Harvest Monday (July 29, 2012)

I‘ve been remiss in updating.  My squash got attacked by squash borers, aphids and squash bugs.  I have no idea which happened first, but suddenly they all were pitiful and two moments later–dead.

A moment of silence, please.

~removes hat from head to show respect for the deceased squash~

~not to be confused with the squash that gave their lives to be in my tummy~

That was a very large patty-pan Bennings Light Green squash!  It snuck up on me.  But it was tender and had such a rich flavor. I will definitely be planting a lot of those next year.  In order to really taste the squash, this time I grilled them with just some Maldon Sea Salt Flakes and freshly ground pepper, along with a spritz or three of olive oil. That is a George with it, and a small George that didn’t get pollinated well enough. I do need to figure out what is causing that.

Unfortunately I don’t have a pretty picture–or any picture–of the grilled squash.

I ate it.

And it was wonderful.

I continue to bring in peppers.  I think the tomatoes are done until the nights get a bit cooler again. I pick a few okra every day, and will soon have enough to cook. (I only have two okra plants–bad planning.) And my eggplant is blooming and babies are forming.

How does your garden grow?

See other gardens at Daphne’s!

Harvest Monday (July 9, 2010)

I‘ve been missing for a few weeks, I know, I know.  I will have to zip quickly through to let you know what happened while I was gone, but first, this is where I was:

The Big Island of Hawaii!

Okay.  So we came back wondering whether the garden would be roasted dead beneath the Dallas sun and found it in precarious shape except for the costata romanesca.

Good old George!

Check out the tennis ball for reference.

That is a 6.5 POUND 18 inch George.

There was a smaller giant, too.  Surprisingly, the smaller one (which must have weighed 4 pounds) was edible.  We ate it over the course of four or five meals.  I suppose this one is Georgette.

We also had three small eggplant.  Since I’d never had any before I wasn’t sure if it was time to pick them (they were purple and glossy) or if they would get bigger.  I went ahead and picked two small ones and cooked them–pan-grilled in one of my iron skillets, and they were goooood!

Last week I got bits and bobs from the garden, nothing much to speak of, but it does add up.  This is part of the week’s take, including the other eggplant that I allowed to grow larger.  There are some extremely fat, large okra there, Hill Country Red, an heirloom.  They stayed on too long.  Some of the images I have seen have them very red so I let them stay assuming they would turn red. But you can’t cut them. Clearly, I must harvest sooner.

And this is what I picked a few days ago.  I’m bringing in stuff daily.  Not much stuff, but some. Next year I’ll know how to plan and plant better.

I have learned so much this spring/summer, and have more to learn. But we’re already making plans for the fall garden and next spring. Yay!

How does your garden grow?

See other gardens at Daphne’s!

Harvest Monday (June 11, 2012)

Finally! We have heirlooms!

Tomatoes, that is.

Now I’m not going to lie and tell you that I didn’t mind losing 3 nice-sized green zebras to… something.  A critter that was not The Murderer, because The Murderer was inside sleeping when it happened.  Some other critter.  Since there was no other damage to the tomato plants and no sign of tomato carnage, it’s almost as if some person plucked those tomatoes right off the vine.

But I have one that wasn’t ripe yet that got left behind, and a Cherokee Purple, along with a handful of Supersweet 100s and Porters that all combine to weigh one perfect pound!

We also have taters.  Once again, we lost some to rot.  I’m not sure what is going on there.  Brand new bed, with excellent organic matter, compost, soil, etc., layered with pine straw.  No green potatoes, but some rotten ones.  And their total weight topped a pound–1 pound, 2.3 ounces.

You can also see the pintos in this pic.  I missed the fact that they were drying on the vine. That’s okay. I bought some fresh pintos and cooked last week, so these will give us good beans for planting next year. Bite me, Monsanto! I plant heirlooms that don’t have your patent, you scum-sucking bottom-feeders of society.

But the star of this week’s harvest is George the costata romanesca.  Having read that this is a predecessor to the more typical zucchini that has richer, nuttier flavor, I wanted to find out for myself. And yes, this is one delicious squash.

First, the day we harvested two Georges.

Then, George, sliced.  You might notice he’s not as dark a green as a zucchini, and he is ribbed. Very pretty!

Next, in order to fully appreciate his flavor without the usual tomatoes, onions and such I would have added, I simply browned him in a skillet sprayed with olive oil and dusted with sea salt.

Finally, on the plate, on the way to the tummy.  Delicious!

And finally, a miscellaneous selection of photos from the past couple of weeks, since I have been busy and not posting.  A Saturday harvest:

A pound of ruby chard (that I cooked the way the Resident Storm Chaser prefers, with bacon drippins and water and salt, nuthin else).  I’m pleased with the way this stuff grows in the heat, and this doesn’t include the holey chard I discarded because something had been eating it:

And finally, a salad I made with canned salmon and a few kidney beans–and goodies from the garden.  Scallions (the real ones, from Welsh onions), and fresh dill, green zebra tomatoes, Porter tomatoes and Supersweet 1oos.  Just a wee drizzle of Caesar salad dressing.

I just made myself hungry.  I’m going to fix one for lunch.

See more Harvest Mondays from around the world at Daphne’s Dandelions!

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Harvest Monday — May 21, 2012

Oh, this was a week.  A week, I tell you.  But before we talk about this week, I will dip back in time to last week and the tragedy that I forgot to mention last Monday.

My Adirondack Blue taters rotted in the pot.  Didn’t have good drainage at the bottom and I never saw trouble until the last two or three weeks.  If I’d dumped it sooner I probably would have saved some, but as it was, the entire pot smelled like rotten potatoes and the only three sizable ones were well on their way to rotting.  There were some little ones and after I washed them they didn’t smell like rot.  I don’t know whether to trust them or not.  So right now they’re just looking pretty.

Okay, that tragedy out of the way.  Live and learn.  Next up, the murder of the Early Girl.

I am still unable to talk about it.  The dog is still alive. That’s all I’m saying on the subject.

And now–the good stuff.

I harvested basil and made pesto.  Yay!

I got another couple of tiny Supersweet 100s.

I harvested my very first costata romanesca George! (Too early, I’m pretty sure. You look and tell me. It was greener on the day it bloomed than it is now. That’s odd if you ask me.  See?)

Blooming George and his post-blooming friend, er, Kramer!

George, cut down before his time?

These two strawberries didn’t last long enough for the photo shoot so I’ll show them here:

One thing that excited me was I picked two pasilla peppers! I first read about them in a Rick Bayless recipe and went to the supermarket looking for some. They turn black when they’re dried. Didn’t find them, forgot about it. Fast forward a few months and I find a pasilla chile plant.  Yay!  I am now drying them. If you see them in the picture they look a little shriveled.  I assume this is a good thing.

And finally, the grand tally and (most of) the photo evidence.

My first week to get more than a pound of something!

1 lb.  7.3 oz. yellow squash, for the win!  (some of which got eaten before the photo shoot)

.48 oz Supersweet 100 tomatoes (mine look nothing like the monster on that page, drat it)

7.12 oz.  Adirondack blue potatoes (which may not be edible, I dunno)

1.7 oz of George (and yes, looking at that picture, I mos def picked too soon)

.96 oz of pasilla pepper

3.14 oz of genovese basil

Now.  Either post your own pics so we can go see them, or go see the others at daphne’s.  It’s harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday (2012-May-14)

At last! Peppers! And my first tomato!

I’ll admit I’m still experiencing the learning curve on all of this, and I do mean ALL.  I am not sure when to pick the squash, whether to let them keep growing or not.  There are some I’m going to pick today, I guess (and count next week) simply because they don’t seem to have grown much even though I have left them alone for a few days.  These tend to be squash that were pretty large before they were pollinated.  I don’t want them to get big and seedy, but am not sure when that is.  I guess I’ll leave one too long and know.

Maybe you just pick them a day or two after pollination no matter what size they are?

No freaking idea.  And wait, that can’t be it because most people don’t know when something is pollinated.  Well, they do know when it blooms, maybe, because the bloom is still on it, if shrivelled… I dunno.

The Benning’s Green Tint are still sending up many males and no females, as is George the Costata Romanesca.

I’m waiting for the eggplant to bloom, the peppers to make more peppers, the beans that are blooming so prettily to make beans, and the tomatoes to ripen. The single ripe tomato was the only one on that plant that wasn’t green-green.

So, what you’ve been waiting for. The weigh-in:

11.8 ounces yellow squash

.1 oz pepperoncini

2.6 ounces green bell pepper

1.2 oz purple pepper

1 oz Supersweet 100 tomato

I could have harvested more ruby chard but I haven’t done anything with the last batch.  Gotta get busy!

Speaking of learning curve…

Not only did I misjudge when I decided I could put two “vining” squashes in my 4′ x 4′ raised bed square foot garden, but I put in the two Georges side by side, and they are clearly giants.  Add in eggplant, and, well, this is a jungle back here and my basil is now growing under a canopy, and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to reach in to hand pollinate George, so the critters better do their jobs, damn it.

And that, my friends, is the report from the garden!

As usual, all roads lead to daphne’s dandelions when it comes to Harvest Monday. Go enjoy all the bounties from many parts of the world. It’s fun to see how different the harvests can be.

Harvest Monday 20120507

Since I wrote at length about gardening books yesterday I’ll make this one a quick one.

We had one squash (larger than the rest because the Resident Storm Chaser decided he didn’t want to pick it while it was still “gourmet” sized). 

My boy and girl squash are too darned flirty for their own good.  They won’t open on the same days so we can get some serious harvest. People laugh at me and my Q-tip pollination saying the day will come when I am so overrun with squash I will look back at my naive baby-gardener self with fond indulgence.

All I can say is, bring it on!  If I can fill my freezer with my own home-grown squash I will be a very happy Pooks.

Meanwhile, the costanza romanesca and the Benning’s green that I grew from seed only have boy blossoms, and today, the crookneck we bought as bedding plants didn’t have any girls, either.  Nor did the straightneck we planted from seeds. A sad day for Q-tips.

A word about the costata romanesca that I continually call “costanza” by mistake. That is such a huge name and I have been trying to think of something else to call them so from this moment forward I hereby call them George.

Anyway, no baby squashes will be pollinated today, damn it.

We have peppers growing, okra not yet blooming, potatoes make me itch wondering whether there are really any potatoes under the earth, and lots of herbs and such. Oh yes, eggplant. I do hope the eggplant produces because I’d also love to have moussaka in my freezer. Yum!

Finally, the primary harvest this week was  greens.  Ruby chard, blood sorrel and leaf lettuce.  The Resident Storm Chaser wrote the weights as I called them out, and I don’t know where he wrote them.  Anyway, my gorgeous harvest:

My friend Rita has become my cohort in crime when it comes to exulting over the most minor garden miracle, like, fresh-picked lettuce for a salad that–gasp–tastes like real lettuce!  And she did that! And so did I!

We call ourselves the Sisterhood of the Musical Fruits.

Now, to grow some beans. And hope my scarlet runners do better than craft-cristy’s because I’d really hate to think that Thomas Jefferson was right when he only used them as ornamentals!

More wonderful Harvest Mondays at Daphne’s Dandelions!