The first heirlooms from the garden are finally here!
Tomatoes
The first heirlooms from the garden are finally here!
Category: Summer
The first heirlooms from the garden are finally here!
Cucumbers
So many cucumbers this year! About two a day. From three plants bunched into one single seed pot. I am not even sure what the variety is, I think I might have panic-bought them at Whole Foods after my direct-sowing experiment failed. This picture shows about 3 pounds of cukes.
I chopped those cucumbers up and turned them into this tasty Turkish-inspired cucumber salad, minus the dill. It was very refreshing. I served it with spiced lentils with yogurt and feta, roasted broccoli, sauteed chicken breast and rosemary focaccia.
Summer Green
Communal grapevine in the community garden
Bush beans
Cucumber
Cured
I cleaned the cured garlic today and made a small braid with the softnecks and hung it in our pantry. The hardnecks were trimmed and stored in an earthenware crock in the pantry.
Mid-July – a Week of Harvests
Sunday: Kale and green beans. Dinner included green beans with feta.
Friday: carrot, beans, basil. Dinner tonight included a large Greek salad (I used up all home-grown lettuce and the cucumber harvested yesterday).
Thursday: first cucumber, the very last lettuce, beets, kale and green beans. Dinner tonight did not involve anything in this picture, but this (with carrots and herbs from the garden) and homemade rosemary focaccia, roasted broccoli (daughter is vegetarian) and sauteed chicken breast (son is not).
Wednesday: more green beans that together with the harvest from previous days were turned into this deliciousness.
Monday: Swiss Chard, lettuce, green beans, mint and the first cherry tomatoes. On the menu: Swiss Chard, mushroom and sun-dried tomato frittata, and a Greek salad with feta, parsley (from my back porch) and mint.
First Micro-Bouquet of the Season
Dahlia, asparagus, mint.
First Cucumber of the Season
Today, July 19, just before harvest
July 16 
July 14 
July 12
Today, I also sowed another row of Bolero carrots.
Rainy Day
Borage
Garlic Harvest
Today I pulled all of my garlic. I had a bunch of softnecks but the heads seem smaller than last year. I had planted about 30 cloves in the fall and maybe harvested about 20 heads, so I will plant seed garlic again this fall and not seed from my own garlic stock. I got some very nice big hardneck volunteers from three heads that I had left in the ground by accident last year. They are currently spread to dry and I will gently brush off the dirt after a day or so and hang them to ventilate for a couple of weeks. For the hardnecks, I will cut off the stem and store them in an open ceramic crock or basket in the pantry. For the softnecks I will attempt a braid again.
Today, I also harvested carrots and Swiss chard and pulled the last of my lettuce, cleaned and weeded the plot and sowed more kale, golden beets and bok choy.
Nice big hardnecks right after harvest (Red Russian).
Softnecks right after harvest (Transylvania)
Mid-Summer Harvest
Some of the last lettuce from the garden. It will go in a side salad tonight with radishes, cucumbers and carrots and a creamy cilantro dressing.