Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I got a couple of fresh harvests last week. The curly kale I have planted in a cold frame bed has held up amazingly well. I never got around to putting row cover material on the cold frame, so it’s only been covered with bird netting material which keeps the critters from eating it but doesn’t protect it from the cold. This cutting was from Prizm, a 2016 AAS Winner that has done quite well for me here. The leaves were tender and sweet and cooked in no time.
Prizm kale
I also made a small cutting of lettuce from the greenhouse, this time Tango and Red Sails. It wasn’t a lot but it will be enough to go on quinoa tacos I plan on having for lunch today. The winter lettuce has also done well, and I will have seedlings ready to plant anew in a couple of weeks.
Red Sails and Tango lettuce
From stores I baked up one of the Rancho Marques squash. I have to say this moschata type was a real disappointment. The flesh had an average taste, and was extremely stringy through and through. I have another squash from this land race type that has a different shape and perhaps a different taste, but most of this one wound up on the compost pile. We still have several of the Turkeyneck and Tetsukabuto squash in storage, and I saw no need to eat a stringy one when we have fine tasting ones we can enjoy instead.
Rancho Marques squash
I’ll close on a wildlife note. We had a Red-bellied Woodpecker visit one of the suet feeders this week. This bird has a brilliant red head, but I managed to catch a pic of it showing the red spot on its belly that gives its name. The suet I am using is infused with hot pepper, which gives it the orange color. That keeps the raccoons from hauling it away and the squirrels from eating it, while the birds can’t taste the hot pepper at all.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
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 little Mr Linky widget seems to be missing for me, so here’s a link to my diary instead http://steves.seasidelife.com/2019/02/24/allotment-diary-february-week-4/
Sorry – it’s working now!
That’s a pretty bird. We still have squash in store too, ours are Crown Prince. They are one of our favourites but it takes a while to use a whole one so when we cut into one lots of the flesh is frozen.
That is so disappointing to go through the effort and resources to grow something that isn’t worth eating. But you don’t know until you try. That’s such a beautiful woodpecker, what a treat to see.
I love your successful foiling the squirrels and raccoons with your suet. Cayenne pepper is very useful. I made a solution and put it on a few key plants that dogs walking by favor. It eventually needs to be reapplied but interrupts the cycle. And BTW, a great shot of the woodpecker. Late to the party today but as always, appreciate your hosting Harvest Monday.
That’s some good looking lettuce and kale, especially since the kale is unprotected from the weather. But it’s a bummer to get flavorless squash, there’s not much to do with it, unless a person is inclined to drown it in butter and brown sugar.
We’ve been on a massive salad kick for months, which will probably be our focus for the garden this summer.
It’s been salads and bowl dishes here!
That sounds like some tasty suet! I love the look of your kale, mine always seems to get infested with whitefly and aphids.