This week marked the first of the asparagus harvest. It was only two spears, but we were pretty excited nonetheless. We are always eager for the start of asparagus season, since it is the first of our seasonal fruits and vegetables to appear.
More are popping up already. This is our third year after planting, and the beds should produce more than the 10 pounds we harvested last year. That should make for a lot of eating in the two month harvest window!
We had a nice mix of salad greens this week, with lettuce, mache and arugula making their way into salads. I harvested some of the outer leaves of the Radichetta lettuce, which is an Italian heirloom variety that resembles a crunchy chicory but isn’t at all bitter. The dark red lettuce in the bowl is the aptly-named Merlot variety.
Radichetta lettuce leaf
I’ve grown the Radichetta lettuce for several years now. It is a large growing, slow bolting variety that grows upright and makes good use of space for intensive plantings. The seeds are available at Seeds from Italy.
Radichetta lettuce plants
I also harvested a mix of Asian greens including komatsuna, tatsoi, purple pac choi and mizuna that wound up in a stir fry with shiitake mushrooms.
stir fry
There is no sign of bolting in the spinach yet, and I harvested about 1.5 pounds. I froze some of it for later use and the rest wound up in salads.
So this weeks harvest tally is:
Asian greens(16 oz)
Asparagus(1 oz)
Spinach(25 oz)
Lettuce and salad greens (11 oz)
Total Harvest 3.3 lbs
To see other gardeners’ harvests, or to add your own, visit Harvest Monday at Daphne’s Dandelions.