Harvest Monday, 8/10/20

 I've started the process of clearing out the garden. Squash bugs and harlequin bugs have arrived in droves, decimating the once pretty free range greens. I managed to clear out 4 beds on Friday with another 4 beds to go.

The cherry tomatoes are so full of water just washing them caused quite a few to split open. I've been making salads with tomatoes, cucumbers, and alfalfa sprouts that I've grown. The Telephone cucumbers are late to produce but the cucumbers are lovely, when their seeds start forming their flavor and texture actually improve.

Just a few large tomato types left, these mainly go on sandwiches. I've started the process of removing the cages and plants.

Black Cherry has finally started sweetening up, they've been strangely sourish which I suppose could be from a cooler than usual early summer. Really, all the cherries have been on the sour end, except for Sungold and Juliet.

I made some more zucchini hash. Shredded zucchini was mixed with shredded cheddar and chopped turkey lunch meat. Then a handful of the mixture was dredged in egg, then dredged in panko bread crumbs, and fried in a little olive oil. So light and crispy, these were served with macaroni and cheese. They also heat up perfectly in an air fryer, if you want to make a big batch of them.

I picked quite a few snap beans and little squashes while clearing out those beds, but didn't get any pictures. And the soil beneath the sweet potato vines look like it's heaving, hopefully lots of big sweet potatoes are hiding under there.

Harvest Monday, 8/3/20

There's a weird space time anomaly surrounding this year. It just seems never ending. I hope everyone is staying safe and taking care of yourselves mentally and physically. Now is the time to be extra kind to ourselves and to our loved ones.

Kale, free range greens, cucumbers, zucchini, fat green onion, and those slender greens stalks on the right are garlic chives, and a giant summer squash.

Tomatoes and summer squash.

We eat a lot of ramen soups or curry noodle soups with tomatoes, greens, squash, onions, and chives from the garden. We also make sandwiches with tomatoes, cucumbers, and sprouts.

We've gotten a tremendous amount of rain the last couple of weeks and the plants our suffering because of it. The only things doing well are greens and peppers. The greens especially, look vibrant and have had a surge of growth that I find astonishing. It's time to clear out the great majority of the beds, except the sweet potatoes, greens, and peppers will get to hang out awhile longer.

We are having a cooler and wetter than usual August, so it's probably the perfect time to get some lettuce, greens, winter radishes, kohlrabi, and a second planting of snap beans in the ground. I'll be putting off planting turnips and spinach because they're so sensitive to temperature spikes. And I've actually ordered onion and shallot sets for fall planting, which should arrive the 3rd week of September. I'm so excited to try this new experiment in fall planting.

Please join us for Harvest Monday as hosted by Dave from Happy Acres.