Harvest Monday

I'm a little late getting my Harvest Monday post up because we are in a heat wave here (nothing like as bad as the west coast has had, but hot enough with high humidity) and the mornings are the time I have to be out in the garden getting the work done. If it isn't done by 10am in this heat it won't get done! After the garden work I had a meeting to go to and then had to wait my turn to get to the computer. But finally: Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions each week where fellow garden bloggers share what they've been gleaning from their gardens this week. Head on over and be inspired!
It has been a productive week in the garden despite the heat with some of the cool weather crops petering out and the warm weather plants getting ready to ramp up production.  I am still harvesting lettuce of the heat tolerant variety, but unfortunately I accidentally deleted my photo of it. Some lettuce is beginning to bolt and some is getting slightly bitter, but still pleasantly edible. I have a variety called Pablo that is a reddish-pinkish summercrisp type that takes the prize for being non-bitter even in temperatures in the 90s.

 I'm still picking peas, sugar snaps, snow peas and shelling peas, but they are really just about done and I'll be pulling the last of the vines sometime in the next week. Seems like I just planted them yesterday and they're done already.

 This week saw my first zucchini, a Jackpot. I had three others that developed blossom end rot, but today I saw a few that look like they'll be healthy zukes. You can see my first three celery plants, a nice variety called Tango. They don't get terribly large, but have plenty of flavor for soups and salads. I harvested a few sad Kolibri kohlrabis, but they have not done well this year. Earlier in the season I had a fantastic crop of French Breakfast radish and we powered through them in our spring salads. Above are a few much smaller results of a second planting.

 Some shelling peas from a climbing variety called Tall Telephone are shown above and they are still producing, although not a large amount. I am getting side shoots from the Blue Wind broccolis that I harvested last week.

 I have a great beet crop this year and picked a few pounds of them this week. They go straight into the oven to be roasted, then I peel them after they're cool enough to handle. The skins just slip right off. We use them sliced up in salads, or in borscht or I slice and freeze the excess for use in winter salads. I also cook or freeze the nicer looking beet greens. Next to the basket of beets is a basket of my first kale harvest.

 I was curious to see what was going on under the potato plants, so I pulled out three little spuds, two Red Norland and one Yukon Gold. Wonder what kind of overall potato harvest I'll get this year?

 I harvested all my Farao early cabbages this week. They are small but tender and delicious, averaging about a pound and a quarter each.

 And I dug up all my garlic. I think I harvested a little early, but I was concerned that I might be waiting too long with all the excessive rain we had last month. They were a pretty good size and I have quite a heap of them curing in a workshed we have. The blue tape you see on each garlic is a label indicating the variety so I can tell which is which when I eventually save some bulbs for seed. There probably is a more efficient and less tedious way to do this, but for now that's what I do.

 Sometimes the garden likes to surprise us. My bush beans are far from ready for harvest, only just beginning to blossom this week. I had given up any thought of scarlet runner beans, because I planted them late and it became so hot out. I figured I just had a nice ornament for the garden. But today as I walked past them I was thrilled to see some beans that seemed to have appeared overnight! They aren't very big or very many, but at least I will discover what they taste like.

And finally, here is another shot of some of the broccoli harvest. These are Tendergreen and their heads are nowhere near as large as the Blue Wind I harvested last week. I have another variety called Belstar that looks like it'll be ready in a few days and my Fiestas have a ways to go yet.
So that's it for this week's harvest! I'm anxiously awaiting that first tomato and cucumber. There are babies out there that just need to size up and ripen. Hoping for a little rain and a break from the heat in the days to come!