Monday, August 29, 2011

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.

12 comments:

  1. Great harvest, my spring planted napa won't head up in our climate :(

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  2. Great head of Napa cabbage! My potato harvest was practically non-existent this year. I'm hoping that it gets better with experimenting. Can you post the recipe for the zucchini/chard recipe? We started a new patch of chard and I have lots of sorrel I need to use up.

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  3. Nice harvest! That is one huge cabbage! I just tried my hand at Sauerkraut for the first time with mine!

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  4. Mac, this year we seemed to have a 6 month long spring, it's just starting to feel something like summer. I wonder how spring planted napa would do here in a more typical year.

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    Nartaya, I'm still experimenting with the potato thing, I'm going to try some fabric pots next (can't remember the name). The zucchini gratin is a recipe from Richard Olney's "Provence The Beautiful" cookbook. I don't like to post published recipes but I'll email you a copy if you like.

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    Allison, I was thinking of trying something like kraut or kimchee with that huge head, there's just so much slaw one can eat!

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  5. Great potatoes even if their was not as many as you would like! I think I would like to hear more about the zucchini and chard a gratin you talked about!

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  6. Shawn Ann, the gratin uses a lot of grated zucchini which has much of the moisture wrung out of it, cooked chard which is also squeezed of much of its moisture, onions, garlic, parmesan, eggs, and olive oil - oh and that optional handful of sorrel. It's all packed into a pan and baked until puffy and brown. It makes a great meatless main course or a hearty side dish. I can email you the recipe if you like.

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  7. I need to try grilling some beans now that I have some coming on. Those Musica beans look lovely. I generally like the taste of the flat podded varieties best. You always have such interesting things growing!

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  8. Nice harvest. There are a lot of veggie varieties i have never heard of before!

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  9. I am glad you wrestled a few beans and cucumbers away from those thieving rats.

    That was a decent harvest of potatoes for a compost pile growing experiment - and look at the harvest of fine compost you got from the deal as well!

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  10. I like the look of your persian cucumbers - I went to a Persian restaurant last week and funnily enough cucumber was one of the highlights and those look great. Thanks for all your rat advice on my blog.

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  11. Wonderful harvest and glad to hear you got a good number of cukes.

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  12. Those potatoes are beautiful Michelle. And so is that Napa cabbage. I don't think I'll be growing it again next year as the slugs seem to love them the most.

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