Harvest Monday - February 26, 2018

This is one of those harvest posts where you have to look at the same veggies presented in different ways because otherwise there's not much else to see.

One reliable producer at the moment is Frieda Worlds snow peas. It's a frost tolerant variety that has sailed through a couple of nights with temperatures down to 30ºF. I've found that a lot of pea plants will tolerate those lows but the peas get damaged. Not so with Frieda Worlds, the peas are in prime condition. But as of a few days ago the plants have been getting hit hard by something other than the weather, the birds have discovered that the foliage is delicious. Yet one more thing in the garden to cover up...

Frieda Worlds Snow Peas

Here's a combo that I came up with as a side dish the other night. Snow peas and thin sliced purple daikon in sage flavored brown butter. I didn't take a shot of the finished dish but it was pretty too because the radishes retained their color.

The purple daikons were harvested a while back when I pulled them all out of the garden in a fit of frustration (rage really) when the voles were going to town on seemingly everything and I just wasn't in a mood to share. I was so disgusted by the whole situation that I neither photographed nor weighed the harvests, just lopped off the tops and threw the lot in the fridge. I was really close to just tearing everything out of the garden so that the voles would have to dine elsewhere.

Here's a new radish in the harvest basket. That's just about the entire crop of Violet de Gournay radishes other than some that bolted earlier. I pulled all of them because I feared that they would be the next targets of the voles which have been working their way through the veggies in the bed where I've got had the bulk of the winter crops growing.

It was probably the right time to harvest them anyway, although it would have been nice to leave some of the smaller ones to see if they would have gotten larger.

Violet de Gournay is a French heirloom radish that I first read about in William Woys Weaver's book 100 Vegetables And Where They Came From. It dates back to the 1850's and came about when a Long Black Spanish radish crossed with a red radish. It's a winter radish and "was developed to take hard frosts without splitting and to store well in cool, moist sand. It will even overwinter under cold frames." In Gournay, the town where it originated, it is traditionally cooked with wine, bay leaves, and a very plump duck. I may try cooking it with wine and bay leaves but will probably omit the duck, or perhaps I'll pair it with some of the duck confit that I've got in the freezer. It's also supposed to be tasty raw or cooked like a turnip, with or without the skin left on. I haven't had a chance to try any yet but will report back when I do.

I pulled all of the carrots in that bed because the voles were mowing the tops down. They were a pretty wonky bunch for the most part and wouldn't have improved by staying in the garden.

The voles have not yet developed a taste for mature mustard greens. I'm sure it's just a matter of time...

Pink Lettucy Mustard

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.