Last Monday I took my camera out into the garden and photographed the harvests as I filled my basket. Beans first, from left to right, Moonlight runner beans, French Gold filet beans, and St. George runner beans. Moonlight is a white flowered runner bean bred for harvesting as green beans and St. George is a crimson and white flowered bean also bred for harvesting green. St. George has turned out to be faster growing, a bit more vigorous, and an earlier cropper than Moonlight, and you can see the beans tend to be larger. If I let the Moonlight beans get as big as the St. George that you see below they get tough and seedy. French Gold is a pole filet bean that produces tender little yellow beans.
Next into the basket are the Spanish Musica "romano" beans. These beans are the complete opposite of the little filet beans. The plants produce an abundance of these long flat beans which stay tender and do not become seedy even when they get to be quite large. I love to grill these beans and then toss them with some herbs and vinegar and munch them as finger food. Last week I made an easy to pack finger food by wrapping a couple of grilled beans in thin sliced prosciutto, a few of these bundles made a tasty treat for a picnic dinner that I packed for an evening hike with my husband in the park across the valley. Next time I'm going to wrap them in prosciutto with a bit of cheese and fresh sage leaves and then sear them in a hot pan until the cheese melts - not to be eaten on the trail though!
And then some cucumbers hit the basket, Green Fingers on the left, Tasty Green on the right, Tortarello Abruzzese in the center, and Garden Oasis on top. The cukes were starting to pile up in the fridge so last night I made a salad by thinly slicing the cucumbers and salting them, let them sit in the fridge for a while to draw out some of the water, then squeezed out even more water. So I turned a lot of cucumbers into a more modest sized bowl of sliced smashed cucumbers. It always amazes me how the cucumbers retain a lot of texture even after the salting and squishing. I dressed the salad with a mixture of tahini, Greek yogurt, olive oil, red wine vinegar, cumin, crushed red pepper, and toasted sesame seeds. It was pretty yummy.
And then zucchini. Yet more zucchini... (almost 10 pounds this week alone, nearly 55 pounds so far this year)
And then, ta da, the first tomatoes! Galinas cherry and a Nyagous that had split (and I forgot to weigh). Ugly but good.
Broccoli. A few shoots from the Purple Peacock on the right and some really lovely shoots from the Di Ciccio broccoli in the rest of the basket. Two of my four Di Ciccio plants area really happy and keep pumping out these beautiful long stemmed shoots.
The Sugarsnax carrots are still hanging on in the garden and I harvested a few big beauties like the one shown below. Next to the carrot is a huge Tortarello Abruzzese cucumber that hid in the foliage. I'm showing it off but it's not in the tally because I had no intention of eating it.
More broccoli and filet beans.
This is actually the entire weeks harvest of the French Gold filet beans. Enough for the two of us to enjoy and have leftovers. The plants are not hugely productive, but I do love these little beans and I'm happy to enjoy them as a treat when I accumulate enough.
One good thing about the June Gloom in August is that the broccoli is really happy, it keep on putting out new shoots and they are not getting nasty tasting.
The sun comes out and Hank enjoys a sun bath. (too bad he doesn't eat zucchini)
As I mentioned earlier, the weather has been weird, unseasonably cool with an extra thick marine layer producing prodigious amounts of fog. I was totally shocked to wake up to 45ºF chill the other morning (in August!), and then the next morning, and the next morning too. It feels like, no I can't say it, it's summer (do you hear that weather gods, it's SUMMER, *whimper*, please, thank you, please).
Here's the harvests for the past week:
French Gold filet beans - 12.5 oz.
Runner beans (Moonlight and St. George) - 1 lb., 13.3 oz.
Spanish Musica beans - 1 lb., 10.9 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 1 lb., 13.1 oz.
Purple Peacock broccoli - 4.8 oz.
Sugarsnax carrots - 9.1 oz.
Garden Oasis cucumbers - 9.9 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 5.3 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 13.1 oz.
Tortarello Abruzzese cucumbers - 3 lb., 2.9 oz.
Lorz Italian garlic - 1 oz.
Aji Angelo peppers - 1.9 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - .9 oz.
Galinas cherry tomatoes - 1.7 oz.
Isis Candy cherry tomato - .4 oz.
Ortolano di Faenza zucchini - 1 lb., 11.9 oz.
Romanesco zucchini - 7 lb., 12.3 oz. !!!
The total harvests for the past week came to - 21 lb., 13 oz.
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 272 lb., 2 oz.
Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers from around the world have been harvesting lately.
Your beautiful beans and broccoli make me envious. And your zucchini harvest just seems to go on and on.
ReplyDeleteLovely harvests! Where do you get the French Gold beans? I am always on the lookout for a yellow pole bean. I am growing one now that is productive, but it is a large flat bean and I'd like to grow round podded ones.
ReplyDeleteThe French Gold seeds came from Renee's Garden Seeds, they also have a three color pole bean mix with a different yellow wax bean.
DeleteThat's a lot of beans and zucchini! love the kitty shot :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful harvests. I wish I were getting your beans. I miss beans so far this summer. It is weird that I have a harvests of dried beans already, but not green beans.
ReplyDeleteAt last you have tomatoes. How come you are buried in squash but no tomatoes, while I have tomatoes and no squash? My Romanesco is finally showing signs of life, however, so I should be careful what I wish for. Beautiful pole beans, but for some reason I'm not fond of flat beans (which is why I grow Fortex). I may try Spanish Musica because for some reason I do like romano beans.
ReplyDeleteThe French Gold beans are looking particularly delectable!
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a lot of beans. And zucchini, of course! I love that picture of Hank sun bathing. I like the look of the patio, too. That gives me an idea what to do with a part of the backyard that I was thinking of cementing. I think pebbles and stones look nicer. Thanks, Michelle!
ReplyDeleteI love green beans, I've heard a lot about Musica, I like your idea of wrapping the grilled beans in prosciutto, gotta grow some next year.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if pets would eat some of the produce :P
It all looks fabulous but my eyes keep being drawn to those lovely looking beans. the French gold filet beans look particularly good and I have to admit I've never grilled a bean before so I read about your prosciutto wrapped ones with interesting. Something to try this summer.
ReplyDelete