Harvest Monday - July 23, 2012

I only managed to take one harvest photo in the past week, but there's nothing new in the harvest basket so you aren't missing out on very much.

Here's the final harvest of Super Sugar Snap peas. I got a total of 5.1 pounds of snap peas this year. Pretty good, considering I got my plants in much later than usual. They all came in very quickly, the first harvest was on July 4 and the last on July 19. I've already torn out most of the plants, the last ones will come out in a few days. I give the plants to the chickens, they peck at them and work at them until there is virtually nothing left but a few of the toughest stems. I like to give them just a few plants at a time so that they don't gorge themselves too much on the greenery. Accompanying the peas on the tray are another harvest of Apollo broccoli. The 4 broccoli plants have produced 6 pounds of shoots (including the small main heads) between June 25 and July 22, and there's still a few shoots developing. I really like the flavor and texture of this broccoli and the side shoots have been a good size with tender stems. The plants produced a large amount right away with a lot of side shoots maturing very soon after the small main heads. I thought that the side shoot production would fall off a lot after that, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the steady production of a reasonable amount of shoots after the first big burst. This broccoli has turned out to be a winner and I will happily use up the rest of the seeds from the packet. I made another frittata with some of the broccoli. I'll post the recipe for that later this week.

The Rolande filet beans have continued to come in at a steady pace. I am very pleased by the productivity of this variety, it is better than I initially expected. I have harvested 10 pounds of beans from June 14 through July 22 and I think that there will be a trickle of beans left to harvest in the next week or so. The other night I prepared some of the large beans that had grown well beyond the "filet" size by braising them a few moments in a covered pan with butter, garlic and a splash of water, then cooked them further with the lid off until the water evaporated and the beans were tender, then turned the heat off and tossed in some chopped Early Girl tomatoes (from the farmer's market) and slivered basil and tossed enough just to heat the tomatoes through, and finished it off with some coarse sea salt and a good grind of black pepper. That was yummy, tomatoes and butter are so good together, and the beans were good too!

Other than beans, peas and broccoli, the garden has been producing zucchini and zucchini blossoms (not weighed), Sweetie Baby romaine (not so baby any more but still sweet), and a few more ounces of capers.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 1 lb., 4.2 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 1 lb., 8.9 oz.
Capers - 4.1 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine - 2 lb., 1.2 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 1 lb., 5.1 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 11.1 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to - 7 lb., 2.6 oz.
Which brings the harvest totals for the year to 78 lb., 12.3 oz.

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