It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We’ve settled into our seasonably hot summer weather, which means I work in the garden either early in the morning or shortly before sundown. I usually do harvesting in the morning, before I eat breakfast even. Last week I pulled the last of the spring cabbages, to make room for a fall planting of collard greens. It’s been a good year for cabbage, and we have been well supplied. I even froze some for use in soups this winter. We’ve been enjoying them fresh, including in slaw and on fish tacos we had last week.
Tendersweet cabbage
In the most exciting news of the week, we got the first ripe large tomatoes of the season. The first slicing tomatoes to ripen this year were my old standby Better Boy. I’ve been growing it for as long as I can remember, and it always delivers for me. I like its balance of sweet and acid flavors, and they are just the right size for sandwiches. We ate these sliced as a side dish.
Better Boy tomatoes
The second slicing tomato to ripen was the 2020 AAS Winner Galahad. This first one weighed in at 8 ounces, and had a good flavor. I look forward to getting more of this one, which is blight resistant and grows on determinate vines.
Galahad tomato
Galahad sliced
The smaller fruited tomatoes are abundant now, and I’m dehydrating them as well as using them fresh.
squash and tomatoes
Another first last week was the first large eggplant. This was Galine, one I’ve grown for years now along with Nadia which is a bit larger and later. Galine is large enough that we enjoyed it on an eggplant and tomato sandwich one day for lunch. I’m still getting quite a few of the Patio Baby and Fairy Tale eggplants as well.
Galine, Fairy Tale and Patio Baby eggplant
Squashes are still coming on strong. I don’t photograph them all, but it is quite an assortment of sizes, shapes and colors. The Korean zucchini squash Meot Jaeng I Ae has been prolific and versatile in the kitchen, as has the Korean avocado squash Teot Bat Put.
Centercut, Safari and Meot Jaeng I Ae
I’m getting enough of the bush snap beans to keep us supplied until the climbing beans start bearing. They are blooming, so it shouldn’t be much longer. The Orient variety makes beans that are perfect for cooking whole, which is how we’ve been using ours.
Orient beans
In non harvest news, I made a batch of blue corn tortillas to go with a meal of fish tacos we had for dinner one night. I love fresh corn tortillas, and using the blue corn masa added a bit of a twist to our tacos that night. I have several bags of the masa, so we will be enjoying these blue tortillas for some time to come! I freeze any leftover tortillas for use later. No pics of the tacos though. I made a fresh tomato salsa with some of the small fruited ones to go with them, and chopped cabbage to use instead of the usual lettuce.
blue corn tortillas
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’ve never thought of freezing cabbage – how do you prepare it before freezing?
I chop it up, blanch for 2 minutes, then drain and spread out on cookie sheet to freeze. After frozen I break into chucks and put in freezer container.
Lovely first slicer tomatoes. I am interested in the Galahad. Having good disease tolerance is a must here, and if they taste good it’s a winner in my book. Your blue corn tortillas are making me hungry, and I just had breakfast!
Really like the look of that great big tomato. I still have mainly cherry sized one and am looking forward to one that makes proper slice sin a sandwich. May be a while yet though. That final cabbage looks pretty good!
I like eggplant, but I can’t imagine using it in the quantities you get. Do you end up preserving any of it, or does it all get eaten fresh?
I think I need to look into blight resistant tomatoes. Here at the coast the plants melt away as the summer progresses. The first tomato does say “summer” for many of us.
Oh those tortillas look great! Where did you find the masa? I’ve gone to the effort to nixtamalize corn and grind my own masa but it’s a huge amount of work. The first slicing tomatoes, that is exciting.
I got the masa from Costco.com. I haven’t seen it in our local store.
Those first large tomatoes are always so exciting! We harvested our first salad tomato last week and the pace is starting to pick up.
Ah tomatoes, wonderful – we are patiently waiting. And your tortillas look amazing. Masa is so hard to come by in the UK and when we do so, its super expensive.
Wow, that’s a massive homegrown cabbage. Your tomatoes and eggplants look fantastic, and I really like all the different shapes of your squashes. It’s been quite the year for zucchini and squash.