Harvest Monday: July 25, 2016

The harvests have more variety as each week passes.  These rainbow carrots were an accidental harvest while weeding.

And I've picked my first tomatoes and some bunching onions.  The fingerling potatoes were from a volunteer plant that had grown up in the space I planted shallots and it needed to be removed.  The potatoes (parboiled), along with some Tuscan kale and that one broccoli spear were tossed with olive oil and baked in the oven for a quick dinner one night.

And more potatoes and carrots were harvested for a stew later in the week.

I've had a few Xanthia peppers throughout the week.  The above picture also shows one Ancho and one King of the North.  I've had what looks like Blossom End Rot on some peppers.  Since they are all in the greenhouse, I should be able to manage the watering and nutrients but obviously not quite consistent in my methods.

And just late Sunday I picked some Royal Burgundy beans and pulled some red onions (and a shallot) while cleaning up the beet bed.

Yesterday I posted about this year's garlic harvest so that wraps up my latest harvests.

Please check out Our Happy Acres on this Harvest Monday to see what other gardeners are doing this week.

2016 Garlic Harvest

After a few years of growing only Red Russian Garlic (a hardneck Rocambole variety), I added Music (a Porcelain type).  And last fall, I planted three other garlic types - Majestic Porcelain, Mennonite Porcelain and German White Rocambole.

The last three types are shown in the main photo (L to R: Mennonite, German White, Majestic).  I've used a few (mostly the Mennonite) earlier in the season, but should have ended up with 8 or so of each.

The German White was to the right of the Mennonite Porcelain in the garden bed and it is likely that I've mixed the two up as I seem to have more of those than I planted!  Or for that matter, I could have mixed them all up when harvesting as the rows weren't quite as straight as I had thought they were when planting.  They all look very similar to me ...

I'm pretty happy with the results as most of the bulbs have a good size and seem to be curing well enough for storage.

Mennonite Porcelain

Majestic Porcelain

German White Rocambole

And the Red Russian:

And Music:

But the harvest was not without problems.  I think that I left them in the ground too long and some have come out a bit mushy.  When I separated the cloves of the mushy bulbs, they were sticky and have a pungent odor (almost like roasted garlic).  This happened with some Music, Red Russian and Mennonite, all of which were in different beds, but all harvested around the same time.

And some of the Music bulbs, though not mushy, have a bluish-green tint.  I'm keeping those ones separate from the others in case it is abnormal.  If anyone has any idea what that might be, I'd appreciate some input - I really don't want to toss them so hoping they are OK to eat (the only reference to "blue-green" on bulb is Penicillium Decay but I don't think that's it as mine aren't rotting at all, they just seem discoloured).

some bulbs have a bluish-green tinge

I will likely pop by the Garlic Festival in a few weeks to pick up some seed garlic for planting this fall (I definitely don't have enough to eat and plant).  And I will check with a few of the growers to see if they have any ideas what this might be.

Harvest Monday: July 18, 2016

A few new harvests this week, with one of my favourites being the new potatoes.  These are Linzer potatoes and were served, as I always do with my first potatoes of the year, with butter and truffled oil.  I would not normally harvest potatoes quite this early but a few of the plants have died off - not sure the reason but I will harvest a few more plants in the coming weeks then leave the remainder for at least another month or so.

Along with the small amount of potatoes was another accidental onion harvest plus what is likely the last of the Bon Vivant salad mix.  The plants were just trimmed as I always do but I think I'll pull them out and reseed for a fall lettuce harvest soon.

The other new harvest this week is Tiara cabbage.  The outer leaves were pretty damaged by worm holes so I cut them open just to make sure they were OK inside ... looking good!

I've pulled up the only two cabbage that I managed to grow leaving room in the bed for the broccoli plants to get a bit more space.  I've only had the one broccoli spear so far which was included in last weeks Harvest Monday.  It was tossed with olive oil and baked along with a red pepper and some garlic scapes and eaten with bread and goat cheese.

I can't believe I've never eaten garlic scapes that way ... they were delicious and a bit crispy!

Pop on over to Our Happy Acres to see what other gardeners are doing this week as part of the Harvest Monday collection!