It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It was another busy week here for gardening. I was able to work in the greenhouse several mornings, and work on weeding in the Wild Garden. It’s still too cold to do much planting outside, but I have squash plants ready to go in when it does warm up. Lettuce is still the star of our harvests at this point. I do enjoy going in the greenhouse and deciding which one will go in our salads.
Salanova lettuce plants
green oakleaf lettuce plants
Last week I cut one Salanova Red Butter and a big head of Slobolt. There’s quite a bit of lettuce that’s ready now, so several salads are on the menu for this coming week including lunch today.
Salanova Red Butter lettuce
Slobolt lettuce
Some of the lettuce went on fish tacos we had for dinner one night. For that occasion I made fresh tortillas using a 50/50 mix of white corn masa and White Sonora flour. The flour helps keep the tortillas pliable, while the corn gives them considerably more flavor than ones we buy. I made a mango salsa to go on the tacos, using some of our fresh cilantro and a bit of last year’s hot sauce. We sometimes serve these with pinto beans on the side, but we had a bean salad for lunch and decided that was plenty of beans for one day!
corn/flour tortillas
fish tacos
I also got a small harvest of the overwintered collards last week. These were the tender new leaves, and I sliced them thin and sautéed in a little olive oil. They cooked up in no time, and we had them with our dinner last night. The collards went well with our purple and white sweet potatoes we cooked in a cast iron skillet, and oven baked pork chops made for a special meat treat.
collard greens
collards and sweet potatoes with pork chop
The irises are still putting on quite a show here, with more and more opening almost daily. We have most of them planted in our sun garden area, though I have a few more planted in the Wild Garden. One of them is what I call an ‘old-fashioned’ iris, since they were widely planted in the past. My parents even had a patch of them, and they didn’t have many flowers planted at all. Some of these varieties were planted here when we moved in, and we don’t know their names but we can enjoy their beauty all the same.
part of the iris collection
old-fashioned iris
Burgundy iris
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 please take a minute and check out what everyone is harvesting!
Your lettuces are perfect, so photogenic and no slug damage. No signs of flowers on our irises yet.
The slugs don’t seem to climb up on the benches for the lettuce, though they do munch on the ones planted in the beds.
Your “old-fashioned” irises are what I remember as a young child in my parents’ garden. They must be very hardy as they seem to survive. That’s a lovely composition for your iris collection. Your lettuce is greenhouse artistry. In that pristine state they do resemble roses. Oh for some of your tortillas!
Thanks Sue. It has bee a good year for the greenhouse lettuce.
Are your lettuces growing in pots Dave, or are they in trays? Our Irises are out too, such beauties : All the best – Steve
These lettuces are growing in shallow wooden planter boxes I made. They do quite well for me that way.
I don’t know whether you remember, but over winter I grew lettuces under lights in trays, but I’m considering switching to square pots, because it allows me to swap out any that are under-performing more easily and also bottom water, as the pots sit neatly inside the trays that I previously used.