It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I pulled the last of the kale plants in the greenhouse last week to make room for the summer planting of cucumbers. We had a good run on the kale, and amazingly this last bit was still tender and mild tasting despite the age of the plants. White Russian and Red Ursa are two varieties bred by Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed and they both do well both in the greenhouse and outside in the main garden.
White Russian kale
Red Ursa kale
The latest planting of lettuce in the greenhouse is finally ready for cutting. Much of it will be ready all at once, so I can see a lot of salads in our future!
lettuce harvest
I have become a big fan of the Salanova lettuce family, which suits my growing practices in the greenhouse where I grow all my lettuce these days. These are designed to be ‘one cut” lettuces, which speeds the prep time for the busy cook. I don’t mine cutting or tearing lettuce leaves, but the compact plants seems to do well with intensive planting in containers. The red ones seem to color up fairly well in the greenhouse too.
Salanova Red Butter lettuce
Salanova Red Oakleaf lettuce
I made another cutting of arugula to go on a pizza, along with other salad ingredients like the Tuscan Baby Leaf kale and a bit of green garlic to go in salad dressing. The green garlic is so handy to have, and I use the garlic which has sprouted to get it off to a quicker start.
arugula and salad ingredients
The first zucchini of 2020 got big enough to eat, and we enjoyed it roasted in a veggie quesadilla as well as raw on a salad. This is Astia, and I have it growing in a Smart Pot. More fruit are setting on, so my early planting in the greenhouse is paying off since I just recently set out the plants in the main garden.
Astia zucchini
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 harvest all my lettuce leaf by leaf Dave and it’s incredibly efficient from the perspective of yield, but it’s also very time consuming, hard in the back and difficult to do the timings because whole bed can producing a huge amount one week and then suddenly run to seed the next. By contrast harvesting the whole lettuces is the opposite of all of these attributes and I’m starting to come around to the idea that quick and easy on the back might be more important than maximum yield, especially in summer! : All the best – Steve
The leaves on the Salanova lettuces are mostly too small to be harvested leaf by leaf. I do harvest the bigger leaves of lettuce individually sometimes. But for the more compact varieties I usually grow in containers, I more often take the whole plant. One bonus to growing in containers is that I have no problem with slugs, which were terrible when I grew the lettuce in beds.
We pick lettuce leaves as required if we are growing them in the garden for eating freshly but if they are from the allotment we dig the whole plant and pop the root in water and then pluck leave as we want them.
Really nice haul of kale. We’ve been eating a lot more of it here lately, unfortunately store-bought (but organic). The lettuces too are beautiful. I can’t wait for our own to get big enough to harvest. And congratulations on the zucchini–imagine, that, in May!
I am amazed at the zucchini myself!
The Salanova lettuces are beautiful. We all find a way that works for our needs and growing conditions. Steve’s comments are worth considering. I’m a little late in planting my zucchini but planning to do it today. And here you are harvesting your first in Indiana!
Lovely lettuce and the first squash of the season! Excellent!
A zucchini/courgette already! My plants aren’t even set out yet!! The taste of that first one is always something special. Lettuce at this time in the year is a great crop, and an easy one to share too, which has to be a good thing!
Incredible that you got a zucchini already. My patty pan squash has teeny tiny flower buds on it so I have hope of squash soon. I harvest my leaf lettuce by the leaf too. My New Red Fire and Lollo Rosa are nearly done. I have male flowers open on my cukes. Come on, female flowers. I am harvesting snow peans every other day and the green beans are only a few days from first harvest, i have more tomatoes set than I have ever had before, so 2020 is shaping up to be a good year,
I’m trying the Teot Bat Put squash this year. I don’t know how it turned out for you last year, but it sounded interesting and I decided to give it a go myself!