Today, I cleaned my cured garlic and braided some of the softnecks into a garlic braid. A few softneck heads were kind of softish and had brown areas and the cloves had separated. Those were not braided and I plan to use them up first (I have been using them since the harvest a few weeks ago).
Overall I harvested 16 heads of hardneck garlic and 18 heads of softnecks. Not bad but I was hoping for a few more. The braid now hangs in my pantry.
This is what I came home to after ten days vacation (my community garden neighbors watered the plot and harvested some of the veggies). Slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, chard, eggplant, jalapenos. The bouquet is dahlia, asparagus, lemon balm, mint. It smells divine. I also picked some parsley for the eggplant dish I have planned for tonight.
Forgot to post a quick weeknight dinner I made a few days ago. Pasta with roasted tomatoes, kale, chard and sausage. All veggies (tomatoes, garlic, kale, chard) are from the garden plot, the rosemary comes from my back porch.
I harvested my garlic last night. I got a good amount of both softnecks (on the left) and hardnecks (on the right), about 40 heads total, I think. They are a good size, too.
I bundled them up and hung them to cure in our back hallway. I will gently shake the dirt off in a couple of days and cure them for longer, a total of about three weeks. I then will clean the remaining dirt off and store the hardnecks in the pantry and braid the softnecks. The softnecks keep longer, so those will be the last ones to be used.
A few days ago, I finally got around to make garlic scape pesto with my harvested scapes. As usual, I froze it in ice cube trays and then transferred the pesto cubes to freezer bags for later use. Yum!
Today’s harvest: first pickling cucumbers (they are big!), last peas, and Swiss chard. Also, the first real red currant harvest. I had planted a bush in our backyard in the fall two years ago. Last summer, the plant was tiny and we got only a handful of currants. This year, I harvested a good amount. Pictured are about two thirds, maybe.
The peas are winding down, most of the stalks and leaves are yellowing now. I will pull them up in the next few days and plant pole beans in their space. I also harvested two garlic scapes I had forgotten earlier and some chard.
Earlier this week, I made (up) a Greek-inspired quick dinner. I fried up leeks, onion, garlic and a bell pepper and added ground beef to it. I added tomato paste to make it more like a sauce and seasoned it with paprika, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, oregano. Topped it with feta and fresh parsley and served over rice. Quick, easy and delicious.
The (overwintered) leeks and onions were from my garden plot, the parsley from my back porch.
We have had a few warm and humid days lately and the head lettuce leaves started to grow more upright, a sign that it will bolt soon. I harvested the remaining three heads in the plot and one big head from the porch. I still have some leaf lettuce growing with the hot pepper on the porch. I planted a kale seedling in the now empty container on the porch.
I also harvested garlic scapes and snap peas. The snap peas made it onto a crudités platter this afternoon for my now 14 year old son’s birthday party.
UPDATE: For dinner I tonight, made bibimbap lettuce cups with leftovers (meat and sesame spinach). Yum!
