Monday Recap: Lasts and Firsts

It’s hard to believe, but asparagus season is winding down here. We started cutting spears back in mid April, and since then my wife and I have been enjoying fresh, homegrown asparagus as often as possible. It’s been grilled, steamed, stir-fried and roasted. Some of it’s been shared with friends, and some of it has been frozen for later enjoyment. But now, it’s time to stop harvesting and let the ferns grow so they can replenish the roots for next year’s crop. We got 26 pounds from our patch this year, which is down a bit from last year but still plenty of asparagus for us.

Yesterday I stir-fried some with a few sliced mushrooms and some chopped up garlic scapes. I cooked it only briefly, then tossed it with some Garlic Scape Pesto while it was still warm. I generally try and keep it simple with fresh vegetables. And homegrown asparagus is pretty much a rockstar all by itself I think.

But even as the asparagus exits the scene, new arrivals are showing up here. Like raspberries, for instance. This spring I planned on cutting down the old canes on the plants so we would only get a fall crop, but never got around to it. So now we are enjoying raspberries produced on last year’s canes. The red varieties producing now are either Caroline or Autumn Bliss. I planted both but with the way raspberries spread I can’t tell which is which right now, since they have grown every which way. These everbearing raspberries also produce berries in late summer and fall on the current year’s canes.

The blueberries are also starting to ripen about now. My wife usually handles most of the harvesting of these blue jewels. She likes to say she knows every one of them personally, and I am thankful she takes care of this time-consuming but rewarding job!

The fresh berries have been a real treat at breakfast time. I have been enjoying them with some of our homemade muesli. And we’ve started freezing the blueberries.

I harvested the first head of broccoli last week, which was soon followed by several more. Those in the below photo are the Packman variety, which was the first to head up this year. It’s nice to have fresh broccoli again. Some of it went into a Broccoli and Walnut Salad.

The spring planted kale is also nice to have. That’s the Wild Garden mix in the below photo. It has a mix of kales with leaf types that range from smooth, to curly, and even frilly. It has a delightful taste and tender leaves.

Another first on the scene is zucchini. There is usually a glut of it later on but right now the first one looks pretty special to me. The one in the below photo is Partenon, which is a parthenocarpic type that doesn’t need pollination. It should be ready to harvest this morning. For folks who have a hard time growing zucchini due to insect problems, or lack of pollination, the parthenocarpic types can be grown under cover and still produce fruit. Cavilli is another one I’ve grown with light green squash that is parthenocarpic. I like these types because they can set fruit on cool and wet days when other squash might not get pollinated.

And speaking of pollination, I’ll close with what I think was the best news of all from last week – the bees are back! Last Friday we made a half day road trip to Paducah, Ky to pick up our bee nuc. A nuc is a mini-hive and includes a queen, her workers, plus five frames with eggs, brood and food stores. The below photo shows my wife carrying the nuc down to our hive.

We installed the five frames and all the bees in our own hive as soon as we got them home. That’s me in the below photo making the transfer. We’ll give them about a week before we do a hive inspection and see how the queen is doing. They had a rough ride in the back of the truck, and we want to give them a chance to get settled in before we disturb them by opening up the hive. We will feed them with sugar syrup until they are well established.

I hope you have enjoyed this update of current happenings at HA. To see what other gardeners are harvesting, cooking or planting, visit Daphne’s Dandelions where Daphne hosts Harvest Mondays. I’ll be back soon with more news as it happens!