Welcome to Harvest Monday, the Memorial Day edition, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We were glad to see a few newcomers in the harvest basket last week. The snow peas I planted back in late March are now starting to set pods. I only got a handful this time, but they are covered in blooms. It’s a mix of the yellow podded Golden Sweet plus the green Sugar Daddy and Oregon Giant in the below photo. They wound up in a mixed stir fry my wife cooked up along with some asparagus and a few mushrooms.
mixed snow peas
Another newcomer to 2017 is kohlrabi, which came from one of the cold frame beds. It’s the green Konan and the purple Kolibri, and they weighed almost 6 pounds. The slugs have been eating on the skins, but it doesn’t hurt the kohlrabi any. I let them get fairly big so I can turn a few of them into fermented pickles and kohl-kraut. Others will likely be eaten raw or turned into kohl-slaw.
Konan and Kolibri kohlrabi
I made another cutting of garlic scapes last week from the rest of the Turban type garlic. The rocamboles haven’t started putting up scapes yet, but it shouldn’t be much longer. Most of this bunch is going in a batch of Garlic Scape Pesto, and a few will likely wind up in Daphne’s Garlic Scape Salad Dressing. Some might meet up with the snow peas for a stir fry.
garlic scapes
Last week I made the first cutting of the Miz America mizuna. It is starting to bolt, and I put a few of the flower shoots in there along with the leaves. I stir fried this one day for lunch, and my first impression was that is is a bit more spicy than most mizuna I grow. Initially I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but by the time I was finished eating it I wished I had fixed more. I didn’t get a photo of it after cooking, but it turned sort of a purplish green color, and was actually quite attractive. I think it might taste better in fall, when it can mature in cooler weather, so I will be growing this one again later in the year.
Miz America mizuna
We also got our first and last harvest of sour cherries. Our North Star tree is growing in the shade of a giant maple tree, and has struggled to produce much as a result. Still, we got just under a pound from it which was enough to make a nice cobbler.
North Star sour cherries
To fill up the freezer though, on Friday my wife and I made a trek to Farview Orchards, where they have lots and lots of both sour and sweet cherries planted. We picked around 20 pounds in 45 minutes, and brought them home for processing that afternoon. Now the freezer is filled with enough cherries to last us until next year. We like to eat the sweet ones straight up for dessert, and add them to our morning muesli. They also make a nice addition to a smoothie.
sour cherries from Farview Orchards
And we made the final cutting of the asparagus. The size of the spears was starting to decline, and frankly we had gotten our fill of it the last two months. We cut 24 pounds of it total this year, down from last years 30 pounds but still plenty for us to eat and some to share. I used some to make a chicken pesto pasta dish I cooked up last night, using the garlic scape pesto.
last asparagus of 2017
Something else we’ve been cooking up lately is sweet potatoes from storage. We love to toss them with a little olive oil and cook them in a cast iron skillet. They get browned and crispy on the outside, but stay soft on the inside. For the batch in the below photo I picked the orange flesh Redmar, the white flesh Red Japanese, and the all-purple Purple. It made for a colorful and tasty combo that accompanied grilled salmon one night for dinner. We still have a decent amount of sweet potatoes in storage, and I am happy to report I got about half of the 2017 crop planted on Saturday. I will plant the rest once the slips I ordered arrive from Duck Creek Farms.
sweet potatoes in cast iron skillet
As for bread baking, I made a batch of sourdough buns last week. I’m working up my own recipe based on ideas from several sources. These were half whole wheat and half bread flour, and I baked them in a Mini Round Cake Pan (from USA Pan) which has six wells for dough or batter. It kept the wet dough from spreading out, and overall I was pleased with the results. I let them raise in the pan for 2.5 hours, and I think next time I will let them go even longer. They got a nice oven spring, but I believe they would have been taller had I waited another hour or so before popping them in the oven. I topped them with my ‘everything’ mix that includes white and black sesame seeds, poppy seeds and a bit of dried onions.
sourdough buns
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 are trying to grow some sweet potatoes in pots in the greenhouse, just to see whether we can.
My garlic scape should be appearing soon, I too planted my sweet potatoes in the ground as well as in containers for comparison.
Excellent, garlic scapes and the first peas! We can’t wait for ours. And we would be more than happy with just half of your asparagus total. Your cherries look beautiful; are they truly sour? Nothing a little sugar can’t fix, I’m guessing.
Not really that sour, but definitely different than the sweet ones.
Wonderful harvests – I’m so looking forward to peas. I have a few varieties of edible podded peas growing, but I’m still a few weeks away from a harvest. I have a feeling that my sweet potatoes are going to be a bust this year as I had a hard time getting the slips to develop this year and only ended up with a couple of rather tiny ones.
Such harvests! Enough to feed a large family most weeks! I had never thought of growing sweet potatoes in containers but am limited to four 4 x 8 foot raised beds. I imagine they’re attractive too. Maybe on the patio. Oh to have access to such cherries!
I’m so jealous of your snow peas and your kohlrabi look massive. All that asparagus sounds just wonderful and you make such beautiful breads.
I’ve been annihilating cabbage caterpillars on our kohlrabi and tatsoi, it’s probably not worth ordering Bt since they’ll be pulled in a couple of weeks. But I’m going to have to get some for the fall broccoli.
Beautiful harvests! I’m really sorry that I didn’t get around to sowing snow peas this spring. I found a purple snow pea that I’m going to try this fall along with the Golden Sweet, it should be a pretty combination. Sour cherries are a wonderful thing, I’ve never had them fresh, but I love the dried ones. Perfect looking asparagus. It seems that your harvests are ending just in time, just when you are getting weary of them. That’s one of the things that I like about seasonal eating, enjoy whatever it is in its prime and then move on to the next great thing.
I do love some cherries. I wish we had a supplier around here but sadly we don’t. Now as far as sweet potatoes, we tried some last year and they never did anything. You need to come to my house!
Our cherry tree is basically buried by our oak tree. My guess is that someone planted them together many years ago and the oak tree won.
Question: How many stems do you expect to get from one asparagus crown, before you let it go for the year?
I’ve honestly never counted! It really depends on the age of the plants. The older they are, the longer you can cut them.
Gorgeous cherries, I’ve never had sour ones before.
The bread rolls…mmm.
That’s a nice haul of kohlrabi. When the cabbages ripen I will attempt to make sauerkraut for the first time and will probably supplement the cabbage with some shredded kohlrabi to make a batch. Your fermented preparations have been an inspiration.
DAVE!!! OMG those cherries are amazing! The ones you grew look just like the ones you purchased! It’s seriously making my mouth water! haha My phone broke so I was not able to post this week to the harvest. Waiting on my replacement that is suppose to be here tomorrow.. Hopefully posting again next week.