Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related.This past week I harvested the first tomatoes of the year. It was a mix of several small-fruited types, including the orange Sun Gold and Sun Sugar, the reds Mexico Midget, Candyland Red and Supersweet 100, the purple Carbon Copy and the tiny yellow-white Champagne. The first tomatoes are always a real treat, and these were all pretty tasty to me. My wife and I enjoyed these for a lunchtime tasting and Sun Gold is still hard to beat on flavor, with Champagne coming in second, at least for this batch.
first tomatoes of 2016
Another first for the year was potatoes. I dug some of the Red Lasoda, which is not my favorite red skinned potato but it’s what I found available locally and what I planted. I still have Kennebec and German Butterball to dig up later. I find sweet potatoes much easier to grow here, so I am thankful for whatever potatoes I get.
Red Lasoda potatoes
The potatoes were destined to get cooked up with the first snap beans of the season. I planted one bush bean variety this year called Derby, a 1990 AAS winner I’ve grown for many years. It’s a dependable producer for me that will give us some snap beans while we are waiting for the pole beans to come on.
Derby snap beans
More summer squash is setting on pretty much daily. In the basket below there’s the yellow pattypan Sunburst, the zucchini Striata d’Italia, and the heirloom White Scallop. The one White Scallop must have been a twin blossom. I’ve also been harvesting Romanesco, Clarimore, Astia, Bossa Nova and Enterprise, which means all the summer squash I planted is now producing.
harvest of summer squash
More blackberries are ripening too, and I’ve been picking about a quart total each day of the Natchez and Apache varieties I have planted. The bird netting seems to be keeping the deer out of them, and thankfully bird damage is also very minimal. I’ve already frozen two gallons of them, and my wife and I are enjoying them every morning at breakfast.
Natchez and Apache blackberries
Lynda has been harvesting the blueberries. It’s Elizabeth and Chandler that are giving up the most berries, and Sunday she picked almost a quart of them. Like the blackberries we’re freezing the ones we don’t eat.
blueberries
The greenhouse cucumbers are finally starting to come on. That’s Corinto and the smaller Picolino in the below photo. Picolino wound up in a salad and I sliced the Corinto on my mandolin (not the one with strings) and made Quick Refrigerator Pickles out of it.
Corinto and Picolino cucumbers
With lots of Kossak kohlrabi coming in from the garden, I decided to ferment some of it. I made a quart jar of basic kohlrabi kraut, plus a golden kraut with kohlrabi and fresh grated turmeric, ginger and garlic. I also made kohlrabi ‘pickles’, seasoned with a little dried hot pepper and some fresh crushed garlic.
fermenting kohlrabi
The golden kraut turned out to have a lovely color and flavor. Dried turmeric would also work but I happened to have some fresh and about a teaspoon of it grated up was all it took to color the shredded kohlrabi.
golden kohlrabi kraut
I harvested more garlic, digging the rocambole types German Red, Russian Red and Killarney Red. I also cleaned up and weighed one variety I harvested a couple of weeks ago. Xian is a Turban type with purple outer bulb wrappers. And doesn’t it look good in the bowl my wife made? The tomatoes in the first photo are in another of her creations.
Xian garlic
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!
We grown Sungold too but so far only have flowers. Although most of your crops are ahead of ours our potatoes were dug before yours, Maybe they prefer cooler, wetter conditions.
I agree with Sue – our potatoes are ahead of yours, but the tomatoes and cucumbers are way behind. Sunshine is short supply is the problem in my case! I have a few tiny (1-inch) beans forming now… fortunately beans thrive in moist soil! 🙂
That’s great you had so many little tomatoes to try. And yay for summer squash and potatoes. I’ve never been able to get potatoes to grow here even though the plants end up huge and lush, it’s probably too hot.
Your berries look so good and the garlic is really pretty. Have a happy 4th of July!
Wow, tomatoes, beans, cukes and squash. Summer has certainly arrived at your garden. I’m probably at least two weeks behind. I have a batch of the kohlrabi kraut fermenting. If we like it I may have to try that turmeric kraut .
Great to see you’re in full summer swing; I’m envious of those tomatoes, potatoes, squash, and beans. They are all so nice looking.
Oh, look at those glorious tomatoes! Such a seasonal milestone. Well, I am certainly envious of your harvests over this past week – EVERY single one is still a future harvest around here. If I’m lucky, my harvest basket will look much the same as yours in another few weeks.
No harvest to speak of for me this week, so I’ll just enjoy everyone else’s. I sure wish I had tomatoes already, but mine are way behind yours. The kohlrabi kraut and pickles sound really good. I’ve never had kohlrabi any way but fresh.
I think the first tomatoes are one of the most exciting harvests of the entire year! Those look great. My first maters are still weeks away. 🙁 Two gallons of blackberries in the freezer, frozen treasure. And bluberries too. Lynda’s baskets are beautiful, she is so talented.
Wow, the purple in your garden is amazing – blueberries, blackberries, a little around the garlic and the potato skins too. Wow. I will avert my eyes from your gorgeous tomatoes, we are jealous indeed.
Wow, your garden is so far ahead of mine, and giving you lots of lovely food! I’ve harvested my garlic and potatoes but still waiting for blueberries, tomatoes and courgettes!
What gorgeous harvests Dave. The tomatoes and summer squashes especially..yum. I’m hoping to pick my first small courgettes tomorrow, ( I was eyeing them up tonight) but the tomatoes are a long way off.
The bowls made by your wife are amazing 🙂
The bowls were her ‘practice pieces’, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!
Congrats on your first tomatoes! I’m getting very impatient with mine. Usually I get my first tomatoes the first week of July, so they should be ready any day now. I grow Sungold too and that are so delicious, now if only mine would stop being so slow!
I love the look of those summer squashes, and that garlic is a great colour. Our tomatoes haven’t set fruit just yet, but they were late to germinate and the weather has been rather poor.
Those tomatoes look amazing and so does the garlic!
The veggie baskets are so pretty! Functional and aesthetic at the same time 🙂
Nice harvest, Dave. The berries look fantastic. Beans and new potatoes make a great one pot stew, one that I make a lot in the summer. Next year I hope to ferment some kohlrabi, that turmeric kraut sounds really good.