There’s only one way to describe the weather here lately, and that’s HOT-T-T! High temps are supposed to be in the mid 90s all week, hitting 96F today. That has meant gardening chores have to be done as early as possible in the day. It has to be bad on tomato pollination, but only time will tell how bad it really is.
And speaking of tomatoes, we got our first taste this week, a couple of Sun Golds and a Sweet Baby Girl harvested on June 17th. There were others ready later in the week, but these first three were special. My wife and I shared them. These were from early plants I got in the ground on 4/14.
Here’s what the harvest bucket looked like last week with a cucumber joining Purple Queen beans, broccoli side shoots and yellow squash.
I harvested almost 3 pounds of Purple Queen bush beans. We cooked a batch of them to eat, and froze the rest. I put some of them in freezer bags along with zucchini, cabbage and onions and froze them for making minestrone soup later on.
Purple Queen bush beans
The onions were some of the Super Star plants I set out last fall. They weighed in at about 4 ounces each – not huge, but tasty and much appreciated in the kitchen where last year’s crop is long gone!
I also harvested some nice Fun Jen greens from the greenhouse, before they melted from the heat. We had them in an Oriental Chicken Salad, mixed with a little lettuce.
Fun Jen greens
We continue to get nice harvests of side shoots from the various broccoli varieties. These are from Piracicaba. I’ve been freezing all the broccoli we can’t eat.
I sauteed some of the yellow squash with a bit of olive oil and added some fresh basil from the herb garden. It made for a quick and easy side dish.
No critters were ‘harvested’ this week, but I did see a rabbit hiding out in the raspberry patch. It better behave, or I’ll do my Mr McGregor impersonation!
All total we harvested 21 pounds of veggies this week, making our yearly total 193 pounds. For more gardener’s harvests, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.