Harvest Monday May 2, 2016

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The kale in the greenhouse is flowering but I’m still getting nice harvests from it. I cut all the rapini I could find, plus small leaves from both varieties I have growing in there (Western Front and True Siberian). I sauteed these briefly along with some mushrooms for a side dish.

The salad boxes are still growing strong as well. I have started cutting whole plants instead of plucking individual leaves, since I have lots of lettuce growing in the cold frames that should be ready for harvest soon. I plant a mix of things in the boxes, without labeling them, but I can tell it’s mostly Radichetta in the below photo. That lettuce was destined for some tepary bean tostadas I fixed for lunch one day.

I also cut a butterhead lettuce called Winter Marvel last week. This one was overwintered in one of the cold frame beds. It’s a hardy variety for sure, and it made a big head with buttery smooth leaves that gave us a jump on the spring planted lettuce. This one wound up starring in a taco salad my wife made yesterday.

Asparagus continues to be the star of our spring harvests. I used some of it raw in a black lentil salad. The salad had a few of our dried tomatoes in it too (rehydrated), along with some of the lacto-fermented giardiniera I made a couple of weeks ago. I added some avocado at the last and served it up on leaves of Simpson Elite lettuce, along with fresh baked cracked wheat rolls. I didn’t take any photos of the asparagus harvests, since they all tend to look about the same! We did cut right at 5 pounds of it last week, bringing the yearly total to 16 pounds.

I harvested a nice bit of arugula from one of the salad boxes in the greenhouse. It’s mostly Speedy with a little Apollo thrown in. It’s bolting already and the aphids seem to like eating it almost as much as I do!

It all went on a pizza I made last week. The pizza also featured our dried tomatoes, plus some of the C. baccatum peppers I pickled last fall (Malawi Piccante and Kaleidoscope). I spread some thick, homemade tomato sauce on the whole wheat crust before adding the other ingredients. It is so nice to have a well stocked freezer and pantry with lots of goodies from past harvests.

I’ll close with something from the future harvest department. The thornless blackberries are starting to bloom. The one in the below photo is Natchez, and you can see a small blackberry forming by my finger. Go blackberries! There are blueberries, currants and gooseberries setting on as well, plus cherries in the orchard area. Now if we can just keep the critters away from them, which sometimes feels like a full-time job!

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!