It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We got the predicted hard freeze here last week, so all the tender vegetables and herbs are done for the year. I’m happy to move on to the fall planted crops though, including root veggies like radishes and turnips. I didn’t plant a whole lot of either, just enough for fresh eating and to make some radish kimchi. For the latter, I pulled some of the bigger daikon radishes last week. This year I planted two purple fleshed varieties I have grown before, Sweet Baby and Bora King. I pulled enough for a couple of jars of kimchi plus some for fresh use, and we used a couple of them in a stir fry last week. Both of these varieties sometimes make white roots in addition to the purple ones.
Sweet Baby radishes
I also pulled a few of the Hakurei turnips for cooking. This is the only turnip root I am growing this fall, though I do have the greens-only variety Topper planted.
Hakurei turnips
I made a cutting of arugula to go on a pizza we enjoyed for dinner one night. I love greens on pizza, and arugula is without a doubt one of my favorite toppings along with spinach. I fondly remember the arugula topped pizza we enjoyed at Flora Farms during our trip to Cabo San Lucas in February. We got back from there just before the pandemic hit the U.S. hard, and I believe it was the last time we enjoyed eating pizza at a restaurant this year! We do make it at home quite often though.
arugula for pizza
The fall planting of cabbage didn’t do all that well for me this year, but I got one head of Minuet Napa Cabbage last week. It had a lot of slug damage to the outer leaves, but weighed in a bit over two pounds so I was happy to have it. I have hopes that a couple of heads of regular cabbage will be ready soon.
Minuet cabbage
I cut some baby greens for salads last week, including Tuscan Baby Leaf and Mars Landing kale, mizuna and red pak choi. I have these growing in containers in the greenhouse, though I also have them planted outside where I am letting them get full sized. It’s my first time growing the Mars Landing, and this variety from Renee’s Garden truly does look “out of this world” with its dark purple/bronze leaves. The Tuscan Baby Leaf kale also comes from Renee’s Garden, and I am growing their Purple Moon kale this fall as well.
baby greens for salad
In non-harvest news, I pickled another batch of hot peppers last week, using the mildly hot Malawi Piquante, Aji Golden and Tangerine Dream peppers. We use these on salads and pizza, plus they make a tasty pepper aioli sauce. This is the basic recipe I follow, though I omit the ginger and spices. I soak the peppers in a 10% brine solution overnight, then prepare a sweet brine from white wine vinegar, sugar and water. I add a few cloves of garlic to the jar for added flavor. I began pulling the pepper plants yesterday and adding them to the compost pile.
pickled peppers
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 harvests are looking a bit like mine again this week Dave. We did pick a huge bucket of green tomatoes which we gave away as we don’t have much enthusiasm for even more chutney. We have a few litres of ripe tomatoes too, which we will process for passata probably, but they don’t taste that great at this time of year. My salads have the last few dozen cherry tomatoes, which are a little sour now, but seems a shame to waste them. Do you use the turnip leaves for cooking? I’ve mainly used ours for smoothie mixes.
We do cook the turnip leaves, sometimes by themselves and sometimes with a few of the roots added. I didn’t have many green tomatoes, or I might have made some salsa verde with them.
You still have plenty fresh vegetables. I always forget to mention green leaves in my harvest reports. We like you haven’t been out for a meal since March and don’t expect this to change in the foreseeable future. We’re having pizza tonight.
Yes. meals out are a long way back, and tbh seem a long way away in the future too, so having the occasional “special” cook up at home does us good I reckon. I eat turnip leaves too, treating them a bit like adding spinach to dishes near the end of cooking. Love those radishes Dave! I am going to try a couple of mine this week so hope they are as good as yours
I didn’t sow any radishes this fall, I’m going to miss them. Maybe I can find some daikon at the farmer’s market. I’m still not back into the full swing of gardening again. My collards are still incredibly happy and perhaps a bit sweeter now that we’ve had some lows in the 30’s. I’m going to try fermenting some of them. Have you heard about Collard Week? It’s a 4-day online program from 12/14 to 12/17 with TED-style talks, Q&A, cooking demos, and virtual field tours. There’s more info at the Culinary Breeding Network. They are doing a whole series about different veggies starting November 30 and going through March. I signed up for all of them.
Thanks for the info on Collard Week, I will check it out. The whole series sounds like it will be interesting to me, especially the week on PSB! I fermented whole collard leaves last year, and fermented chopped leaves for kraut. The whole leaves made great wrappers for savory toppings, and the collard leaf bean enchiladas I made are one of my new favorite things. The kraut was a bit strong for my tastes, but I’m not giving up on it yet.