Vegetables

Sugar Snap Pea Harvest

~ McArtor ~ 2 Comments

Most days at the plot, my son would rather hike in the nearby woods, talk to garden neighbors or play in the water from the garden hose and water pumps.  But even my hot and bored son helped us pick the sugar snap peas.  He munched on the crisp, sweet pods and remarked, “mmmm, they are soooo sweet!”  He may not enjoy gardening as much as my husband and I, but he does enjoy tasting what we grow.  He even tasted a Nasturium flower!

We harvested over 4 pounds of sugar snap peas last Saturday! It is best to pick the sugar snaps when the peas inside start to turn round and before the green pod starts to turn white.  The strings on the “seams” of the pod need to be pulled off before eating.  We like to eat them raw.

Anyone have a good sugar snap pea recipe?

Surprises in Our Community Garden Plot

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Our Shiba Inu
The first visit of 2012 to our community garden plot at Howard Co. Conservancy on Saturday was inspiring. My husband phoned to tell me, “bring your camera we have broccoli and brussel sprouts growing!” The brussel sprouts were pea size at mid-fall and grew to edible size through the warm winter. I hope they taste good.
Brussel Sprouts
I also found parsley and lettuce sprouting at the edge of our plot. The soil was loose and easy to weed and turn. We planted sugar snap peas, turnips and beets. A community garden friend visited and shared some gardening tips. He told us about a less earthy tasting beet, the Touchstone Gold. Even our Shiba Inu dog reveled in the garden, digging his nose and wiggling his back into the fresh soil.

Harvest Monday – November 28

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broccoli

We were delighted to see the broccoli we planted in late summer finally growing crowns of broccoli florets. My first broccoli harvest! After I cut off four broccoli bunches, my son stopped my harvesting. “Let’s do an experiment and see if the florets really turn into tiny flowers”, he said. For science, I left a few of the small bunches on the stalk.

arugula and red and green leaf lettuce

We also harvested lettuce, arugula, radishes, beets and turnips (4.5 pounds) from our garden plot this week. The brussel sprouts are not ready to harvest. We planted them late. We may not get a mature sprout. Anyway, I am thankful my family likes salads and our garden plot is still producing!

To see other gardener’s harvests visit Daphnes Dandelions blog.

Harvest Monday – November 14

~ McArtor ~ 3 Comments
Turnips

We are getting our garden plot ready for winter. We pulled out the last of the pepper plants and covered two beds with three tall bagfuls of mulched leaves collected from our yard and my mother’s yard. Some cold hardy plants are not ready for the winter “tuck-in” yet. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, turnips, lettuce and parsley are still growing in our plot. I harvested over three pounds of turnips, a handful of cherry bomb peppers and a large bunch of parsley this week.

We had our largest turnip harvest this season. This is the first year the turnips were larger than golf balls. I had enough turnips to fill up a casserole dish. I made a delicious Turnip gratin by adapting a recipe I found at Simply Recipes.  I peeled, then cut the turnips into thin slices with my mandolin slicer, blanched the slices for 3 minutes in boiling water.  I double layered the casserole with turnips, bread slices, onions, goat cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. I baked the gratin at 375 for 30 minutes. The pungent flavor of the turnip decreased after baking.  My husband and son even enjoyed this not-so-popular root vegetable.     I am glad since it is loaded with vitamin C.

A Fall Harvest

~ McArtor ~ 1 Comment
We dug out 30 pounds of sweet potatoes last Sunday. They were smaller than last year’s crop. We wonder if its because we did not cover the ground with black plastic this year. The plastic keeps the soil warmer and prevents over-watering from flooding rains. We will use the black plastic next year.
We had a surprise harvest of beans this fall. In August, Mexican bean beetles almost destroyed the young bean plants. Now it is too cold for the beetles to stick around to eat the hanging beans. More turnips, radishes and beets are ready to harvest.

I sauteed a bunch of turnip greens with garlic in olive oil, but they were too bitter to eat alone. The greens tasted better in chicken pasta soup. I am certain I can get my husband to try the greens again if I combine them with bacon. We’ll see on the next fall harvest.

New Crop of Peppers

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new crop of green cherry bomb peppers

Pepper plants thrive in the cool moist fall weather.  Our potted Jalapeno and Cherry Bomb pepper plants on our deck are loaded with new peppers.  A few Bell and Habanero pepper plants at our community garden plot are still producing fruit, too.

stuffed cherry bomb peppers

The Jalapeno and Cherry Bomb peppers are perfect for spicy mouth popping appetizers. They are not too hot when the seeds and membranes are cut out. Actually, some of the jalapenos were quite mild. I wore rubber gloves and cut out off the pepper tops and sliced out the seed membranes (the white part holding the seeds). Then I stuffed the peppers with of mixture of sausage, cheese, beaten egg and bread crumbs. I cooked them for 15 minutes at 400 degrees fahrenheit. My husband and guests enjoyed them with homemade pizza. Our eyes watered a bit, but no one said they were “too hot.”

Harvest Monday – August 29

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bottle neck gourd

A few plants in our community garden toppled over from Hurricane Irene.  My son cried when he saw his sunflowers bent and broken.  But he felt better when we showed him several large gourds hiding under his gourd vine’s velvety leaves.  As we expected, some tomato plants were knocked over, yet we still collected over 20 pounds of ripe tomatoes and over 10 pounds of green tomatoes!  We made 10 quarts of salsa and plan to make tomato relish  or green tomato cake from the green tomatoes.  Our fig tree keeps popping out sweet figs.  I picked 5 pounds of figs this week.  We canned 8 half pints of low-sugar fig jam.

I picked three eggplants this week.  The eggplant has become my favorite vegetable because of its high versatility and low carbohydrate content.  I discovered that strips of broiled eggplant can be used like pasta noodles and topped with tomato sauce and cheese.   The eggplant is peeled, sliced a quarter inch thick, brushed lightly with olive oil, broiled for 5 to 10 minutes on each side and cut into strips to make “eggplant noodles.”

Here are my harvest totals for the week:  beans  0.5 lb, eggplants 2 lb,  figs 5 lb, habanero peppers .25 lb,  leeks 1.25 lb,  red pepper .25 lb, shallots .25 lb, tomatoes 21.75 lb and green tomatoes 8 lb.

Total this week:  39.5 pounds

Total this season: 257.10 pounds

Thanks to Daphne’s Dandelions for Hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday – August 22

~ McArtor ~ 1 Comment
Cherry and grape tomatoes getting a bath.

Thanks to Daphne’s Dandelions, the host of Harvest Monday!

Tomatoes were our harvest winners again!  We picked over 40 pounds of tomatoes from our weary tomato plants this week.  On Saturday, my husband and I got a lot of work done at the garden plot while our son stayed at his grandma’s house.   I turned over the soil and planted fall crops. My patient husband picked the cherry and grape tomatoes.   He had the most arduous job of picking and holding the small fruit while crawling and twisting through a jungle of 6 feet high tomato plants and dirt peppered with smashed, split and slimy dropped tomatoes.  We learned two lessons….use black plastic and do not plant tomatoes only 18 inches apart!   The tomato plants with black plastic on the ground around them had less split tomatoes than the plants that did not have it.  The black plastic prevented the plants from getting too much water from recent heavy storms.

Harvest Totals:
Beefsteak and Plum Tomatoes 36.5 pounds
Cherry and Grape Tomatoes 7.75 pounds
Cherry Bomb Peppers .25 pound
Hot Banana Peppers .75 pound
Bell Pepper 2 pounds
Yellow Squash 1 pound
Figs 3 pounds
Cucumber 1 pound
Eggplant 1 pound
Leeks 2 pounds
Shallots .5 pounds

Harvest Preservation:
8 quarts of Tomatoes
3 pints of  Pickled Peppers
2 pints of Fig Jam
2 quart bags of frozen oven-dried cherry and grape tomatoes

Harvest Monday – August 15th

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The tomatoes were the star of our garden this week. Despite several rain storms, we picked 97 pounds of tomatoes this week! On Saturday, our plum tomato plants dripped loads of bright red fruit so I continued to pick as the sky darkened and dumped a heavy rain.  My six year old son watched from the car in amazement as his soggy mommy stomped barefoot through puddles and wet spongy grass carrying bags of tomatoes.  After the harvest, my son and I splashed our bare feet in the little waterfalls flowing around the trees and down the hills in the parking lot of our community garden. Harvesting in a summer rain can be fun.

My son's contribution to the tomato harvest

Here are our harvest totals for this week:

Plum and Beefsteak Tomatoes combined
70 pounds

Cherry Tomatoes
27 pounds

Eggplant  5.25 pounds

Peppers  5.0 pounds

Cucumbers  6 pounds

Sweet potato leaves  3 bags

21 Quarts of Tomatoes

Preserved the following produce this week:

21 Quarts of tomatoes
3 Quarts of pickled cucumbers
froze bags of bell and cubanelle peppers, oven-dried cherry tomatoes, and cooked sweet potato leaves

To see amazing harvests from gardens around the world, stop by Daphne’s Dandelions, the host of Harvest Monday.

Zucchini Tribute

~ McArtor ~ 1 Comment

Our zucchini plants produced over 22 pounds of zucchini!   We could not pick them fast enough so some zucchini grew into a size worthy of the county fair.  My kitchen counters were covered with green logs a few weeks ago.  I chopped and my son shredded (using the food processor) until we filled over 15  cups with zucchini meat.  Here is our zucchini resume…

  • Traditional zucchini bread
  • Oatmeal cookies containing shredded zucchini (squeezed dry).
  • Appetizers of breaded then broiled zucchini slices (can be used in Lasagna in place of noodles).
  • Pasta with sauted zucchini, tomatoes, garlic and onion.
  • Pizza with a crust made from shredded zucchini, eggs, flour, olive oil and cheese.  My son’s culinary review, “It does not look like pizza, but it tastes like pizza.  It is yummy!”

    pizza with a zucchini crust

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to our zucchini plants this week.   I found a squash vine borer larva inside the stem of one of our plants.  Moist sawdust-like debris around each stem and wilted leaves were signs of this devastating pest.  I cut open one stem and found the larva.  Sometimes the plant can be saved by digging out the larva and covering the stem with dirt.  Our plants had too much damage to be saved.  But our zucchini legacy will continue despite the vine borers……there is more shredded zucchini frozen in a bag inside our freezer!