The weather did a quick flip-flop this past weekend going from the persistent damp gray of Faugust to excessive heat warnings. Fortunately for me the worst of the heat is oppressing areas further inland but it's been hot enough to slow me down.
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| Petite Marseillaise Pepper |
Here's the first pepper of the year, harvested before fully ripe to foil the rodents. I can't say that I've been managing to do that with the tomatoes in spite of deploying a couple of dozen rat and mice traps in the garden every night (except last night, I hope the damage isn't too bad).
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| Zebrune Shallots |
The best of the alliums this year were the Zebrune Shallots, they seem to have recovered more easily from the Downy Mildew and gone on to produce a range of sizes of bulbs, some of them very large.
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| Baciccia, Rolande, Amethyst Purple, Roc D'Or |
I got a few seeds of a bean that is very popular in the Central Valley area, an heirloom called Baciccia. There's only 6 plants that survived so I picked a few to sample and I'll allow the rest of the beans to mature so that I can save the seeds which are nearly impossible to find. Otherwise the bean harvests have been the same as last week.
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| Broccolini |
The spring planting of Broccolini continues to pop a modest but adequate number of side shoots.
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| Green Fingers and Chelsea Prize Cucumbers |
And I continue to harvest a few cucumbers here and there. Those couple of Chelsea Prize cukes were not show stoppers but they were fine sliced up to make a smashed cucumber salad along with their basket mates.
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| Romanesco Zucchini, Mixed Beans, Batavia Broccoli |
The Romanesco zucchini plant shows no sign of slowing down production although it is sporting more signs of powdery mildew. And there's no shortage of Batavia broccoli either. The four plants that were the winter producers and the three surviving plants that were the spring producers haven't been slowed down by "summer" weather. With June Gloom, No Sky July, and Faugust being the norm I guess that's no surprise.
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| Jumbo Tromba D'Albenga |
I've been pretty good at keeping on top of the Tromba D'Albenga harvests but the plants are so overgrown now that I didn't spot that one until it was pushing it's way out of the jungle. At 5 1/2 pounds it was big enough to make a batch of
Zucchini Sott'Olio so that was its fate.
Nothing new and creative on the cooking side of things. It's hard to get motivated to do any ambitious cooking when half the contents of my kitchen, pantry, and laundry room are still scattered around the living and dining rooms. Progress on the kitchen upgrades has slowed to a crawl but I think the end is finally in sight.
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.
Faugust is a new one to me.
ReplyDeleteIf you turned the the Tromba the other way, it would be like a cobra, snake in a basket.
Mashed cucumber??? Is that like smashed cucumber, Chinese style with garlic?
Smashed cucumber salad: slice cucumbers, salt, then squeeze out water, and dress. This time it was seasoned rice vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce, sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Added thin sliced cherry tomatoes and thin sliced red onion for extra color and flavor. Shrimp or tuna makes it more substantial. Also good with Vietnamese Nuoc Cham sauce. Good way to take a big bunch of cucumbers and reduce them to a manageable quatity.
DeleteGot Faugust from a recent NWS forecast discussion.
Look at the waxy shine on your petite pepper?!
ReplyDeleteI adore the last picture, the jumbo trombo looks like a snake in a basket. By the way my courgettes aka zucchini have become monster marrows. Happy cooking.
It does have a nice healthy shine. Not sure where the petite part of the name comes from.
DeleteI've had a few monster zucchinis recently too - zucanoes, you could hollow them out and row in them.
Yeah, that pepper looks more Jumbo than Petite for sure! The trombas are deceptive in photos, and I do know what a 5.5 pounder looks like. Those shallots are lovely. Mine did not size up at all, and I'm not sure if I will plant them again or not. Thankfully my other alliums usually do better. The I'itoi is multiplying so rapidly I can hardly keep up with them! Thanks to you for growing it or I might never have heard of it. They are so useful at any stage, and right now they are supplying green tops aplenty.
ReplyDeleteI have to get my I'itoi onions back on track. There's a flat of them waiting for me to get them planted in a spot where hopefully the downy mildew won't strike them down. I love their flavor and they are so useful at any stage as you say.
DeleteColorful assortment of beans! Are you sure the Baciccia will breed true? I always wonder that about seeds I save. The pepper and shallots look great too.
ReplyDeleteThe Baciccias should be ok. Beans are self fertile, the flowers actually pollinate before they open, and my plants are growing in a cage where very few pollinators bother to squeeze through so I'm not worried.
DeleteWe seem to have suddenly got a cucumber glut today.
ReplyDeleteMy cucumber gluts have been very minor so they've been easy to deal with.
DeleteI've been seeing a number of recipes recently that use zucchini as you would apple for a pie filling or apple caramel bars. I haven't tried it yet, but seems a good way to use up one of mine.
ReplyDeleteI guess if they're good in bread or cake that they should be good in pie too - very interesting.
DeleteLove your recipe for preserving zucchini. I shall be having a go at this next week as our mountain grows. Thank you!!
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