Harvest Monday 5/24/10

The heat this past week sent the tatsoi bolting. So I harvested 6 oz of it and sauteed it with sesame seeds. I'm leaving a bit in the ground to see if it will put out side shoots.We harvested Arugula twice, totaling 4.5 oz. It is getting close to bolting as well.
Harvests this week: 10.5 oz
Harvests this year: 1.4 pounds
You can see what other gardeners are harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.

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 Totals 12/21/09

Early last week I took advantage of above freezing temperatures to harvest salad greens from the cold frame. I got a bit wet in the process as there is snow all around the cold frame and I had to get close to reach in to where the greens were. However, it was worth it for the fresh salad we had for dinner that night.

Pictured here clockwise from 12 are 1.5 oz of tatsoi from under the snow, 1 oz of arugula, a few leaves of mache, a few leaves of claytonia, .5 oz of mizuna, 1 oz of swiss chard and .25 oz of beet greens (center).

I also picked two kohlrabi, which together weighed 7 oz.
Together with the carrots from a previous week we had a nice salad from the garden in the middle of December. Since this harvest early last week, the temperatures have not ventured above freezing (even venturing into the below freezing range) so I'm not sure how things are doing. I'll be gone for the holidays but I'm hoping that I'll return to at least one harvest in the New Year!

You can find out 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 Harvests 11/23/09

A few warm days this week with temps in the 50s allowed me to prop the cold frame open to let out some of the moisture. This week I harvested winterbor kale from the cold frame. I tried to choose the leaves that were most getting in the way of the windows closing snug. This was picked at night and went into a yummy Barley-Tomato-Kale Soup from the Moosewood soups cookbook.
We also picked some tatsoi on Saturday to throw into a quick asian noodle soup. I love how it has formed beautiful rose shapes with the leaves. It is definitely doing better now than in the summer heat. I planted tatsoi in succession throughout the whole season, but the mid summer planting bolted very quickly. This last planting was horribly attacked by something eating its leaves in August, but has recovered nicely and is actually outside the cold frame. I have another harvest yet of it. I also have some seedlings of it in the cold frame so we'll see how it does at the temperature drops.
You can see what other gardeners are still harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions.

Monday Harvest Totals 10/12

Here is my one harvest for the week. I picked 4 oz of Swiss Chard, 2 oz of Mizuna, and 2 oz of tatsoi last Wednesday. They all went into a pasta carbonara dish and were a delicious mix of flavors.

We had our first serious heavy frost this morning. The hardy greens remain outside and inside the cold frame. You can find out about other gardeners' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.