Harvest Monday - March 23, 2015

I continued to clear out over-wintered vegetables last week and now the spring veggies are starting to mature also so it appears that I've avoided the hunger gap this year. It's actually turning out to be quite the opposite of a hunger gap and is looking like more of a glut. This morning I looked back at the February harvests for the past 6 years and 2015 was the most productive yet, surpassing the previous best in 2010 by nearly 10 lbs for a total of 28.7 pounds. And the March harvests are also on track to be the most productive since I started keeping harvest records.

Here's a look at how February harvests stacked up for the past 6 years.

February	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Arugula	0.1				1.3
Beets	1.7
Broccoli	1.0		1.0		2.6
Broccoli, Romanesco	2.3	3.5			4.7	3.0
Cabbage, Incl. Asian			10.5
Cabbage, Portuguese		1.2				4.7
Carrots	3.4				0.6	2.0
Celery	0.4			1.1	4.5	3.2
Celery Root	2.3			0.4	1.8	0.9
Chard	1.3		0.8	0.9		2.1
Cilantro		0.4
Corn Salad/Mache	0.4	0.4		2.3
Fava Leaves	0.2
Fennel	1.1					1.7
Garlic	0.5
Kale	0.1	0.6	1.6	0.4	0.3	2.0
Lettuce	0.1	0.9	0.5			6.8
Onions	0.5					0.2
Pea, snap and snow	0.3				1.5	.
Pea Shoots					0.2
Radishes						0.3
Rapini	3.1	0.2
Spinach					1.9
Turnips						1.8
	18.8	7.2	14.4	5.1	19.5	28.7

Even more revealing are the year-to-date figures, the 2015 total just hit the 100 pound mark, that's a first for the garden in the month of March. Somehow I'm not so sure that my gardening skills are entirely to be credited with the bounty, once again we've had an unusally warm winter which put the garden in high gear, so I'm willing to share some of the credit with Mother Nature. But Ma, what would really be helpful would be some more rain. Please.

Now for the latest harvests. First the overwintered veggies. The celery is starting to bolt so I cut out one of the 4 heads. Much of this head went into a couple of salads, the first salad featured thin sliced celery, fennel, cress, pine nuts, dried currants (why do they call them currants, they're just x-small raisins), and a lemon-honey-mustard dressing. That was a tasty and refreshing crunch fest.

Dorato D'Asti celery

The celeriac is finally sizing up but also starting to bolt so I'm harvesting it as well. This one went into a simple braise with bacon and radicchio, more of a warm salad really.

Monarch celeriac

 I keep finding volunteer Spanish Black carrots to pull.

Spanish Black carrots

The Treviso radicchio wasn't going to wait any longer, I cut 6 of the 7 heads that were started back in late October. I used the outermost leaves from these heads in the celeriac braise and one of the heads went into a salad with thin sliced celery and fennel and chopped peanuts.

Rossa di Treviso 4 Precoce racicchio

I've got a glut of fennel. The heads shown below are volunteers and I also dug up the plants from last year that were producing again this spring. Fennel has been showing up in salads, sautes and soups. I pretty much followed the recipe for Fennel Soup with a Green Swirl from Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys by David Tanis, I didn't have basil for the swirl so I used a lesser amount of tarragon and I enriched the soup with some cream. It was delicious paired with the aforementioned celery and fennel salad.

Romanesco fennel

The beets that were started at the same time as the radicchio last October couldn't wait any longer either, out they came yesterday. The Golden beets are waiting in the fridge for some inspiration. I would normally keep the beet greens, but it was all just too much, so I didn't save or weigh them.

Golden beets

The Baby Ball and Red Baron beets were all roasted and half of them went into a batch of Ottolenghi's Pureed Beets with Yogurt and Za'atar. We paired that with some local sheep milk feta instead of the recommended goat cheese. We'll be having beet salad tonight!

Baby Ball beets

Red Baron beets

The last of the bolting lacinato kale plants is gone from the garden. The lower leaves were incredibly infested with aphids and I'm not hungry enough to deal with that mess so they went to the compost bin. That still left quite a bit. I've already steamed half of the harvest, half of which went into a frittata.

Lacinato kale

Here's the final head of lettuce from the 2014 sowings. The new lettuces aren't far behind though so there won't be much of a lettuce gap.

Michelle batavian lettuce

Onto the spring veggies. The onions aren't new, I've been thinning the patch for a few weeks now.

Tonda Musona Bianca onions

But here's something that I haven't grown in years, Dutch Broadleaf Cress, the first round of cut-and-come-again harvests from the spring sowing. This was a nice mild peppery accent to the sweet fennel and salty celery in salad that I've already mentioned twice.

Dutch Broadleaf Cress

Speedy arugula is back! This is my latest favorite arugula. Speedy does produce quickly and it's not too spicy, even when it starts to bolt.

Speedy Arugula

And Ruby streaks mizuna (I guess it's actually mustard but looks like mizuna) is back also. It's a quick grower and really perks up a salad with it's color and mild mustardy bite. It's good in stirfrys as well.

But wait, there's more harvests that I didn't photograph! I pulled out the surviving chard plants from last year. Those produced enough to make a batch of soup with lentils, and celery of course, not to mention some Spanish Black carrots, tomato puree from the freezer, and some shredded duck confit. And there were more onion thinnings that I didn't photograph.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Speedy arugula - 4.6 oz.
Baby Ball beets - 1 lb., 1.1 oz.
Golden beets - 2 lb., 6 oz.
Red Baron beets - 1 lb., 12.5 oz.
Spanish Black carrots - 2.8 oz.
Dorato D'Asti celery - 4 lb., 7.7 oz.
Monarch celeriac - 13 oz.
Golden chard - 6.4 oz.
Peppermint Stick chard - 4.6 oz.
Dutch Broadleaf cress - 2.8 oz.
Romanesco fennel - 4 lb., .5 oz.
Lacinato kale - 2 lb., 3.8 oz.
Michelle batavian lettuce - 14.7 oz.
Ruby Streaks mizuna - 5.3 oz.
Mixed spring onions - 13.6 oz.
Rossa di Treviso 4 Precoce racicchio - 1 lb., 15.3 oz.

Total for the week: 22 lb., 2.7 oz.
2015 to date - 100 lb., 4.5 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.