It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I continue to harvest a mix of both spring and summer veggies here. I made another cutting of side shoots of the broccolini and sprouting broccoli. We’ve been enjoyed these roasted in the oven on a sheet pan. They cook quickly, and the roasting really seems to bring out the flavor in them. This is a mix of Burgundy, Happy Rich and Apollo.
broccolini and sprouting broccoli
And I made another cutting of garlic scapes. This will be the last of those for the season, and it won’t be long before I start digging the early garlic. I turned most of these into garlic scape pesto, which we enjoyed on a pizza we made for dinner one night.
garlic scapes
The spring planted curly kale is holding on despite the hot weather. I made a cutting of Darkibor to go with a dish of Kale and Sweet Potato hash. The kale isn’t as sweet as when it’s grown in cooler weather, but still tasty. The cabbage moths haven’t found it yet either, though the bird netting I have over the cold frame might be helping to keep them out.
Darkibor kale
I pulled six of the purple Kolibri kohlrabi. All the kohlrabi so far has had slug damage to the skins, but it hasn’t affected the eating quality. These six weighed right at three pounds, and we’ve been enjoying them raw and in stir fries. I might use a couple of them for a jar of fermented kohlrabi pickles, which is my wife’s favorite fermented food.
Kolibri kohlrabi
I got another small harvest of Patio Baby and Fairy Tale eggplants from my container grown plants. These got cut in half, tossed with olive oil, and dusted with the three C’s (cumin, coriander and cardamom) before we grilled them.
Patio Baby and Fairy Tale eggplants
And speaking of summer veggies, I got the first of the summer squashes last week. Normally I might expect one or two to be first, but this year there were six that came ready all at once! It’s the green Spineless Beauty and striped Bossa Nova, plus the yellow Tempest and two-tone Zephyr.
summer squashes
I’ve grown Zephyr in the past, but it came back to our garden this year after tasting Tempest last year and reading about the breeding work that went into both of them. Johnny’s Selected Seeds has a press release from 2017 that announces the release of Tempest and a bit about Zephyr as well. Zephyr looks like a yellow squash that has been dipped in green paint on the blossom end, with some stripes mixed in. I think it is as tasty as it is visually striking, and I look forward to doing more tasting in the future when more squash sets on the plant.
Zephyr squash
Another summer cucurbit came from the greenhouse, where I have our cucumbers planted. The first to bear this year was Corinto, which is one of my favorites for the greenhouse. The dark skinned fruits are early and tender, and this first one got turned into Quick Refrigerator Pickles.
Corinto cucumber
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!
I’m so jealous of your summer veg! The weather here has been terrible in late May and June, so everything is way behind last year, in fact many people have lost their summer veg to the cold, wind and rain. Even in our polytunnel we won’t have cucumbers for another week and we’ve only had a handful of courgettes. Fortunately we have an abundance of runner beans, so all is not lost! : All the best – Steve
The kale would enjoy the weather here at the moment but our curcurbits are suffering We wanted rain and now it won’t stop and we only are having very brief spurts of warmth.
So jealous! My squash and zuchini and eggplant arent doing anything except feel sorry for themselves and my eggplants are still the same size they had when i planted them.. more tben a month ago!
Good looking stuff, Dave. I can echo the jealousy felt by other commenters. I’m looking forward to your results from taste-testing the summer squash. it’s always been one of my favorite vegetables and I’m on the lookout for new varieties.
Goodness, your garden is weeks ahead of mine and I live in coastal California! Thanks for the reminder of quick refrigerator pickles.
What a great post! I love that you put the “linky” option at the end so people could share their harvests. Really nice – so many professional looking blogs! We are too early into our growing season for there to be harvests of anything other than a bit of kale and lettuce, but seeing the harvests of others makes me excited for what’s to come.