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Monday, May 25, 2015

Harvest Monday - May 25, 2015

It's back! The Romanesco zucchini popped three zucchini in one day. Fortunately, it decided to take a rest after that. One of the nice things about this variety is that the zucchini are large enough to harvest even if they don't get pollinated. The first male blossoms opened on my plant a couple of days after I harvested these.

Romanesco zucchini
It's on the way out, the chard is bolting, but I harvested a couple of big leaves last week to use in a preparation of Beet Gnocchi that Dave had been pining for ever since he saw it on the cover of Saveur Magazine. So I took pity on him and made them for his birthday dinner. He was thrilled. The recipe called for using beet greens, but the beets that I had to purchase to make the dish came without the greens so I substituted chard. I had been skeptical about the dish but it turned out to be delicious.

Peppermint Stick chard
Purple Peacock is putting out a few side shoots now and then.

Purple Peacock broccoli
The second round of radishes are fattening up.

Helios and Pink Beauty radishes
I pulled an immature shallot to use in a Bearnaise sauce to accompany some bison tenderloin steaks that were another birthday treat for Dave. Zebrune is a seed grown shallot, a "banana" type, known as Cuisse de Poulet du Poitou (chicken leg) in France.

Zebrune shallot
I also harvested another small bunch of Spigariello broccoli but didn't have time to photograph them. And the last of the napa cabbages had to come out of the garden. I've got my first experimental batch of kimchi sitting on the kitchen counter bubbling along.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:

Purple Peacock broccoli - 1.9 oz.
Spigariello Liscia broccoli - 6.7 oz.
Little Jade napa cabbages - 10 lb., 6.9 oz.
Peppermint Stick chard - 12.8 oz.
Helios radishes - 3.2 oz.
Pink Beauty radishes - 6.1 oz.
Zebrune shallot - 2.3 oz.
Romanesco zucchini - 13 oz.

Total for the week - 13 lb., 4.9 oz. (6 kg.)
2015 YTD - 316 lb., 15 oz. (143.8 kg.)

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.

7 comments:

  1. So many delicious treats - lucky Dave! Beautiful harvests - especially love the radishes and, oh yes...the zucchini ;)

    I'll be growing quite a bit of peppermint chard this year as well - I actually just transplanted them yesterday. Unfortunately, my Bright Lights seedlings damped off, so that will be the only colourful chard in the garden for now.

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  2. Hey, Michelle, by your high standards, that is a small harvest! But that will change soon, with the zucchini coming on stream. I just had a look at that beet gnocchi recipe. It looks very dramatic in the Saveur photo. I'm sure I would enjoy that dish, but we would never have it since my wife dislikes Chard and Beetroot tops.(Philistine!)

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  3. I can't wait to try fermenting my first cabbages. But I've got at least a couple of weeks to go. And I haven't even planted my zucchini yet. I ought to get the seed in soon though.

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  4. I'll be anxious to hear how the kimchi turns out. The bison steaks sound yummy to this Dave too!

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  5. So glad to have stopped by your website today. Another interesting, varied harvest. That purple Peacock broccoli looks so beautiful. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to watching your garden evolve over the next months.

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  6. So I have me some magic Renee's Costata Romanesco seeds, but it will be another week before they go in the ground. Hope I have the same luck with it you do.

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  7. I'm craving everything I see here - another month or so for me, I suspect, before I'll have anything like this. So nice to see it in your garden!

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