Harvest Monday 7/19/10

This week's harvests brought some firsts.The first cherry tomatoes (3 oz),
The first pickling cucumbers (15 oz) with a few radishes, red and golden beets, cherry tomatoes, green onion and cilantro.
The first carrots (3oz) with some lettuce

The zucchini plants are in full swing and I've already given some away. I'm checking daily to try to keep on top of it. So far we've eaten it grilled, and raw in salads. We'll be sauteing it soon and I may be trying zucchini pickles too. So far we've harvested over 2 pounds of golden and green zucchini. One of the plants of golden zucchini seems to be more in the yellow squash vein. You can see the one on the far right here is lighter in color and has a different shape.
We used the ladder to get the rest of the sour cherries off our tree. This is the total harvest, only 4.5 oz. I picked some rhubarb and used some wild blackberries and picked raspberries to make a sauce to go on yogurt or ice cream. At the beginning of the week I picked the last of the broccoli side shoots (4 oz), sugar snap peas (4 oz) ,and 18 oz of lettuce that was bolting.
Also harvested this week but not shown include enough basil to make pesto, and over a pound of swiss chard.

Total this week: 8.6 pounds
Total this year: 31.1 pounds

You can see other gardeners' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 7/12/10

This week the summer garden arrived. The harvests have picked up and the variety has increased. I told my husband that I haven't felt the need to go to the farmers market because we have what we need in the garden. A friend who works on a farm came for lunch. She was telling me what was in their CSA distribution this week and mentioned new potatoes. It made me curious and so I dug up one bunch of my Irish Cobbler potatoes just to see. They were so good. This was 10.5 oz of potatoes with some squash blossoms.
Later we had friends over after church for lunch. I ran out to the garden and dug up some more potatoes to make hash browns to go with our pancakes. Both times I tried to re-plant the potatoes because there were small potatoes the size of peas, as well as the well sized new potatoes. Hopefully they'll re-root and grow some more :) This was 1.6 pound more of potatoes.

Also this week I harvested almost all my chard plants so that I could freeze some. Some went into a couple of quiches, but I was able to blanch and freeze some. It only filled one quart freezer bag after I was done. I'll continue to harvest more throughout the summer. All together this week I harvested almost 3 pounds of swiss chard.
The zucchini and first winter squash started blooming this week. We had squash blossoms in a salad and on top the quiche. We also got our first green zucchini, which makes it feel like summer is here. I'm sure we'll be sick of zucchini in a month, but right now it is a welcome novelty. It weighed 13 oz.
Other harvests this week include the first couple beets,
Side shoots of broccoli, sugar snap peas, radishes, and squash blossoms,
More swiss chard, lettuce, and green onions
More lettuce, in total over one pound of lettuce this week.
Finally, I picked spearmint and peppermint to dry in the attic, along with the beautiful blooming lavender. The mints weighed 6 oz. I didn't weigh the lavender since I don't plan on eating it, it will be made in to sachets.

Total this week: 9.8 pounds
Total this year: 22.5 pounds

You can see other gardeners' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 6/14/10

This was a week of more and more lettuce. I harvested 11.25 oz of lettuce. I slowly pulled my oak leaf lettuce to create room in the cold frame for starting fall seedlings of broccoli and cabbages.
We finished the first plant of radishes, 2.75 oz. The green onion isn't counted in my total because I bought green onions at the store back in late April and planted them like Annie's Granny does.

I also pulled my arugula which was going to seed and harvested 4 oz of it.
I harvested 2 oz of peppermint and hug in the attic to dry. I drink peppermint tea almost every day so it makes sense to start drying my own. There is a lot of peppermint and spearmint in the front garden.
Total this Week: 1.28 pounds
Total this Year: 4.79 pounds

You can see what other gardeners harvested at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 6/7/10

This week I've enjoyed running out to the garden to top my salads with fresh radishes. I've been bad about weighing them so my estimate is that I picked 5 oz of radishes.

We harvested 7.5 oz of lettuce this week. I pulled some of the oak leaf that is beginning to turn bitter. We have a lot more out there to harvest this coming week.
I picked the bolting spinach, 1.5 oz and the first swiss chard, 3.5 oz. I never have much success with spinach, but I will try a fall planting this year and see if I can get it to over-winter. We're happy to substitute chard for spinach in most recipes. This chard was started inside and put in the cold frame at the beginning of April. Its a few weeks ahead of the chard that was planted outside the cold frame at the same time and at least a month ahead of the chard I seeded directly in the garden.
Harvests this week: 1 pound 2.5 oz
Harvests this year: 3.5 pounds
You can see what other gardeners are harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 5/31/10

The harvests are growing slightly larger each week and a bit more varied too. You can see what other gardeners are harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.

On Tuesday I harvested 6.25 oz of lettuce, spinach and arugula for a salad. We had some friends in town from Singapore and they joined us for dinner that night. I harvested a bit of rhubarb (and forgot to weigh it), and then bought more at the farmers market to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. This weekend I harvested 2.75 oz of lettuce thinnings, 4 oz of arugula for an asparagus/arugula pesto, and 1.5 oz of the first radishes. Harvests this week: 14.3 oz
Harvests this year: 2.3 pounds

Here's the pizza we made with the arugula pesto topped with zucchini, pepperoni, mozerella, asparagus, and our radishes. Before baking, Ready to eat! We enjoyed it.

Update 6/3/09

My apologies for the relative lack of activity on the blog lately. We're closing in on the end of school and spare time is lacking. I know I'll have more to say when school's out. Seven days and counting!

In the mean time, here are some not-so-recent harvest pictures. I haven't even had time to harvest this week so I think they date back to Memorial Day weekend. We used all the arugula to make very yummy Arugula Ravioli. We used about 2 oz from the garden and 4 oz from the farmers market. We even made the pasta dough. They were hard work but well worth it.
Here are a few of the radishes. The rest are slated to be pulled this weekend as it will be time to plant the tomatoes in their place.
Currently in the garden I need to get to eating some spinach, the rest of the arugula (which is beginning to go to seed) the radishes, and some of the lacinato kale. Looks like I don't need to stop by the farmers' market this week.

Back to report cards and end of year tasks!

First Harvest

On Monday, I impatiently harvested some of the first greens of the season.
I picked (clockwise from top) two radishes, chives, freckles romaine lettuce, arugula, kale, and chard. With store-bought spinach at the bottom of the bowl, the greens turned into two colorful to go with our dinner. I can't wait for more!