Harvest Monday - August 13, 2012

Kale was in the starring role in the harvest basket this past week. The Lark's Tongue Kale is producing a superabundance of leaves whilst the rest of the vegetables other than the cucumbers have gone on summer vacation (permanent for some).

That big bunch shown above was used to make an overstuffed Kale, Bacon, Onion, and Dried Tomato Frittata. I had to add an extra couple of eggs to this at the last minute since the eggs weren't covering the filling when I put it in the pan. My husband loved it, he called me as soon as he finished eating it to tell me how good it was. That man really loves his veggies!

The cucumbers are starting to come in at a pretty steady pace. I'm growing Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers (on the left) and Green Fingers Persian Cucumbers this year. I don't make pickled cucumbers so I like to grow varieties that are best for fresh eating and to my taste just about any Japanese type is the best and the Persian ones are nearly just as good. That's close to the last of the Apollo broccoli. My 4 plants have produced 7.5 pounds of shoots over the course of 7 weeks, not bad production and I really like the flavor of this variety. The skin on the stems of this variety also stay fairly tender which means less trimming and peeling, which has been very nice.

Here's more kale which substituted for chard in a zucchini and greens gratin. A few zucchini and more cucumbers. I couldn't figure out why the zucchini production had slowed down, until...

I finally found this monster which had burrowed down under the main stem and hid from view. I don't bother to weigh giants like this, they get split and fed to the chickens.

Basil and other herbs don't generally make it into my harvest tally unless I harvest a BIG bunch. Last night I harvested this basketful of Profumo di Genova basil for a batch of pesto so I weighed it and included it in the harvest. There's a couple more Persian cucumbers in the basket and one of the Pink Lemonade lemons from my little pot grown tree.

I forget where I saw this tip recently, but a bit of lemon juice in basil pesto is supposed to keep it from turning black right away, so the juice from half of that little lemon (about 1/2 tablespoon) went into the pesto that I made last night. The lemon flavor wasn't really noticeable and the pesto did stay green a bit longer but did eventually turn dark. I used about half the batch last night, so it will be interesting to see how the lemonized pesto holds up in the refrigerator for a few days. Anyway, we are off pasta and starchy foods around here so rather than slathering the pesto on linguine or fusilli I grilled up some big flat romano beans (from the farmer's market), some eggplant (not mine either), a big sweet yellow pepper (nor mine), and some broccoli (yay, mine!) and slathered the pesto on those along with a drizzle of aged moscato vinegar. I also sliced a big fat Brandywine tomato (still not mine) and crumbled some goat cheese on that and put a fat dollop of pesto on top of each slice. It was all very yummy.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Profumo di Genova basil - 9.5 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 4 oz.
Capers - 2.5 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 1 lb., 3.6 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 1 lb., 9.5 oz.
Lark's Tongue kale - 2 lb., 12.3 oz.
Parade Scallions - 8 oz.
Padron peppers - 1.4 oz (the first 3 babies!)
Da Fiore zucchini - 1 lb., 7.3 oz.

The total harvests for the week were 8 lb., 10.1 oz.
Which brings the yearly total to 97 lb., 8 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.