Winter has well and truly arrived, the highs and lows have dropped by a good 10 degrees and the first light frost settled on the garden last Friday morning. But that didn't have any adverse effects on the garden or the harvests, the tender vegetables had already been cleared from the garden. The harvests are now in full winter mode, there are no more summer stragglers in the harvest basket.
The stalwarts of my winter garden tend to be greens, kale does particularly well. This bunch went into a simple soup with turkey broth, tomato puree, Toulouse sausage, and plenty of garlic.
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| Lacinato kale |
The snap and snow peas are still trickling in. One thing that I like about the Golden Sweet Snow peas is that the harvests are more stretched out than any of the green snow peas that I've grown. Another thing I like about them is that they are still tasty if they get to be a bit overgrown and the peas start to bulge a bit in the pods.
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| Super Sugar Snap and Golden Sweet Snow peas |
A couple of the volunteer Spanish Black carrots were starting to push their shoulders up above the soil line, a sure sign that they were large enough to harvest. This photo doesn't do them justice, these two weighed in at 13 ounces without their tops. I paired one of them with some of the snow peas. I cut the carrot into matchstick julienne and cut some of the bulging snow peas into thirds, they were sauteed in a little butter with garlic, dried green coriander seeds, and a splash of fish sauce and served with some chopped fresh cilantro.
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| Spanish Black carrots |
The radishes are beautiful and sweet even though a few of them are trying to push up flower stalks. I've been using them both fresh and cooked. I quartered some of them and sauteed them with some snow peas and maitake mushrooms, seasoned with oyster sauce and sherry. Others have been paired with celery, apples, and pomegranate arils in salads.
The only harvests that I didn't get around to photographing were of celery. I'm so happy that I planted out the celery starts in spite of my doubts about their small size and late start, they have exceeded my expectations, probably because we had such a mild autumn. I've been able to harvest a number of crisp and juicy stalks and the plants continue to grow.
Here's the harvests for the past week:
Spanish Black carrots - 13.1 oz.
Dorato D'Asti celery - 13.8 oz.
Lacinato kale - 14.6 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 4.3 oz.
Golden Sweet snow peas - 6.3 oz.
Helios radishes - 5.7 oz.
Pink Beauty radishes - 2.7 oz.
Pink Punch radishes - 4.2 oz.
Selzer Purple radishes - 1.1 oz.
The total harvests for the week were - 4 lb., 1.8 oz.
And that pushes the harvests for 2014 over the 1200 pound mark to - 1201 lb., 1.1 oz.
It's been a really good year!
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.
I very much like the fact that unlike most gardeners you describe how you cooked and ate your produce. If you don't enjoy eating veg, what is the point of growing it?? I especially like the sound of your kale broth!
ReplyDeleteYour description of the dishes you create is always so mouth watering - sure wish I could be that creative without a recipe to follow!
ReplyDeleteAnd your celery experience just goes to show that it's usually worth pushing the limits as you never know what the coming month(s) will bring. Had I sown some fall lettuce, our very mild weather in the last few weeks may have meant some garden fresh salad for Christmas dinner.
I'm with Margaret, I'm always hungry after reading the descriptions of your culinary creations - even if I just ate!
ReplyDeleteKale is such a rock star in the garden and kitchen, so versatile and productive. I've got some on the menu for New Year's Day.
I always love those vegetables that you think won't do well, but exceed your expectations. And the carrots and peas sound delicious.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried growing peas outside of the first spring planting. Those sugar snaps look so fresh I can almost taste them! And I love cooked radishes - I only realized a couple of years ago that they were as tasty cooked as fresh.
ReplyDeleteYes, I like to see what you cook with what you've got, too. I hope the NYE freeze didn't do too much damage. (It'll give you a rest, though.) I just picked the leaves of red giant mustard for dinner tonight (traditional for NYD over corn bread with the pot liquor and black-eyed peas over rice for lunch). The red giant mustard mustard has the most beautiful leaves, tender, not bitter, not strong, cooks very quickly and grows fast, always ready in January. If you like kale, I think you will love this mustard.
ReplyDelete