Harvest Monday, February 18, 2013. I'm Back in the Garden Again

All harvests and work in the garden came to a screeching halt back on January 20th when my husband and I took off to Tanzania to:

Climb Kilimanjaro.

Walk and camp in the Serengeti for nearly a week.

Bounce around in a Land Rover for a few days gawking at animals.

I'll be posting more about the trip on my hiking blog in the days to come. But now I'm back to the garden and dealing with this:

Dead and dying peppers.

Truly dead eggplant and peppers.

Bolting brassicas and weedy fava beans.

But it wasn't all grim in the garden when I got home, to my joy I found that the Golden Corn Salad that I had sown between the rows of garlic had grown like weeds and is now perfect for harvesting. And for that matter, I was thrilled to see that the garlic isn't infested with rust, yet...

Here's the first harvest of Golden Corn Salad picked within hours of arriving home. I was so starved for fresh vegetables and salad in particular, this was incredibly delicious paired with fresh apple slices and toasted sliced almonds and a simple oil and vinegar dressing. And I raided the freezer, fridge, and pantry to make dried zucchini and eggs simmered in tomato sauce to round out dinner.

Yesterday I managed to glean some celery, celery root, and lacinato kale from the garden to use in soup that also featured some Rebosero beans from Rancho Gordo, some frozen peeled fava beans, canned tomatoes, and shredded duck confit.

So here's my harvests for the past week (and month):

Dorato di Asti celery - 6.8 oz.
Diamante celery root - 6.8 oz. (trimmed weight)
Golden Corn Salad - 1 lb., 1.4 oz. (I'm eating it nearly every day!)

The total harvests for the week were - 2 lb., 5.1 oz.
Which brings the totals for the year up to - 9 lb., 3.7 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.