato - 26.25 oz.
Zucchini - 13 oz.
Zucchini blossoms - 3.75 oz.

Total for the week - 20 lb., 5 oz.
Total for the year - 337 lb. 4.75 oz.

You'll find more Harvest Monday posts with oodles of fresh from the garden produce to ogle at Daphne's Dandelions. Head on over there and check it out!

16 comments:

  1. Hi Michelle, sorry to hear that your weather has been crappy this summer. Hopefully things will warm up soon and that soon we'll being seeing lovely trays of tomatoes from you like we did last year.

    I do love the look of that Ananas Noir tomato.

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  2. Hi Thomas, I'm afraid that harvests like last year aren't in the picture this year. At least I'm getting enough tomatoes for eating fresh and they do taste good so I can't complain too much. I haven't tasted that Ananas Noir yet, I hope it's as good as it has been in the past.

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  3. Gorgeous tomatoes! I had romano beans for the first time the other week at a restaurant and they were yummy!! Lucky you!

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  4. It seems like the weather all over this year is just crazy. Sorry that to hear that you won't be having a nice glut of tomatoes this year. We have had no rain and it's been hot hot hot!

    Your harvest photos are beautiful as always.

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  5. Beautiful harvest, I like it when the veggies trickle in slowly just enough for fresh use, I'm a lazy gardener, canning is not my thing, I'll do a bit of that, I'm basically a fresh food person.

    My romano beans are beginning to put out flowers, it will be a while before I see any beans.

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  6. Holly, mmm yes, Romanos are good and they are hard to find, even at the farmer's market so I like to grow my own. There's a grower at the market that has lovely little haricot vert beans that I love, so I don't need to grow those too.

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    Robin, yes, it seems to be a weird year everywhere. I hope you get some cooler weather soon.

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    Mac, It is nice not to have to deal with a glut of veggies, I'm not really interested in doing much preserving these days either. I'm really trying to hone my year round gardening skills so that I don't have to rely on canned or frozen stuff very much.

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  7. That kohlrabi is huge - only 3lbs less than my dog! Sorry about your weather but your harvest photos are beautiful!

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  8. a 6+ lb kohlrabi? Wow. Your romano beans with wild salmon sounds like a wonderful meal. I love incorporating fresh garden veggies into meals without having to process them too much.

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  9. Such a pretty array of veg! Forgot to mention the bean trade sounds good. How about we swap this fall? I have lots of different tomato seeds too if you are interested.

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  10. Suffering from the cool summer conditions in my garden too. I continue to hold out hope that perhaps a few weeks of actual summer for the remainder of August will help me eek out a decent tomato harvest - but the odds are decreasing with each passing day.

    Your harvests are beautiful and the recipes for the simple romano bean cooking and the sauce prep sound like something I need to try soon.

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  11. I just whined about the summer and my lush, yet not very productive, tomatoes. It's scary to think I might have to buy canned tomatoes. Come on, September, right?

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  12. That is very big kohlrabi; I hope it will be edible. I had a few kohlrabies left in the garden from April sowing. They were not edible but were nice addition to my compost.

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  13. Nice tray, from the picture nobody would know about that pseudo-summer. Looks like a perfectly hot day in your garden :-)

    I see your Piracicaba broccili is still producing. Is this due to the cool weather, or would you expect it to produce for so long even in a normal summer?

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  14. Stevie, and little over half the size of my smallest cat! It would have been interesting to see how large it could have grown.

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    thyme2garden, Crazy big kohlrabi, and it wasn't showing any signs of bolting. I tend to like quick and easy recipes since I seem to get around to putting dinner together at the last minute most of the time. And with really good fresh veggies from the garden simple is usually the best anyway.

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    Dan, Great, I will set aside some of the Petalumas for you. And I'm always interested in trying new tomatoes, especially cool weather tolerant varieties.

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    kitsapFG, my hopes for a late arrival for summer are fading also, this weather pattern just seems to be stuck. I hope you manage to get something of a tomato harvest. The beans are also good grilled on the barbecue in the same way.

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    Stefaneener, I think there's a whole lotta whining going on in west coast home gardens this "summer". Thank goodness I had such a bumper crop of tomatoes last year, my freezer is still well stocked. It's going to be interesting to see how September weather is, usually our best for the year....

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    vrtlarica, I don't really even care much if the kohlrabi doesn't end up being edible. I won't be growing that variety again, it takes too long to get to any kind of edible size. I was curious to see how big it could get once it did start sizing up. I'm sure it would have become much larger but I needed the space for something else.

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    Angela, ah, I wish it were so, me and the vegetables, basking in the heat of the sun....

    The Piracicaba is a variety bred to tolerate heat and I would normally be harvesting some through the summer, but it is doing better this summer than last.

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  15. That kohlrabi is just huge. I wouldn't have known it from just looking at the photo. But over 6lbs. Wow.

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  16. My tomatoes aren't preforming as well as I had hoped, either. This is my first year, so I don't have fond memories of tomato overload:/. If it would just cool down about10 degrees and rain every now and then the garden would take off!

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