Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The heat wave continues here, with the temperature hitting 97°F yesterday afternoon. I wonder what it’s going to be like come July, when it normally gets really hot! My wife and I went for a walk yesterday before lunch and it was already 85°F then. Despite the heat, we’ve got a couple of new entries in the harvests this week. The first to show up was a cutting of garlic scapes, a truly seasonal treat. I didn’t even know they existed until I started growing hardneck garlic varieties a few years back, but now they are a favorite treat. These first ones went into a batch of Daphne’s Garlic Scape Salad Dressing which we enjoyed on some of our homegrown lettuce last week.
garlic
I made another cutting on Saturday and those may wind up in batch of Garlic Scape Pesto later this week. They were joined by the first bit of Apollo broccolini. This one doesn’t make a big main head, so I was quick to cut it to encourage the side shoots to start forming which are the real attraction. I threw it in a dish I made last night along with other veggies, because what can you really do with one small piece of broccoli ?!?
garlic scapes and Apollo broccoli
Another newcomer this week was the first 2018 harvest of kohlrabi. These three are Konan, a 2016 AAS Winner and a new favorite of mine. They weighed about half pound each, which I think is a nice size. There was a little slug damage on the skins, despite my using Sluggo, but the damage is only skin deep and disappears once you peel them. We had one for lunch yesterday, sliced thin and dipped in a yogurt tahini sauce I made for the occasion.
Konan kohlrabi
Other harvests included a couple of cuttings of lettuce from the greenhouse. Tall Oaks is an oakleaf type and contrasts nicely with the red Spritzer, which was starting to bolt.
Tall Oaks and Spritzer lettuce
The Salanova Red Butter isn’t real red but it is still tender and tasty despite our hot conditions. I haven’t even started summer lettuce yet and I may skip it this year because summer came so early!
Salanova Red Butter lettuce
The asparagus bed continues to produce well, and has given us 20 pounds so far this year. We’ll likely continue to cut for another couple of weeks and then let the bed grow into ferns.
daily asparagus harvest
I cut one of the napa cabbages I had planted in a window box planter. It sized up quickly and was starting to form a head, and weighed almost a pound. I used it to make the egg roll bowl dish I first made a few weeks ago which has all the ingredients of an egg roll but without the wrapper. I used ground turkey for protein, along with shittake mushrooms and a bit of shredded carrot.
young napa cabbage
I also cut a mizspoona plant to go in the egg roll bowl. This one was a giant, and weighed over two pounds! I love mizspoona, and though it’s usable as a salad green I usually let it get big and use it for cooking. It’s a cross between mizuna and tatsoi, but the stems are crunchy and white like a pak choi. I only needed part of this one for the egg roll dish and saved the rest for later. I want to try fermenting it like Michelle (From Seed To Table) did earlier this year when she had a big mess of mustard greens. I’ve got more mustard greens growing (Pink Lettucy, Vibrant Joy) and they should be ready for cutting soon. All the greens are growing lush with all the spring rains we had. We may get more rain this week if the Alberto storm comes our way – not that we really need any more rain given how wet it has been.
mizspoona
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 of any size or shape you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
97?? And here I am complaining when we get in the high 80’s! Those are some nice sized kohlrabi – I’m wondering how ours are going to taste this year with all this heat. Your greens always have me envious – I must give the mizspoona a try at some point.
I keep wondering whether we should try growing kohl rabi again. WE grew it some years ago and gave up for reasons that I can’t remember.
Whoa that’s hot. The Mizspoona looks amazing as do the kohlrabi. It’s incredible that your greens are doing so well in the hot weather. I tried new varieties of kohlrabi this year and they never did seem to flourish so I didn’t bother planting them out.
I know, my kids were saying the same thing, they think it is going to be 1000 degrees! Ha ha!
Nice garlic scapes. I haven’t had any in a couple years since our move. I just started my first garlic at this place this spring. I don’t even know what kind it is. I just saw it at the store and though what the heck why not try! They seem to be growing quite nicely but i have not seen any scapes yet.
Everything looks so great!
Wow those kohlrabi look so good! I’ll have to give Konan a try. I had really good luck with Kolibri this year, whereas all my heirloom varieties never really amounted to much. Puny. Were picky about the weather. Kicked the bucket of powdery mildew.
Usually when I only have a tiny little bit of a veggie it gets rinsed in the hose and consumed on the spot.
I’m growing Kolibri too, and it always does well for me here.
I’m growing Kolibri and Kossak, and the Kolibri is doing a little better. I also prefer the thinner skin of Kolibri. Maybe the Kossak are planted too close together for their size (or what is supposed to be their size). Will consider subbing Kossak with Konan for next year.
I do give the Kossak a more generous spacing, about 1 foot apart. And I also think it isn’t quite as tender as the others. It’s great for fermenting though, and the big bulbs are easy to grate up for kraut.
Your greens certainly are holding up well in the heat. Heat has been pretty elusive here until today when it got past 80º. I hardly saw the sun last week because it was so foggy and it was cold too.
Dave, thanks for the kind mention of the Konan AAS Winner, glad you like it.
Pat
All-America Selections
Never heard of mizspoona, so will look out for seed here as it looks a really useful crop in all sorts of ways