Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We got over 4 inches of rain last week, some from storm Alberto and more from a system that came through right behind it. That has delayed garden work yet again, and brings our yearly rainfall total to over 31 inches. To put that in perspective, last year we got 40 inches total all year long. To say that 2018 has been a wet year would be a major understatement! With splitting from all that rain a real possibility, I pulled many of the early planted kohlrabi that had sized up. It’s the purple skinned Kolibri in the below photo.
Kolibri kohlrabi
I’m growing the green skinned Kordial for the first time. It’s from the same breeders that gave us Konan, Kolibri and Kossak (Bejo Seeds), and my first impression is quite positive. You can see by the photos it was raining the morning I pulled the kohlrabi.
Kordial kohlrabi
There was a bit over six pounds of kohlrabi in all, and I wasted no time in getting some of it fermented. I started two jars of kohlrabi ‘pickles’ and one jar of kohl-kraut. I’ll leave all to sit and ferment for about two weeks before refrigerating.
kohlrabi pickles and kraut
There was still enough kohlrabi left over to enjoy eating fresh, plus I roasted one batch in a cast iron skillet. I tossed it in olive oil and sprinkled with salt before roasting in a 400°F oven for 20-25 minutes in the pre-heated skillet. Roasting gives it a nice flavor I think, like it does for many vegetables. Kohlrabi is one of our favorite veggies, and I grow a lot of it for that reason.
roasted kohlrabi
I cut the first head of napa cabbage last week. This one is Little Jade, and this ‘little’ cabbage weighed over four pounds! After trimming it up there was plenty to make a batch of kimchi, with enough left to make an unstuffed cabbage roll recipe I want to try later in the week. For the kimchi, I cut up the cabbage yesterday and soaked it in a brine solution overnight. Today I will drain it and add the other ingredients. I am loosely following a recipe for Everyday Baechu Kimchi from Ferment Your Vegetables by Amanda Feifer.
Little Jade cabbage
Other harvests included more broccolini, this time both Apollo and Artwork. These are the main heads, plus one side shoot that was on Apollo. This gave us another taste of broccoli, with more hopefully to come in the weeks ahead.
Artwork and Apollo broccoli
I also got a decent harvest of gooseberries. The deer and other critters don’t seem to have found them, since I never got around to putting netting over them. There was enough to make a cobbler and freeze three small bags for later on. It’s a mix of ripe, partly ripe, and green ones which is how I like them.
gooseberries
The asparagus harvests are winding down. We’ve had a good run, 23 pounds so far, and we’re going to cut it this week and then let it grow out. That will be eight weeks of harvesting, about how long we usually go on these mature beds.
more asparagus
I also found time to bake a couple of loaves of bread last week. I made a no-knead sourdough loaf using 33% freshly milled sprouted red wheat berries, the rest of the flour being KA bread flour. It turned out well, and we’ve enjoyed a few of the slices grilled and then slathered up with a bit of garlic scape pesto.
no-knead sourdough bread
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!
Some of our gooseberry bushes have been affected by mildew this year. Also the wood pigeons are being a bigger pest than usual so I hope at least some plants escape and we have some berries to enjoy.
We lost a lot of cherries to rot but so far the gooseberries are holding up.
Beautiful harvests, Dave! I really should try growing kohlrabi. Well, maybe I should try eating it first to see if I like it! I’m just amazed at the amount and variety of fermenting you do.
We do like our fermented veggies, that’s for sure! I bought a small frig to keep them in because they were filling up the main one.
Wonderful harvests. Soggy! 31 inches of rain in six months is more than twice the 12.3 inches we’ve received and we start counting on October 1.
Little Jade does really well for me too. I guess it’s small in comparison to some of the huge varieties like Michihli. It’s always tasty too, nice and sweet.
Wow! What an impressive amount of asparagus!
I have never had Kohlrabi before, nor grown it. Sometime I will have to try it!
Great post as it mirrors veg I have coming up but not as far along as yours. When you do your kohlrabi pickles, are you fermenting them or just doing regular pickling? I’ll have some purple ones this year and excited about using them in different ways.
Hi Linda, I ferment the kohlrabi pickles. The recipe is here:
https://www.ourhappyacres.com/2015/07/fermented-kohlrabi-two-ways/
Super, thanks!
That is a lot of rain that you have had. Your kohlrabi, however, look great. I have just sowed some chinese cabbage – scarlet that I saw on one of your blog posts.
Really really nice looking Kohlrabi! It is also one of my favorite veggies.
Wow, your bread is amazing. And the kohlrabi and gooseberries look luscious. With all the rain we’ve been having I wonder about pollen getting washed out, especially for the more open blooms on some heirloom tomato plants. Our peppers are just starting to flower.
Your harvest of Kohlrabi already is impressive. We here in mid-Missouri are the total opposite from you weather-wise. We have had no rain to speak of in over a month. We got one downpour but it did not soak in and left the garden, yards and roads just as dry and dusty as ever. It’s a sad thing to begin summer like this. It’s also been mercilessly hot. I love Kohlrabi, too. It is one of my favorite foods. I took your advice last year and started fermenting it. SO yummy! I made pickles but now I want to make kraut with it. Thanks for all your encouragement!
Lorraine, I’m so glad to hear you are fermenting kohlrabi! I predict if you like the pickles, you will also like the kraut.
Your khol rabi looks terrific! I am now trying to plan some space for a July sowing, which might be OK here in the UK….. will all the Autumn planted onions and garlic be out by then????
And you spiderwort is a plant we grow on our plot too, but call it tradescantia. We moved ours from the garden at home as the purple dye from the flowers stained damp laundry which touched against it lol
As a kid my parents had a clump of spiderwort/tradescantia growing and I didn’t even know what it was called. I just knew it was a tough plant that could survive getting mowed down by the lawnmower and come back to bloom year after year!
Oh, that bread looks incredible! You always have me antsy to break out one of my bread books and bake up a loaf of goodness. And that kohlrabi looks awesome – what a great haul! I’m still waiting for mine to size up – they are barely bigger than a marble at this point. I’m hoping that tender, mild kohlrabi will be one benefit of our recent cool weather – the peppers and tomatoes may not like it, but there are always crops that appreciate things on the cooler side 🙂