It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s another year for Harvest Monday, and the harvests around here have been slim lately, which is not unusual. To catch up, I’m going to share some of the harvests I got from January, before the really cold weather got here. I have lettuce, arugula and greens growing in the greenhouse, and it has kept us supplied until recently when the greenhouse froze up several nights in a row. The lettuce seems especially tender and tasty this time of year, when fresh produce from the garden is hard to find!
Navara lettuce
Strawberry Oakheart lettuce
We love arugula on pizza and I have it planted in containers in the greenhouse where it grows quite well. This batch wound up on pizza we had for dinner one night, piled up high on top of the other ingredients.
arugula for pizza
The collards are planted in the main vegetables garden, and they seem to be taking the cold weather pretty well. I cut these leaves before it got really cold, enough to freeze a bit and to have some for fresh use. They had a great flavor, no doubt helped by the frosts and freezes they had been through.
collard greens
And last but not least, I got a ‘surprise’ harvest of Aji Rico peppers from a plant I have growing in a container in the basement. I plan to set out this one year old plant in the main garden this year, along with a couple of others I overwintered inside. They really take off the second year.
Aji Rico peppers
In other news, I have baked a couple of batches of Ligurian focaccia bread the last few months after tasting it at a lunch for volunteers at a local organization (Nourish) last year. This is a recipe from the Salt, Fat, Acid Heat show (and book), which was featured in the episode about olive oil. It uses a small amount of yeast, which makes for a long slow overnight ferment. The dough is then baked the following morning, using a liberal amount of olive oil! I sprinkled half of this one with fresh rosemary before baking, and it went well with a batch of vegetable soup I made using some of our homegrown frozen veggies.
Ligurian focaccia bread
slice of focaccia bread
focaccia with vegetable soup
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 check out what everyone is harvesting!
It’s amazing how those collard greens hold up. Sorry you lost your greenhouse greens. Lettuce season will come again.
The lettuce and arugula are trying to come back out, so new leaves should be available for eating soon. The collards are unprotected, and have survived temps down near 0°F.
Great to see you back and harvesting Dave, I was interesting to see your lovely Navara leaves, in my climate Navara often gets mildew, so that’s one benefit of your colder winter, but’s it’s one of my favourite lettuces for the rest of the year. Have you considered growing a batch of lettuce under lights for mid winter harvest?
I have grown lettuce indoors in winter, but usually it does quite well in the greenhouse. We had colder than usual weather, and for longer than usual.