Last Harvest of the Year - Citrus

I actually had a harvest this past week - five good sized Meyer lemons and a few Indio mandarinquats. This was officially the last one of the year and will soon be turned into marmalade today. I use this recipe but substitute half of the sugar with honey, which makes all the difference. Honey and lemons are a match made in heaven if you ask me.

Sharing the Harvest

I didn't harvest too much from the garden this past week. Our fridge is still packed with greens brought in from the week before, and sometimes the best place to store your veggies is in the ground.

Yesterday our friends Sarah and Doug came to visit us for Jonathan's 4th birthday party. Sarah writes her own blog called "The Gaga Diaries," documenting her first pregnancy and adventures as new mother. I was able to send them home with a bag filled with goodies. As we toured the garden, we picked a nice bouquet of Swiss chard and Red Russian kale, as well as some Napoli carrots, American Flag leeks, Hungarian Wax peppers and herbs. It's always nice to share your homegrown produce with friends who are equally as passionate about food as you are.

This upcoming week's harvest should be a bountiful one. The broccoli is looking absolutely fantastic this year!

Early September Harvest

Can you believe we're approaching the middle of September already? I consider September to be a fleeting month in the gardening calendar but this is ridiculous. The garden is transitioning quickly right before our eyes (too quickly if you ask me) and before before you know it, most of our summer crops will be reduced to dust. The daily highs are expected to reach only into the 60's later on this week. Something tells me that our first fall frost will arrive earlier than usual this year.

This weekend, I picked all of my Sweet Banana peppers and pulled the plants to make room for some fall sowings of radishes, claytonia and mache. I'm a bit late with these this year but that's what happens when your garden is overtaken by mosquitoes.


The tomato vines are looking horrible now. Our paste tomatoes are still producing but the rest have succumb to disease.




The fall berries are coming in consistently, but a little at a time. I might try to root some raspberry canes next year to expand our current patch.


Finally, I ripped out our zucchini vines last week and discovered these two monsters. They are hard and heavy at this point. I wonder if they are even edible at this stage. At the very least, we can use them as fall decorations.

Mid-August Bounty

This post is a bit late, but here is what we harvested in the past week. The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen in large numbers. This year I grew half as many plants as we did last year (forty), which in some ways is good since last summer at this time, it was quite stressful trying to keep up with the tomato harvest. However, this year I'm a bit worried that we may not have grown enough to get us by in sauce and salsa for the next twelve months. I may have to increase the number of plants for next year.


Speaking of tomatoes, my Gold Medal and Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) vines are producing enormous fruit. It's not uncommon for a tomato plant to produce a couple of whoppers but in this case, most of them are pretty hefty. I'm a sucker for big ugly tomatoes.

As you can see, I have a few green paste tomatoes here as well. They were salvaged when the branch holding the cluster snapped.


I picked all of my Tongue of Fire beans this week. I've never cooked with fresh shell beans before. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!


The last of our sweet corn. :(


Two delicious Athena cantaloupes. (On a side note, I bought two amazing Canary and Piel de Sapo melons from the market the other week. I saved some seeds to hopefully grow them next year.)


I must be growing a different variety of purple tomatilloes this year because these are almost jet black. I'm excited to make a batch of purple tomatillo salsa. The watermelon you see here was picked because a section of the stem attaching it to the vine had died off. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite ripe yet.


The last of the Spring-sown carrots and possibly the last of this year's artichokes. They will surely be missed.


Finally, the last of the spring-sown beets. It will be at least another month before the fall beets are ready to harvest.

An Early August Harvest

I won't say too much about this week's harvest. The tomatoes are still coming in slowly (annoying) and the corn harvest has been fantastic this year, despite our minor raccoon setback.

Homegrown corn, when picked at the absolute right moment and cooked soon after, is a completely different vegetable from what you get at the supermarket and even at the farmer's market in my opinion. For this reason, I will do battle with every insect and rodent to grow it each year.


We picked our first years of Ruby Queen corn this week. This is my first time growing this variety and I'm happy to report it is incredibly sweet and tender - definitely one I will grow again.

And here is some of the other things we picked this week:








I can't wait to see what all of you are harvesting this week!

Summer's Bounty - Picks of the Week

We hand another bountiful harvest this week. The Hungarian Wax peppers are producing abundantly at the moment. I'll have to set aside a night this week to pickle and can them.


Tomato season has officially begun. (Hurray!) The near triple digit temperatures of the past few days have really helped to produce our first vine-ripened beauties. Not surprisingly, our first ripe slicing tomatoes of the year were Cherokee Purple and Amish Paste.


Our cucumber harvest was a bit out of control this week. The Tasty Jades are producing like mad. We picked at least two dozen - much more than we can consume as a family. What we didn't give away, I'll have to pickle this week.


We also picked about a dozen zucchinis this week as well.


I love Napoli carrots. They are the perfect size for kids to munch on and are reliably sweet.


The first wild blackberries were very sweet this year. I picked a small bowl-full today and Jonathan gobbled them all up before they made it into the house.


It's nice being able to pick more than one or two artichokes at a time. Our plants are producing well this year.


The chipmunks left me these two tiny ripe Seascape strawberries to pick. It's my own fault really. I still haven't covered the bed with bird netting yet.


The string beans are beginning to roll in as well. I can't wait to cook these up.


A bouquet of cilantro, (pathetic) red onions and beets. I think it would be fun to open a store that sold organic vegetable bouquets and arrangements instead of flowers. I'm surprised no one has done it yet.

Picks of the Week - Favas, Shell Peas, Peppers and Zucchini

This week was all about the Fava beans and shell peas. We also picked the first Hungarian Wax peppers and the last broccoli of the season.


I was finally able to grow a decent amount of shell peas this year. Boy it takes a lot of pods to fill a bowl of shelled peas. As you can see, I like to harvest my peas on the mature side - when they are plump and crammed inside the pod. They remind me of the peas of my childhood at this stage, before sweet baby peas became the popular choice.


We also picked the first three zucchini of the summer. Already, I'm letting them get too big.


I also harvested a nice-sized Red Detroit beet and more pickling cucumbers.


These pickling cukes are VERY crunchy and mild tasting. I think I'll make a batch of refrigerator dill pickles and peppers with this week's pickings.

Harvest of Mid-June

I don't have much to say about this week's harvest...mainly because it's late, my back is stiff from working in the garden and I'm ready for bed. This weekend, I thinned my beets and harvested a few baby ones. I'm growing three types this year - Red Detroit, Golden and Chioggia.


This week's harvest was dominated by three things - snow peas...


garlic scapes...


and broccoli side-shoots.


While harvesting the same things repeatedly might result in dinner dishes being a bit repetitive, I don't mind so much. It just goes with the territory of eating seasonally. And it's a reminder that we won't see large bowls of homegrown snow peas and garlic scapes again until next June.

This Week's Harvest - June 5, 2011

When I look at this head of lettuce, I'm can't help but be reminded of nature's diversity.


Lately, it has become a race to eat all of the spring sown lettuce and Asian greens before they reach for the sky. The cleared space will be replanted with more beans and heat-tolerate varieties of lettuce. Our fridge is pretty much patched with greens at the moment. I decided to harvest all six heads of Napa Cabbage as they are beginning to show signs of bolting. Unfortunately, I had to throw about two thirds of each head of cabbage straight into the compost pile because they were covered in holes and slug poo. I must have found at least two dozen baby slugs when I inspected the leaves. I'm starting to question why I even bother to grow it.

In my experience, growing organic Napa cabbage takes a lot of discipline - more than I have apparently. I've been really bad about reapplying the Sluggo every week. Then there are the cabbage worms. I hate to have my beds covered with fabric row cover but when it comes to most brassica vegetables, I'm becoming convinced that it's the only option.


On the bright side, I think this has to be one of the most finest heads of lettuce I've ever grown. This is an Italian variety called 'Lollo Rossa'. It's pretty mild tasting and the leaves hold up well under the mid-day sun. I will surely grow this one again.


Late this afternoon, I noticed that my Pskem River hardneck garlic had produced scapes. Still no signs of them on my other two varieties (German Extra Hardy and Bogatyr).


I also picked the first of this year's broccoli. These crowns aren't quite as big as the ones I got last fall (probably because I planted them much closer together) but I'm still happy with the results. The plants are already sending up plenty of side-shoots. I have nine plants but now I'm wishing that I had grown twice as many.

The End of May Harvest

It's only fitting that the end of May harvest should coincide with the end of our Spring greens. During the past few days, temperatures have reached into the high 80's and as a result many of our cool weather greens have started to bolt. This seems rather sudden considering that we were experiencing nightly low's down in the 40's only a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, I harvested all of our spinach and as much of the mizuna as I could salvage. I'm really happy with how the spinach performed this spring. The plants grew huge and we ended up with a ton of leaves to freeze.


I also ripped out all of our Asian greens. These will last in the fridge for a long time...hopefully until the snow peas come in. Some of the outer leaves are a bit hole-y from the slugs but these should be fine once trimmed up.


Our lettuces are coming in strong right now. We have to eat as much as we can before they begin to bolt as well.

Finally, the radishes are ready for picking. They are tasting spicy already. Most of them will go to Jonathan's grammy. Unfortunately, I've haven't been able to develop a taste for them.