Harvest Monday - June 10, 2013

It was a good harvest week again as spring crops were finishing and making way in the garden for summer vegetables.

First I cleared out most of the carrot patch. I pulled out all of the Deep Purple carrots

There were a few odd characters in that lot, but most of them were long and straight, and deep purple.

Then I pulled out all of the Circus Circus carrot mix patch. These are largest of the lot, there were a bunch of babies from the shady end of the patch that I'm not showing.

And this was the entire planting of Rouge Sang Violette carrots, and they aren't as large as this photo would imply. I had just a few seeds and I sowed them in a shady spot so there's not much to show. These are pretty enough that I'm going to find another source of seeds and try them again.

This is the final  harvest of spinach. I cut all the plants to the ground to make way for the eggplant babies that have been sizing up in pots.

Here's nearly the final harvests of sugar snap and snow peas, another small head of Di Ciccio broccoli, some green coriander seeds and Romanesco zucchini. The peas gave up their final harvest yesterday and I've pulled them out to plant more beans.

And then more zucchini... Romanesco and Ortolano di Faenza. The Romanesco is an overachiever and the Ortolano is an underachiever, I guess they balance each other out.

And yesterday I filled another harvest basket. First the wild arugula needed a trim. And there's the last few snow peas that I found as I pulled the plants out.

I've got three patches of arugula like this one going. I thought I sowed Olive Leaf arugula, but it's not looking like it. Oh well. I cut the patches almost to the ground, the wild arugula is perennial and very vigorous and will grow back in no time.

Then a few side shoots from the Purple Peacock and Di Ciccio broccolis.

Yet more zucchini...

And that fuzzy thing is the first unpollinated Tortarello Abruzzese cucumber.

The rapini was ready to harvest.

And I finally unwrapped the blueberry plants to harvest about 3 cups from my two little potted plants.

I also harvested all the remaining napa cabbages but didn't photograph them because they were looking pretty ratty. They needed a bit of trimming before I stored them away in the fridge. It's a good thing I like a nice fresh napa cabbage slaw, I've had about 4 of them this past week because the cabbage is taking up a lot of room in the fridge. And I harvested a number of heads of lettuce and tossed a few of them that were too mature and starting to bulge out the sides, breaking open, and in general looking bad. I rescued a few heads that hit the tally this week, but the head lettuce season is coming to an end.

The garlic isn't cured yet but I keep grabbing a head or two to use so I weigh each head as I use it. Once it's all cured (what's left of it) I'll weigh the whole lot together and tally the rest of it then.

I didn't really do anything interesting in the kitchen this week as I relied on quick and easy, reliable old standby preparations because I was doing a LOT of work in the garden.

The weather was mild for the most part and the promised heat wave that was supposed to start on Thursday didn't hit the coastal areas. The nighttime temperatures have started to hover closer to 50 than 40 so the newly planted out tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are happy. I think summer is really starting!

Here's the harvests from the past week:

Wild Arugula - 14.7 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 8 oz.
Purple Peacock broccoli - 1.7 oz.
Little Jade Napa cabbage - 2 lb., 8 oz.
Circus Circus carrot mix - 2 lb., 10.3 oz.
Deep Purple carrots - 3 lb., 3 oz.
Rouge Sang Violette carrots - 2.3 oz.
Lorz Italian garlic - 5.8 oz.
Iceberg Superior lettuce - 2 lb., 13.2 oz.
Rhapsody butterhead lettuce - 1 lb., 2 oz.
Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas - 12.2 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 1 lb., 3.3 oz.
Early Rapini - 1 lb., 8.4 oz.
Summer Perfection spinach - 2 lb., 6 oz.
Ortolano di Faenza zucchini - 4.4 oz.
Romanesco zucchini - 3 lb., 6.2 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to - 23 lb., 14 oz. (the fridge is bulging)
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 148 lb., 2.5 oz.

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