Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s been mostly the same players in the harvest basket lately, but there’s a couple of new players this week. More on that later. I still have lots of lettuce sizing up now, and we are enjoying it as often as we can. The cutting in the below photo came from the greenhouse salad boxes, and wound up in a taco salad my wife made last week.
mixed lettuce for taco salad
I cut both True Siberian and White Russian kale last week. We had it at different meals, but my wife and I both agreed the White Russian is still the tastiest of the ones I have grown recently. It’s a little less tender now since it has been subject to wind and weather, but still flavorful. The White Russian paired up with potatoes (from the grocery) for some Kale And Potato Hash.
harvest of White Russian kale
I still have lots of green garlic growing from my December planting. Much of it is one variety called Maiskij, which is an early maturing turban type that has a reddish skin. That red coloration is present even in the young garlic, which you can see in the below photo. I used the green garlic to whip up a batch of Michelle’s yummy Crema di Green Garlic. The whole house smelled heavenly the whole time it was cooking! Well, it smelled great if you like garlic. I think it’s safe to say if you are allergic to garlic you probably shouldn’t visit Happy Acres!
green garlic for garlic cream
So far I have been enjoying the garlic cream on crackers, eaten as a snack. It’s my turn to cook, and this week I plan on using it in a white runner bean salad I’m going to serve with some crispy crostini made from a sourdough baguette. And speaking of bread, I baked up a loaf of Rye & Whole Wheat Bread to use for Reuben sandwiches. We had those for lunch yesterday, but I didn’t get a photo because they looked pretty much like the ones we had last week.
Rye & Whole Wheat Bread
There was a bit of excitement in the garden patch, though I don’t know which harvest was the most exciting. I cut the first garlic scapes on Saturday from the early garlic cultivars. I got all of those from Xian and Red Janice, plus a few from Uzbek and Shilla. It was enough to make a batch of Garlic Scape Pesto that is destined for a pasta dish I plan to make tomorrow night.
garlic scapes from early garlicgarlic
The other excitement came in the same bed in the main garden, just a few feet from the garlic. Last fall I prepped a spot for some edible podded peas so it would be ready for an early spring sowing. I had a little trouble getting them to germinate outside, so I filled in the blank spots with some I started indoors. They are now blooming and setting on pods, so I guess my persistence paid off. The first to harvest is the 1984 AAS winner Sugar Ann. It’s only a handful of pods so far, and my wife and I shared those for a snack. The Oregon Sugar Pod 2 peas are blooming now, so it won’t be long before we have both snap peas and snow peas.
Sugar Ann snap peas
The asparagus continues to roll in. We’ve gotten 23 pounds of it so far, with about two more weeks of harvest to go. I stir-fried that in the below photo, seasoned simply with some ginger, turmeric and a fresh green scallion from the garden.
asparagus harvest
stir-fried asparagus
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!
Still nothing much to report just a few sticks of rhubarb and salad leaves.
That garlic looks so perfect! I barely grow enough to last the winter so I tend not to pick it until mature. And, mmm, fresh peas!
Nice to have peas already. I could have seeded mine earlier if I had prepped a place in the fall, but then I didn’t have a plan. I find the garlic scapes in early May even more surprising. You will have scapes over an extended period with the later varieties yet to mature.
That’s one advantage to planting the turban types. Not only do the bulbs mature early, but they make scapes early too. The rocamboles like German Red and Russian Red will give me scapes later on, as will the artichoke types.
The Maiskij garlic is so pretty, but I’m not even tempted to grow it, it would end up red from rust in my garden. I’m so glad you liked the garlic cream, it is addicting. I may have to add that White Russian kale to my 2017 wish list. Only 2 more week of asparagus harvests, the season is so short. Do you freeze any?
We do freeze some of the asparagus, though I think there are less uses for it after it has been frozen. I does make a great soup.
How nice to have fresh peas already – of whatever type. I’ve been looking out for them appearing in the shops, but I haven’t seen any yet (except the Mangetout ones which are seemingly always available.) My own peas haven’t even got flowers on them yet. I also admire that loaf you made, Dave. It looks so even and the crumb texture looks perfect! I’m enjoying making sourdough bread so much these days that I haven’t branched out as much I probably should…
The crumb was nice but the top turned out a bit uneven. It tasted fine though, and made a good sandwich bread.
That garlic looks amazing! I really should try growing some of my own but I forget every year..I might grab some from the markets..
All your wonderful spring harvests make me long for my winter garden!
Oh, I’m so jealous of that lettuce & kale! I have some lettuce and all of the kale in the ground and thankfully, it’s still fine even with our cold, windy weather (including snow pellets yesterday!) – but, not surprisingly, it isn’t growing very quickly.
Oh, what a great pea surprise! We love sugar snaps, but I often found we had a glut of them over a couple of weeks and then nothing, so this year I’m trying a succession to see if that works out better. I’ve heard that succession planting doesn’t generally work that well with peas, but never know until you try!
They may be regular players in your garden, but at least they are still rewarding you and your belly. The Russian Kale is stunning, you now have me hankering for your kale and potato hash and for me that is weekend grub!
Looking great as usual Dave. I’ve got some Sugar Ann peas sown in the back garden which have just peeped up through the soil. Now just need to keep the slugs at bay (I failed last year!). I’m going to try successional sowing them too, like Margaret (well, two succession anyway…then I run out of space!)
Very nice peas. Wish I had planted sugar snaps this year. They always take so long to germinate, I’ve contemplated strategies to get them going quicker, like plastic over the seeds to warm the soil. Looks like your method worked well. Good grief – 23 pounds of asparagus!
Everything looks good where you are. I’m awaiting garlic scapes and one variety of snow pea is just showing blossoms.