Monday Harvests 5/17/10

On 5/13 we harvested 2.25 oz of arugula and 2.25 oz of sorrel became a pesto with pecans and garlic. We also had 4.25 oz of oak leaf lettuce, tatsoi, and baby kale greens. Last night I picked 3 oz. of tatsoi to go into a curry.
Total for the week 9.5 oz. With these harvests from the cold frame and other lettuce on the way I think I'm done buying lettuce at the store until the fall. Hooray!

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

Harvest Monday 4/26/10

This week I harvested a few ounces of Sorrel and I remembered to take photo of it as it is the first harvest from my new garden! (Although I did transplant the plant from the old one). We baked it into a quiche with some fresh eggs from a neighbor. There is one small leaf of kale in there because I found at least three kale plants that survived the winter from the previous owner. They had been knocked over, but yet survived. I transplanted them since they are a red leaf variety that I don't have. I hope they will go to seeds and I'll be able to save seeds from them. In the mean time they are putting on a bit of new growth.

Some of my first sowing of lettuce is starting to fill out so maybe next week I'll have a small salad.

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

Cold Frame Update

Today the temperatures were above freezing so I went out to check on the cold frame and gather some greens for a dinner salad. It was different to see through the glass and not have ice on both sides. Almost everything had rebounded from the cold except, surprisingly, the italian chicory dandelion. I was under the impression that this was rather hardy but it was still limp. The carrot greens had browned a bit, but I've harvested the larger ones and those still in the ground are an experiment to see if they will survive colder temperatures.

Here's how things looked inside today. You can compare them to how things looked a little over a week ago on Dec 5th or way back in September.
The sorrel is doing fine taking up the middle of the first window, but I don't know what to do with it. We made a sorrel soup, but that was just so-so. Any suggestions? I harvested the largest kohlrabi in the back. Hopefully the others will size up. The mizuna at the bottom right is doing great. I took this photo after harvesting the larger chard leaves and arugula from the middle. The dark red leaves are beet greens. I don't think I'll get any beets, but we'll eat the leaves. There is some new tatsoi in the middle as well. Kale is in the back. I didn't pick any today.
More kale in the back, limp carrots and italian chicory in the middle with small mache under and small claytonia on the bottom left. Both claytonia and mache are supposed to be very hardy but I planted them late in shady spots and they haven't amounted to much yet. Maybe they will continue to grow as the winter marches on.

Next to the cold frame under the snow was some tatsoi. I dug it out to harvest two heads. Then I covered it back up with snow so that it will be protected from the harsh cold that's predicted for the rest of the week.
And here was one of tonight's salads with all home-grown ingredients. It certainly is a pleasure in December. More on the harvest next week.

Monday Harvest Totals 9/21/09

The harvests are slowing down. You can see other gardeners' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

I picked 1.5 oz of tatsoi, 2 oz of green zebra tomatoes, 2 oz of cherry tomatoes last Monday.
On Wednesday we harvested 8 pound of Japanese quince from the bush outside our kitchen window. These were cooked into jam and jelly. I'll update that in another post.
We harvested our first sorrel, 8 oz for a potato leek sorrel soup that was alright, though not a favorite. We'll have to find another use for the sorrel.
Saturday night brought the first frost warning so we put the windows on the cold frame and picked the last 14 oz of tomatoes.
Lastly I harvested the last cayenne pepper today for some salsa, and it was the one we let get the reddest.
Harvests from now on will be greens from the cold frame and the few hardy greens like lacinato kale which are outside the cold frame.