Harvest Monday - August 1, 2016

It's the week of orange tinted veggies. Well, they aren't actually orange, it's just the light because my camera doesn't have a white balance setting for smoke.

Sweet Gold and Piccolo Dattero cherry tomatoes
Mara des Bois Strawberries

What do you know, I got to harvest the first tomatoes in July! OK, it was only 4 cherry tomatoes, but they sure were a tasty treat. The DRats (damn rats) left us a few strawberries. The DR (damn rabbit) is still around but hasn't been making a nuisance of itself lately.

Pink Plume Celery

One of the Pink Plume celery plants was starting to bolt so I cut the entire thing. I used a lot of it in stewed celery and zucchini in tomato sauce one night. The rest of the plants look ok so far but I think it's time to start some new plants for fall and winter harvests.

Batavia broccoli

The second big head of Batavia broccoli almost got away from me. It's amazing how quickly they grow at this time of year. One night we had some of it Brown Butter Steamed, one of my favorite methods for cooking a number of different veggies - I brown some butter in a skillet, add the veggies, toss to coast with the butter, add a few tablespoons of water to the pan, cover and steam until the veggies are almost done, uncover and let the water cook off, transfer veggies to a warm bowl, deglaze the pan with a bit of good vinegar and pour over veggies, season with salt and serve. Simple and very tasty. Try it with snap or snow peas too! And another night we enjoyed it in another version of broccoli and tomato salad.

The beans are down to just a trickle now and I'm on the verge of pulling them out.

The cucumbers, Mouse Melons, and zucchini are picking up the pace though. That's the first Gagon cucumber above. It and the second one shown below clinched my decision to pull out the plants, both of them were horribly bitter. I didn't even put the Gagon (should be Gag On) cukes into the tally since I couldn't eat them. I tasted a couple of the cucumbers that were still on the vines when I pulled them out and they were actually ok, but the plants aren't very productive and I didn't feel like playing cucumber roulette anymore so the plants went into the compost and I put a couple of tried and true Japanese (Tasty Treat?) cucumber plants in their place.

The Mouse Melons have been delightful, they are a welcome tangy addition to tossed salads.

I've been getting enough zucchini to start dehydrating it. The Romanesco variety is excellent dried, it's a favorite addition to frittatas through the time of year when fresh zucchini isn't available from the garden.

LtoR Batavia Broccoli, Manoa Crisphead Lettuce, Apollo Brokali

The old broccoli plants are putting out a few shoots now that I've got the plants protected. Those are the first two heads of the summer sowing of Manoa crisphead lettuce. I put in extra plants to harvest as babies and I hope that the plants that are supposed to mature into more substantial heads don't bolt first. The smoky skies may be in my favor so far as that goes, it seems like the smoke is blocking the sun enough that the temperatures are staying on the cool side. Some days I look out the window and think it looks like a winter day - it's been so dark and dreary.

Pink Plume Celery

The remaining Pink Plume celery plants are still putting out some really nice stalks. I put a couple of cherry tomatoes into the photo to give some perspective on the size of the celery stalks.

Batavia Broccoli Side Shoots

The summer planting of Batavia broccoli is now producing some really nice side shoots. There have been times when I've harvested main heads of broccoli this size from other varieties. Batavia sure has been a great broccoli in my garden, it's definitely a new favorite. The DRats have been taking over from the DR in the broccoli attacks, or perhaps it was the DRats all along. But I spent more time than I would like yesterday enclosing the broccoli patch with a combination of agribon and tulle in an effort to exclude the rodents.

So, the Soberanes Fire is constantly on my mind and in my eyes and lungs. It has been burning 11 days with 40,000 acres scorched as of last night and surely more by this morning. There's over 5,200 people here working on it. 496 engines, 46 water tenders, 16 helicopters, 6 air tankers, 106 hand crews, 72 dozers, and 6 "other". The cost of fighting the fire is up to 6 million dollars per day. 57 homes and 11 outbuildings have been destroyed. One dozer operator has died. The fire is now burning into a very rugged area where it's not practical to fight it. A containment line will likely be built around the area where it's possible to defend the line and everything inside that perimeter will be allowed to burn until there's nothing left to burn or the rains come to put out the fire. The rainy season doesn't start until November or December. I read one estimate yesterday of a possibility of 140,000 170,000 acres burned by the time this "incident" is over. Whoever the idiot is that started this disaster has got a lot to account for. I sure hope they catch you or someone turns you in.

On Saturday one of these was affixed to every single mail box in the neighborhood. It's information for fire crews and this sign indicates that A there is access for fire engines, W there is a nearby water source (they missed our 10,000 gallon tank at the back of the house or maybe they don't deem it to be accessible, combustible material has been cleared within 100 feet of the house, and that the house is occupied.

Enough of the fire for now, back to the harvests.

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

Red Swan beans - 1 oz.
Roc d'Or beans - .3 oz.
Rolande Files beans - 5.4 oz.
Royalty Purple Pod beans - 2.6 oz.
Slenderette beans - .7 oz.
Batavia broccoli - 5.8 lb. (It's a good thing we love broccoli)
Apollo brokali - 7.9 oz.
Pink Plume celery - 3.4 lb.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 1.6 lb.
Mouse Melons - 12.4 oz.
Manoa Crisphead lettuce - 6.2 oz.
Ramata di Milano onion - 1.4 oz.
Yellow Spanish Utah onion - 1.7 lb. (yes, one trimmed onion)
Piccolo Dattero cherry tomato - .4 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 1.3 oz.
Romanesco zucchini - 4.4 lb.

Total harvests for the past week - 20.7 lb.
2016 YTD harvests - 398.9 lb.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave on his blog Our Happy Acres, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.