Sunday, July 11, 2010

Early Summer Harvest

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We spent most of our time indoors as the heat and humidity here have been pretty unbearable. At the moment, I'm clearing and tidying several beds to make way for fall crops in the coming weeks. Admittedly, the work is going rather slow. I have to remind myself that we ought to appreciate the hot summer days as the air will grow crisp and leaves will begin to change color before we know it. Such things have a habit of sneaking up on us here in New England.

Anyway, here are some random harvest photos that I took during the past few days. The numbers are really starting to add up now. Pretty soon, we'll have to purchase that extra freezer to accommodate our excess veggies. I'm already getting tried of the zucchini...is that normal?

DSC_0053

DSC_0059

DSC_0055

DSC_0076

DSC_0068

DSC_0048

DSC_0002

DSC_0035

Harvested this week:
Beans, Peas, Favas - 1.21 lb
Beets - 2.27 lb
Zucchini - 8.29 lb (10)
Cucumbers - 4.05 lb (6)
Celery - 0.79 lb
Kale - 1.69 lb
Carrots - 1.68 lb
Cherry Tomatoes - 0.56 lb
Red of Florence Scallions - 0.40 lb
Florence Fennel - 0.36 lb
Baby Lettuce - 0.20 lb
Softneck Garlic - 0.85 lb
Shallots - 0.24 lb
Broccoli - 0.25 lb
New Potatoes - 1.97 lb

Total this week: 24.81 lb

34 comments:

  1. I have some great zucchini recipes if you need some.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the Potatoes are my favorite! We cooled off a bit on Friday, still pretty warm & humid in the afternoon though. I'd be happy if it was 75f all the time :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's an impressive looking harvest, well done! Not sure if you've read kingsolver's book 'animal, vegetable, miracle' (recommended by the way), but she describes amusingly in there how neighbours will sneak around leaving excess zucchini on each others doorsteps. My tips - pick when they are very small, then there is not so much of them, and you can absorb a lot in a zucchini soup.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Last year we had so much zucchini that I’m growing only one plant this year.
    Lovely color on those carrots. I’m also growing some mix color varieties, but they are still small.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It was sure that way with me and the zucchini.

    You've GOT to try Granny's chocolate zucchini cake/cupcake recipe! The boy would just love them. You can also use applesauce instead of oil and it will be even better.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, I agree with the previous posts. Pick while smaller, and more tender. I grew less last year and lost the plants, but was not too disappointed as there is always summer squash showing up here and there. This year only 4 plants, they all survived, so I will most likely be sharing squash as well.

    My families favorite recipe is zucchini pancakes (savory, not sweet, like potato pancakes) and I dump them in pasta sauce and of course pizza toppings in place of pepperoni (we call it zucaroni) Ummm, I wonder what zucchini ice cream would taste like?

    ReplyDelete
  7. meemsnyc - Thanks! I always love recipe suggestions.

    Dan - What's uncomfortably hot for us is stellar for the plants. Hopefully it pays off.

    Island Gardening - That's one of my favorite books! I think about that part of the book all the time nowadays.

    Vrtlarica - The multi-colored carrots are fun to grow but not really great to eat in my opinion.

    Ribbit - I was planning on giving Gran's zucchini chocolate cupcakes a try. I know you're a big fan!

    Lorie - The zucchini pancakes sound tasty. Thanks for the idea.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Everything is so beautiful and so beautifully photographed too. You harvested a great bounty this week and it was a nice diversified harvest as well. Lots of variety, textures, and tastes!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your carrots have me beyond jealous! I can't seem to get them to grow in the ground, so I have recently sown some in a big container. I hope they turn out as nice as yours!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great harvests Thomas, and there are so many different colors in there- you certainly are eating all the colors of the rainbow!

    I like to shred the zucchini and freeze it for bread....I add the oil that the recipe would call for into the bags as well, keeps the zucchini protected in the freezer and makes for one less step when making bread. We found zucchini-raisin-pumpkin bread to be our favorite for most of the winter.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great harvest, so colorful! And yes, that's normal with the zucchini, your neighbors have probably started locking their car doors and shutting their garage doors LOL! Not sure if you are planning on canning or freezing tomato sauce, but if you get extra eggplant or zucchini or squash, you can always puree it and add it as the sauce is cooking. It adds a bit of creaminess to the sauce and extra nutritional kick, but the real reason is to get rid of extra without feeling guilty by throwing it away LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  12. It all looks so beautiful. getting tired of zuchinni when you have all that other wonderful stuff is expected. The beets are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I only have a few zucchini plants and have only gotten 3 from one so far. That same plant has 3 more that just bloomed, so hopefully I will get to complain about too much soon:) Have you tried dehydrating them w/ some seasonings? Might be tasty, like a healthy "chip"

    ReplyDelete
  14. Looking great as always. I particularly like your potatoes, too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. We bought a freezer for the basement last year as well (still have some of last year's green beans and tomato sauces in it!). For us, we decided freezing was fine for some things but not as good for others (like green beans). So this year we bought a pressure canner so we could preserve things better. (Yes, it's work, but most things worth doing are...). One of the reasons for the freezer was also to stock up on meats when our favorite local farmers had what we wanted.

    Those blackberries look tasty. And, yes, getting tired of zucchini is normal. Most households can probably suffice with just two summer squash plants...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Beautiful harvests. The variety of color is amazing. What kinds of berries are those in the hand? Strawberries?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wow, incredible harvests! Everything is so pretty. Zucchini . . . it does get to be a bit tiresome. I only put in 2 plants this year and they are supposed to produce more male blossoms than female, but the zucchinis are huge even when they are quite young. I agree with the rest of the gang, pick them small and you'll have less to deal with.

    ReplyDelete
  18. That is quite a fantastic week of harvesting! Everything looks so delicious, especially those beets!
    We are just on the doorstep of being overrun with zucchini, but none yet for us.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Tosha - after my run-in with kale chips (blaaacck), I don't think I'll venture into the Veggie chip arena again anytime soon.

    Emily - yes, those are yellow and red wonder wild strawberries. Very delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  20. That is a lovely plate of potatoes! The contrast between the red/yellow/blue-purple is very attractive to the eyes. And that baby lettuce looks nice too. You have done a great job of photographing your harvests (as usual).

    I am not quite tired of zucchini yet, but I'm not nearly as excited about it as I was earlier! I'm thinking about making some chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon. We've been giving a lot of it away.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Yes it is very normal to get tired of zucchini. You die for it to start coming in during the summer and by the end you don't want to see zucchini ever again. Well until next summer. I grate a lot of mine to freeze for the winter. I make zucchini bread out of it and use it in soups.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Your produce always looks so nice and well presented.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Love your potato picture! What a big harvest you had this week. I hear you about the zucchini. Last year I came up with a sweet roll recipe that uses lots of squash. It has become one of my favorite, right up there with chocolate zucchini cake. Here's the link if you want to try it. http://beyonddirtmycreativejourney.blogspot.com/2009/08/sweet-rolls.html

    ~~Lori

    ReplyDelete
  24. All that color - it's just stunning! Are those purple carrots?

    ReplyDelete
  25. We spent most of the weekend inside too because of the heat. I really wanted to be in the garden, so I started some seeds and made some carrot seed mats.

    Such beautiful colors you have to share with us this week! I love the contrasts between greens, reds, and yellows. The plate of new potatoes is just stunning.

    I have a love/hate relationship with Zucchini. I love that it is almost impossible to not have a harvest, but I do get sick of it after a while. I still have a few bags of grated zucchini in the freezer from last year.

    ReplyDelete
  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I will echo what others said - impressive vegetables in stunning colors! The potatoes look so pretty. Are you growing your baby green under any kind of shaded protection? I can't imagine any lettuce growing in the kind of heat we've had the last few weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Great harvest, love the potatoes picture. I'm getting tired of summer squash also, I pulled one up and leave couple as trap crop for the squash bugs, I don't want them to venture over to my melon patch.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Those are some of the most colorful pictures I've seen. They look like M&M's!! HA!! Alright, no throwing rotten fruit at me. Shut up.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Everything's looking really good over in your garden Thomas - I reckon you're about 3-4 weeks ahead of us in the growing stakes as my produce is only just ready for harvesting. Have a great week :)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Everything's looking really good over in your garden Thomas - I reckon you're about 3-4 weeks ahead of us in the growing stakes as my produce is only just ready for harvesting. Have a great week :)

    ReplyDelete
  32. WOW! Now THIS is a harvest. Look at all that variety! And yes, the zucchini sickness is typical!

    On a side note, I enjoy your photos so much. You capture everything so creatively and beautifully!

    ReplyDelete
  33. What variety are your blackberries? I have 4 Apache's that I planted last year that were doing well this year (until the recent drought) but the berries are just at the red stage now. It will be several more weeks before they are black and sweet.

    ReplyDelete