Today, July 19, just before harvest
July 16 
July 14 
July 12
Today, I also sowed another row of Bolero carrots.
First Cucumber of the Season
Today, July 19, just before harvest
Category: Harvest
Today, July 19, just before harvest
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.
Garden Pizza
Pizza last night with all toppings form the garden (except the cheese of course). I made a garlic scape pesto (with scapes and basil from my garden) and topped it with fresh kale from the garden (chopped and briefly massaged with a bit of olive oil and salt), fresh mozzarella slices and shredded cheese. Yum!
I only have a limited amount of scapes this year as I primarily planted soft-necks. In fact, all the scapes are from hard-neck volunteers that I left in the ground last year.
Garlic scapes right before harvesting about two weeks ago (I kept them in the fridge until now and they were fine).
Garlic scape pesto.
Just before going in the oven.
Salad
I spent some time in the garden today weeding and planting. The cucumbers I had direct-sowed a few weeks ago have not made an appearance (it worked last year) so I planted some seedlings in their spot, a cucumber “Gateway” and an eggplant “Calliope”. I also planted a hot Thai pepper next to the pole beans, which are starting to poke through the soil. I got those three plants from Whole Foods, a new (last minute) source of seedlings for me. Three of the four overwintered dahlias came in nicely. I also sowed more cosmos (with the dahlias) and kale (next to the Swiss Chard) and walked over to Agricultural Hall and got some hay from Bill. I plan to add a heavy layer of hay to suppress the weeds in my plot – yellow nutsedge and bindweed seem to be out of control.
Our community garden is right along the Southwest Corridor Park and tomorrow morning, hundreds of bike riders will be starting (and finishing) their annual Bike-A-Thon rides right across from our garden. Our family has been supporting Bikes Not Bombs for years, both by fundraising and riding the Bike-A-Thon and by volunteering. My husband and 12 year-old son volunteered last night. They prepped food for the riders and got to take some of it home. So tonight for dinner, we will have Bike-A-Thon pasta and a side salad with lettuce (Butterhead “Kagraner Sommer” from Renee’s Garden) and breakfast radishes from the garden.
Mid-May Harvest
Rhubarb, asparagus and a giant overwintered leek.
I planted basil and sage in the plot and checked on the progress of my vegetables I planted from seed: the peas, radishes, lettuce and chard came in nicely. The beets are just starting to show. So does the kale but the flea beetles are hard at work here this spring. The carrots are a no-show.
The seedlings – Brussels sprouts and leeks – are looking good.
First Harvest
With help from my plot neighbor David who generously offered to share his bounty. About a third comes from my asparagus micro-patch, seen below a couple of days earlier, the rest is from his patch. And this asparagus mushroom tart is what I will be making for dinner tonight, but I will use regular pizza dough instead of puff pastry and will substitute cremini mushrooms. So good!
Eating from the garden in the middle of winter
It is the end of January and a few days ago, I finished the last of the hot peppers I grew in a container on our porch. I had harvested them in November and stored them in the refrigerator. I was surprised how well they kept. I was sad to see them go, but I got a fuzzy feeling cutting them up and adding them to a tasty beef chili. Nothing better than cooking with home-grown veggies from the garden. In the middle of winter no less. I also still have home-grown carrots in the fridge and of course lots of garlic in the pantry. I think the garlic will last me all through the season.
Leeks
Leeks … the only thing still growing in my plot. Today I spent a few hours in the garden harvesting my last carrots, parsley and kale and a handful of leeks before I did a final weeding of my plot and added a cover of salt marsh hay for the winter. I checked on the garlic and saw a couple of thin green sprouts.
I am sad the season is coming to an end, but it was a pretty good one. Tonight for dinner, we had roasted vegetables (the leeks, carrots and garlic came from my garden) with a smokey yogurt dip and salad (parsley from the garden). It always feels good to have home-grown food on the table.
Dahlias
September bouquet: dahlias, parsley, radishes and asparagus
The four dahlias I planted this year gave me plenty of flowers for beautiful arrangements all summer and fall, big and small. I liked experimenting with combinations of flowering vegetables and even weeds.
Mini dahlia in soy sauce dish
Unfortunately, the night frost we had a few days ago killed them off and the day after, I dug up the tubers. I cut off the flower stalks leaving about 3 to 4 inches and carefully dug up the tubers using a pitchfork and then gently shook off most of the dirt. I am letting them dry in a paper bag for a few days before I will store them over the winter in the basement. I will trim the stalks to 1 to 2 inches and store the tubers in a basket or some other well ventilated container loosely filled with lightly moistened peat moss or vermiculite. I then inspect them regularly during the winter to make sure they do not rot and do not dry out. Any rotting parts will be removed. Here’s to hoping they will survive.
