Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It was a fairly light harvest week here as we still had a lot of veggies left from the previous week. I made a couple of cuttings of lettuce from plants growing in the greenhouse salad boxes. One was labeled as Salad Bowl on the seed packet but looks a lot like Oak Leaf to me. Either way it was tasty even if a bit dubious. I also cut the last bit of Tango and Bambi from a salad box in the greenhouse, and promptly planted more seedlings for replacements including the Salad Bowl wannabe. The salad boxes have given us lots of lettuce over the last month or so as I wait for the outside plantings to size up.
Salad Bowl/Oak Leaf lettuce
Tango and Bambi lettuce
I also harvested all the kohlrabi I had planted in one of the cold frame beds. It’s a mix of the purple Kolibri and the green Konan, and I had a bit over 8 pounds of it total. The slugs have been busy on it but the damage is only skin deep. It’s been a great year here for kohlrabi, and I still have more plants of Kolibri and Kossak growing in the main garden. This bit brings our yearly haul up to 75 pounds of it, which is certainly a new record for me. Much of that has been fermented and turned into kraut, kimchi and kohlrabi ‘pickles.’
Kolibri and Konan kohlrabi
I used a few of these to make a jar of garlicky kohlrabi kraut. I roasted a head of garlic first, then smashed it up and added the whole head (minus the skins) plus two cloves of minced fresh garlic to the shredded kohlrabi before stuffing it in the quart jar. It smelled heavenly even when raw, assuming you like garlic of course! The garlic mellows during fermenting, and I sometimes roast two whole heads to go in there. I started another jar of plain kohlrabi kraut too, though I think it’s anything but plain after it’s fermented.
salting the shredded kohlrabi
And I cut enough Wild Garden Mix kale for some braised kale my wife cooked up one night. It was mild and sweet, no doubt helped by a couple of recent frosts and freezes.
Wild Garden Mix kale
I smoked the last of the hot peppers I harvested the previous week. It’s taken a while to process them all because the dehydrator can only hold so many at one time, and they have been taking a couple of days to fully dry. Below it’s Senorita and Farmer’s Market jalapenos, Biggie Chili and Czech Black ready to go on the grill. I smoked another batch later in the week, and other than a couple of plants of Korean hot peppers I have in the greenhouse that should be all of them. Some of the plants left in the garden Aren’t Quite Dead Yet though and they might give us a few more ripe ones.
hot peppers for smoking
I used some of the fresh baby ginger from last week to make sushi ginger (gari). After blanching the ginger in boiling water for 30 seconds I sliced it super thin on my Benriner mandoline before pickling in a mix of rice vinegar, sugar and salt. I am wearing my cut resistant gloves for the slicing operation. Commercial gari is often artificially colored pink, while my ginger was a pale yellow color before and after pickling.
thin sliced ginger for gari
And I experimented with drying some of the fresh turmeric I grew. I followed the instructions in this video and simmered the fresh turmeric roots in water for about 45 minutes. This serves to gelatinize the starches and makes for a more uniform color. Then I sliced the roots into small pieces and dried them in the dehydrator. You can see the dried slices in the below photo. Next I put them in the spice grinder to turn them into turmeric powder. It made about a heaping tablespoon or so of powder, which will be enough to season a few meals and perhaps a jar of sauerkraut. The powder has a lot of flavor compared to most commercial turmeric I have tasted. I saved about half the roots for using fresh.
dried turmeric slices
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!
Your lettuces are so lovely and that is a ton of kohlrabi. It’s really great that you’re still harvesting peppers in November. I never did get around to planting kohlrabi which is sorely missed.
You still are harvesting so much. Do you make turmeric powder too?
I made a little bit of turmeric powder, and I’ll use the rest of the roots fresh.
Ah, those kohlrabi. I was never able to grow them well myself, and unfortunately they don’t show up much in farmer’s markets around here. Yours look very good!
And it is so great that you continue to harvest lettuce! I really have to work in my timing; I tried having some lettuce for this time of the year but I planted it too early in the summer and it bolted. Although I do finally have some kale that is almost ready for harvest.
You do love your kohlrabi. I don’t know what I would do with 75 pounds of it. But I suppose some people might think the same thing of the 40 pounds of broccoli that I’ve harvested this year!
I am so impressed with your Turmeric harvest and making your own powder. That’s definitely something that I want to experiment with.
I could probably handle 40 pounds of broccoli if it didn’t all come on at once. Here both the spring and fall plantings all seem to mature about the same time, despite planting varieties with different maturities.
The turmeric is amazing, what a cool thing to have grown yourself.
I have a very old pack of kohl rabi seed that I might see if it can be used next season, yours always sounds and looks so good.
Some great harvests for November! Am absolutely going to give the turmeric a try at some point – I use it quite a bit for Indian dishes and you have really piqued my interest when you say that it’s much more flavourful than what you purchase.
Hi, I am envious of your lettuces. Guess I didn’t plant enough at the right time. Nancy