Monday, June 16, 2014

Harvest Monday - June 16, 2014

The hybrid Romanesco zucchini is already going crazy, but I won't bore you with photos of all my harvests, just one.


Oh well, make that two. One of the zucchinis snuck into a photo of my jumbo radishes. I'm always searching for tasty but easy dishes that use plenty of zucchini and this week I found one in Vegetables From An Italian Garden. It was certainly easy, just ricotta, eggs, and salt beaten together, then flour (I used whole wheat), diced zucchini, and shredded zucchini blossoms folded in, spread in a buttered baking dish and baked for 15-20 minutes. My husband loved it so I'll be making it again, next time I may tinker with it and and some sage leaves browned in butter, maybe top it with some shredded Parmigiano or pecorino.


Need a little perspective on just how jumbo that Long Scarlet radish is? My clippers are over 8 inches long (20 cm.). The radishes were a bit too mature to slice into salads, but they were delicious cooked. I took some notes on my preparations which you can read here.


The garlic is nearly ready to pull and cure. I harvested one head to roast. I usually roast my garlic in the oven, but this one was cleaned up, roots removed, top sliced off to reveal the tops of the cloves within, then wrapped in aluminum foil with some olive oil, salt and pepper and put on the BBQ and roasted until tender. We consumed it just squeezed out onto bread, oh my how sweet it was.


I keep pulling fresh heads of garlic from the garden, it's so wonderfully mild before it's cured. And I'm pulling onions to use fresh also, we love them sliced and grilled. I used one of these last night, grilled on my stovetop ridged griddle, they accompanied some grilled asparagus which was topped with sauteed ground lamb that was seasoned with garam masala, fresh fresh garlic, chopped onion, and pomegranate molasses and cilantro. I'm going to have to write that recipe up so I don't forget it, my husband loved it.


The chard requires regular harvesting also, the Flamingo chard is producing side shoots that I'm cutting off and the Peppermint Stick chard keeps putting out huge leaves. I also harvested some huge leaves from the Golden Chard which did not get photographed. No new chard recipes to report, but I'm always searching for those too!


I don't tally my fruit harvests, but I do like to show them off. I have two blueberry bushes growing in pots. The harvests aren't big but the berries are very tasty, I like to let them get extra ripe.  This is a mix of Sunshine Blue and Misty.



The strawberries keep trickling in. I try to harvest these as ripe as possible also. They don't sit around long enough to spoil.


Here's all the harvests for the past week:

Capers - 5.1 oz.
Chamomile, dried - 3.1 oz.
Flamingo chard - 7.2 oz.
Golden chard - 1 lb., .3 oz.
Peppermint Stick chard - 1 lb., .2 oz.
Inchelium Red garlic - 2.9 oz.
Red Janice garlic - 10.4 oz.
Red Candy Apple onions - 2 lb., 2.1 oz.
Pea Shoots - 2.8 oz.
Long Scarlet radishes (inc. greens) - 1 lb., .3 oz.
White Icicle radishes (inc. greens) - 3.6 oz.
Romanesco zucchini - 3 lb., .9 oz.
San Pasquale zucchini - 2.4 oz.
Zucchini blossoms - 11.1 oz.

The total harvests for the week were - 11 lb., 4.4 oz. (5.1 kg.)
Which brings the total harvests for 2014 up to - 276 lb., 1.3 oz. (125.2 kg.)

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.

14 comments:

  1. Those blueberries look perfect. A lot of the flowers didn't form berries this year on ours. But we are along way from harvest still.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You do come up with some really nice ideas for using your veg - simple but delicious! Funnily enough I don't think I have ever tried cooked Radishes. We always eat them raw. Do they taste a bit like Turnips when cooked?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The flavor of the cooked radishes are very much like turnips.

      Delete
  3. That is an enviable harvest for mid-June. You have already harvested more this year than I get all year long. Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Drooling over your berries, I haven't been successful in growing blueberry yet.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful harvests...I hope that one day I can say that one of my zucchini plants is going crazy. Mine usually sit back & take it easy ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's funny, because my hybrid Romanesco is going bonkers, while my San Pasquale is doing just like yours, it's poking along and has produced only one zucchini so far.

      Delete
  6. Great harvest. The Peppermint chard is beautiful with its pink stalks and the deep green, scalloped leaves. And your Romanesco is beautiful, not at all like mine of the same name. I assume this is from Renee's Garden Seeds. Is it really an hybrid, or just a selection? Finally, thanks for the cookbook tip. I am always looking for cookbooks that are real "vegetable" cookbooks, not just "vegetarian" cookbooks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is indeed an F1 hybrid, it says so right on the seed package. And it is from Renee's.

      Delete
  7. My first Romanesco is just now setting on. If mine are half as productive as yours, even one quarter, I will be happy! I always get hungry reading your posts. Mind you, I have had dinner and even dessert, but the zucchini dish has my mouth watering. And then if you put sage butter on it....oh my.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice harvest and pictures! I'm guessing you took them as the sun was setting (or rising?)...always a great time to take pictures. I need to figure something out with my blueberry bushes. They have a good crop on them but I'm afraid the birds may get to them before I do. I bought bird netting but I hate having to use it since it tends to be such a tangled mess. Do you protect your bushes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hate netting also, and it's pretty useless for berry bushes because the birds can get the berries right through the netting unless you suspended it above the bushes. So I use ugly lightweight white remay fabric. My husband said it looks like a sail, but at least I get to harvest some berries.

      Delete
  9. I am not sure why I never considered roasting radishes. They are a root veg after all. Your blueberries look absolutely scrumptious. Ours are at petal fall right now and it will be a while before we even see how many blueberries we can expect to ripen later in the season.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You can bore me all you like with harvest photos....I am still waiting on getting something other than nasturtium and chive flowers out of mine! My caper experiment from last year was a disappointment, but then I knew beforehand that it would be a gamble, given our cooler mountain climate. Love those blueberries!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. I value your insights and feedback.