Harvest Monday - April 29, 2019

It was another week of very light harvests, but at least there was a harvest of something that wasn't planted last year. The first of the winter sown lettuces landed in the harvest basket. It was wonderful to have a very simple green salad with some tender young lettuce.

Three Heart Butterhead Lettuce

But then I went back to overwintered stuff with some very ugly carrots. These definitely spent too much time in the garden. And I know now that October is not the time to sow carrots. These were ok once I scrubbed and trimmed them and they have been fine grated into salads.

Short Stuff Carrots

That's it for this week. 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.

Harvest Monday - April 22, 2019

The first of the napa cabbage hit the harvest basket this week and the last of it also. All four heads needed to be harvested because they were starting to bolt. Sue Martin over at ediblegardens52 linked to a recipe for some Asian style stuffed red cabbage recently and that got me thinking that I could stuff some napa cabbage leaves. And so with some more inspiration from one of my many cookbooks I stuffed some of the large outer leaves from one of the heads with ground beef and bean thread noodles and poached them in seasoned chicken broth. Those came out so good that I wrote up the recipe so that I can make them or something similar again, you can find the recipe HERE. I used the rest of that head in a sauté with some fennel. Some of another head went into a slaw with chicken and Asian flavors (that had fennel too).  More cabbage will be going into some Okonomiyaki this week, I've been using a recipe from Food52. And there will be yet more cabbage on the menu in the next week or two.

Little Jade Napa Cabbage

It was time to remove the kalettes plants from the garden so I harvested nearly all the sprouts which ranged in size from little larger than a pea to shoots a few inches long. I'm going to blanch and freeze most of the harvest. Only the first harvest got photographed, the sprouts and shoots from the other 2 plants looked pretty much the same so I didn't bother to take photos of them.

Autumn Star Kalettes

The Brussels sprouts had to go too, that's all that was left on the stalks shown below.

Gustus Brussels Sprouts

The parsnips also needed to make way for spring plantings. There were some pretty good sized roots still in the ground. Fortunately these keep well in the fridge so I don't have to use them right away.

Gladiator Parsnips

So that's the latest from my garden. Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave on his blog Our Happy Acres, head on over there to see what other gardeners have been harvesting lately.

Harvest Monday - April 15, 2019

Well, it was another week of light harvests from the garden. I cleared out the fennel plants that I started in the spring of 2018 and netted a little over 3 pounds of bulbs. The fava plants are beautiful right now so I trimmed a couple of ounces of tender young leaves.

Orion Fennel and Fava Greens

I used 3 of the larger fennel bulbs, the fava greens, and some zucchini from the farmer's market to make a spring sauté to which I added some chicken & artichoke sausage.

So that's it for this Harvest Monday report. You can see more harvest reports at Our Happy Acres where Dave is our host for Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - April 8, 2019

It's still a bunch of the usual suspects coming out of my garden. The Snowdrop kalettes finally gave up a bunch of sprouts. I harvested these before I actually wanted to use them because some of the sprouts were on the verge of becoming kalettes raab.

Snowdrop Kalettes

And likewise for the fennel, this bulb was growing so fast that it was starting to split so I cut it.

Orion Fennel

And I'll be harvesting a lot of celery in the next week or so because it too is starting to bolt. I used some of this harvest in a salad that has become a favorite, crunchy celery with dates, parmesan, and toasted almonds with a lemony vinaigrette.

Pink Plume Celery

And I pulled the last of the rutabagas because their tops were totally infested with aphids.

Improved Helenor Rutabagas

That was it for the week. 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.

Harvest Monday - April 1, 2019

It may be spring but I'm still relying mostly on veggies that I started last year or even further back.

The lone runty Italian Silver Rib chard plant gave up a surprisingly nice harvest of small sturdy leaves on short stems.

Italian Silver Rib Chard

I cut down the volunteer Syrian Medieval chard plant because it was bolting and when I combined that with the Italian Silver Rib harvest there was enough to make a meal. I braised the chard with some sweet pepper paste and tomato paste, pine nuts, currants, onion, and stock. Some sliced sausage added some substance and made for a satisfying dinner.

Syrian Medieval Chard

I pulled a few more parsnips to see how they are doing now that their tops are growing again. There are no signs of bolting yet but I think I need to keep a close eye on them.

Gladiator Parsnips

The Short Stuff carrots that I sowed back in October are  growing again too. The roots are getting larger but haven't gotten anywhere near as large as I know they can be. I hope they don't start to bolt too soon.

Short Stuff Carrots

Most of the fennel that I've harvested this winter has come from the 2 year old plant. Those 3 bulbs weighed in at 2.4 pounds as shown. And there's still more in the garden!

Orion Fennel

The Brussels sprouts were late to size up but were impressive in the end. That's about 2 pounds of sprouts. I like to shred the big ones and do a quick sauté which was the fate of half that harvest.

Gustus Brussels Sprouts

Other than that I also harvested a few ounces of shoots from the Oregon Sugar Pod II snow pea plants and a bunch of Rishad cress that was just starting to bolt.

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.