Harvest Monday - August 29, 2011

The rats have given the cucumbers something of a reprieve so I got to harvest a fair number of Green Fingers Persian cucumbers and even a few Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers (not pictured this week). I think the rats got bored with the cucumbers or they got too lazy to climb the tower that the cucumbers are growing up and decided to graze in the patch of Slenderette bush green beans. There's the total harvest of the Slenderettes at the bottom of the photo, it should have been three times that much judging from the nubs that were left on the plants. The beans in the center of the tray are Musica pole beans, one of my favorite varieties of green beans. They can be picked when even more mature than these and still be tender and sweet. The bigger beans are fabulous slicked with a bit of olive oil and grilled or roasted, and served with a dash of coarse sea salt. I harvested the beans when still relatively young because there were signs of raiding... The beans shown below were cut into 3 or 4 pieces and then simmered with fresh chopped tomatoes (not from the garden yet) and some sauteed sweet onions and garlic.

I made one of my husband's favorite summer dishes last week - a gratin of zucchini and chard. Here's the handful of sorrel that the recipe also called for.

It was definitely time to harvest the head of Charming napa cabbage that survived its struggle with the competing oak tree roots, managed not to bolt along with the rest of the surviving cabbages, and then seemed to form a head in the blink of an eye.

The trimmed head came in at a whopping 5+ pounds! Slaw, slaw, and more slaw.

It is taking me forever to get around to properly thinning the celery. This is the latest round of thinning of the Dorato d'Asti plants. Also shown is the entire crop of Negresse potatoes from the potatoes-in-the-old-compost-bin experiment. Not a lot of potatoes to show for my half-baked efforts...

but I got a wheel barrow full of fantastic compost out of the deal. I used old potting soil and the chunky bits of my sifted compost to fill the bin. A lot of worms ended up with the potatoes and they did a great job of breaking down the old soil.

It was a good week of harvests, much of which never made it in front of the camera. The fridge is stuffed with veggies so the only thing I'll have to buy at the farmer's market this week will be tomatoes (still not ripe!) and fruit.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Musica pole green beans - 3 lb., 1 oz.
Slenderette bush green beans - 4.6 oz.
Piracicaba broccoli - 1 lb., 7 oz.
Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli - 2.8 oz.
Charming napa cabbage - 5 lb., 3.4 oz.
Dorato di Asti celery thinnings - 7.5 oz.
Golden Chard - 1 lb., 8.6 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 2 lb., 1.6 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 1 lb., 6 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 1 lb., 11.9 oz.
Orient Express eggplant - 4.8 oz.
Persian Star garlic - 3.8 oz. (finally trimmed and weighed)
Rose du Var garlic - 9 oz.
S&H Silver garlic - 9 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 12.3 oz.
Negresse potatoes - 2 lb., 5 oz.
Sorrel - 1.8 oz.
Zucchini - 2 lb., 6.6 oz.
Zucchini blossoms - 1.1 oz.

The harvests for the week were - 24 lb., 10.9 oz.
The harvests for the year have been - 290 lb., 11.2 oz.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to be inspired by what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.