Harvest Monday November 19, 2018

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The cold wave continues here. We got sleet, freezing rain and snow on Thursday, and that had me harvesting quite a few fall veggies. While they can take a good bit of cold, in my experience the plants do not much appreciate freezing rain and snow. The fall cabbage has never really sized up, but I cut two heads that were at least big enough to eat. Tendersweet normally makes heads in the 2-3 pound range, but these two heads together weighed a bit less than 2 pounds total. It’s always great for fresh eating and I plan to use some of these in soup tonight.

Tendersweet cabbage

The kale I planted this fall is doing much better. I made cuttings from the Beedy’s Camden and White Russian plants and got almost two pounds of leaves. We cooked some up for a side dish last week, and the rest in going in the soup tonight. The leaves are sweet and tender, and since it looks like they survived the weather last week I hope to make more cuttings this week. We had a heavy frost Saturday morning, and that should sweeten them up even more.

Beedy’s Camden and White Russian kale

I also pulled the rest of the Kossak kohlrabi. It never sized up like it usually does, but there has been plenty to eat and to ferment. These weighed a bit over 5 pounds total. I used a few of them to make a jar of kohlrabi kraut and we roasted one of them Saturday night in a cast iron skillet.

Kossak kohlrabi

I pulled a few more of the Alpine radishes and started another jar of kimchi with them. And yes, I love my fermented radish kimchi!

Alpine radishes

And last but not least I pulled a big bunch of Hakurei and Oasis turnips to cook up for dinner one night. I cooked some of the roots along with the greens, and saved a few of the roots for roasting later on.

Hakurei and Oasis turnips

Lately we have been tasting the 2018 sweet potatoes. I baked one each of the Red Japanese and Murasaki last week so we could taste them side by side. Visually they look almost identical, both outside and inside. After cooking, the taste was almost identical too, though the Murasaki might have been a bit more moist. I grew several test varieties this year, and I’m wanting to pick our favorites and grow them next year.  Productivity is important too, and Murasaki was the 2nd most productive one I grew this year.  It was 50% more productive than the Red Japanese, and I will likely grow it next year.

Red Japanese and Murasaki sweet potatoes

In non-harvest news, I finally managed to get fall alliums planted before the freezing weather returned. I worked last Monday in temperatures barely above freezing to get it all planted and mulched with straw. It’s a good thing too, because a few days later it was covered in freezing rain and snow! I planted 216 total sets/cloves of garlic, multiplier onions and shallots in a bit over 2 hours, and that allowed for taking a couple of breaks indoors to warm up my hands and fingers which got quite chilly poking around in the cold soil. In the below photo you can see the snow covered broccoli and cabbage plants next to the allium bed. Time will tell if they recover and produce anything more. I still have plenty of garden cleanup work to do but I will wait for slightly more agreeable weather.

snow covered bed of garlic

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, or wishing they were harvesting!