Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The exciting news here is that asparagus season has arrived, running almost a month behind last year though. Once it starts coming up, we usually get a steady supply, and we reached the one pound mark with just a couple of pickings. These first spears wound up on the grill, one of my favorite ways to prepare them.
first big asparagus harvest of 2018
The greens are still coming on too. I cut the first of the pak chois I have growing in the greenhouse. These weren’t full sized, but plenty big to go with some other veggies and tofu for a stir fry. I also cut some Koji tatsoi along with the Mei Qing pak choi.
tatsoi and pak choi for stir fry
I’m cutting lettuce from the greenhouse on an as-needed basis. I made several cuttings last week. Pele is a stunner in the looks department, and the leaves are tender and tasty too.
Pele lettuce
The green Tango and red Spritzer are two that are also doing well in the greenhouse. Spritzer has colored up nicely, and has likely earned a spot in future greenhouse plantings. The red lettuces don’t always develop color out there, so I am always happy to find one that does turn color.
Tango and Spritzer lettuce
Another Tango-esque lettuce I’m growing out in the greenhouse is Salanova Green Sweet Crisp. It has done well too, and I’ll plant more of it in the fall. It has frilly green leaves like Tango and crisp, sweet leaves.
Salanova Green Sweet Crisp lettuce
I pulled one of the overwintered kale plants from the greenhouse for a dish I plan to make tonight with beans, kale and pasta. I believe this is True Siberian, but I’m not 100% certain. There’s a fair amount of diversity in some of the open-pollinated kales that I grow, and sometimes two plants growing side by side will look different. There’s 1.5 pounds of it whatever it is, and it will be enough for tonight and another meal or two!
True Siberian kale
I baked a couple of loaves of bread last week. One was my version of the Breadtopia Artisan Sourdough No-Knead Bread. The other was my version of the King Arthur Flour Golden Kamut Bread. I love the kamut bread for sandwiches, and I modified the recipe to use all kamut flour, about half whole grain kamut and half white kamut flour. It makes for a sturdy but tender sandwich loaf with a wonderful taste and a golden color.
No-Knead Sourdough and Golden Kamut breads
And with a frost advisory issued for Saturday night, I wrapped up my early tomato plants with Agribon row cover material to keep them warm. We had a low temp here of 37°F, and thankfully I didn’t see any frost. I put a remote sensor inside one of the cages and it kept the temperature there at 40°F. Better to be safe than sorry though – grow little tomatoes!
using Agribon for frost protection
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!
The start of asparagus season sounds amazing. And your greens are looking incredible, not to mention your bread. All my lettuce starts bolted in the greenhouse before they could be planted in the ground.
It’s almost May and you’re still getting frost advisories. The chilly weather has definitely been lingering late this spring. It’s warming up for us this week, I’m hoping that’ll help dry out the soil so we can till before the weekend.
That is too bad about your lettuce starts bolting. I still have a lot of them to set out but so far they are not bolting…yet. My fear is that it will suddenly turn warm and they will bolt then.
I think all of your lettuces are stunners in the looks department. And that asparagus too. We’ve been enjoying at least a couple of pounds of asparagus a week since it came in season but mine comes from the farmer’s market. It pairs well with snow peas so we regularly have some sort of saute or stir fry that combines the two.
Still so chilly! It’s been colder than usual here but not that cold and it seems that May Gray is settling in right on cue, the fog was so heavy last night it looks like it rained.
Our tomatoes are just germinating so it will be a while before they are planted out, Is it usual for you to have a late frost?
Very unusual to have one this late!
Cool here, too. Greens and lettuce long gone. Second crop of greens supposedly slo-bolt are shooting straight up (Portuguese kale). Love to read everyone’s stories about the wicked weather and what happens to their plants.
Congrats on that asparagus! Still one of my favorite spring veggies! (The other being spinach, which I can never seem to get enough of ;-))
Brave little soldiers, those tomato plants, Dave… ours are still safely tucked up in the greenhouse as the lovely warm weather has reverted to almost zero at night again!!! Lovely looking asparagus and lettuce (as always)
We did get a frost here, about a hundred miles north of you. I got the pepper seedlings out of the cold frame and into the house for the night. In the midwest at least, growing conditions are definitely improving now. Great looking asparagus spears and fantastic lettuce.