Harvest Monday - June 18th, 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday series over at Our Happy Acres.

Twwwwiiiiinnnnsss.

Basil, which went into some pesto. A mix of Botanical Interest's Large Leaf Basil, which does indeed get some very large, tough leaves. But it's a good variety that does well for me and I'm into it. Also some mystery basil from Renee's.

Still just a trickle.

Jewels

 Beans beans beans beans beans.

Maxibel bush beans and a few Kentucky Blue pole beans.

 A cucumber avalanche. This is from THREE (3) vines. Iznik makes me want to pound on my chest and chant "IZ-NIK IZ-NIK" like a frat boy.

Even though it seems like the trees were all leafless yesterday, the orchard is already starting to fruit.

Baby jujubees.

Apples. Variety, mysterious.

Hachiya persimmon.

Harvest Monday - June 11th 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday series over at Our Happy Acres.

Cucumbers! Eggplant! Beans! Most of these Maxibel beans went straight into my mouth. The eggplants are patio baby, which are a new-to-me variety that I absolutely love.

Pretty plants. Terrible photo.

Last year my eggplants were really vigorous and healthy, grew into these huuuuge, round, spiky trees, and gave me like, one eggplant every three months and they usually had sunscald or something. I bought the Patio Baby seeds after reading the variety spotlight at Our Happy Acres. These are well behaved, compact plants. No spines! Tons of eggplants per plant. Well worth the money.

It was like this.

Last Kolibri. First tomatoes of this planting.

These cucumbers! Iznik! I love it. They're so prolific. They're container friendly. No mildew so far. Each plant has approximately 49930402 cucumbers on it. 

Two harvests in one week. These also went straight into my mouth. 

The remaining cukes went into smashed cucumber salad. 

Harvest Monday - June 4th, 2018

 This post is part of the Harvest Monday Series over at Our Happy Acres.

Still not a lot going on here. Sad small garlic harvest. I planted it too late in a location where it didn't get enough light or water. 

Inchelium Red deliberately photographed with nothing for scale. 

Last three leeks. 

King Richard. That blanching though!

Sad harvest. Picked a huge quantity of green tomatoes to ripen inside and culled five (5!) diseased plants in an attempt to save the rest. Two Amish Paste (aka Patient Zero), Blush, Sunrise Bumblebee, and a Pink Berkeley Tie Dye plant that actually showed no signs of disease, but was really just in the thick of it. 

Also pictured my boyfriend who came to take the green tomatoes inside and also brought me a glass of wine because I was extraordinarily salty about having to pull this many plants this early. 

Harvest Monday - May 28th. 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday Series over at Our Happy Acres.

King Richard Leeks.

I'm pretty happy with the amount of blanching on these.

A "things from my garden" version of Martha's potato leek soup 

That's it! :)

Harvest Monday - May 21st 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday series over at Our Happy Acres.

I am terrible at summer gardening.

I harvested a bucketful of bitter from the heat chiogga beets.

One off type white beet. 

Handful of jewels

 Onions. This is the one thing that ground squirrels won't mow down at my community garden. Those little bastards even ate my inherited hollyhocks. 

Texas Grano

I also inherited a lemongrass patch, which I wasn't much interested in until recently. I've been cooking my way through this cookbook from my favorite restaurant in Silver Lake and I cannot endorse it enough.

Lemon grass and Renee's red scallions.

That's it. Things are already looking bleak and it isn't even hot here yet. Ground squirrels ate everything at my community garden so that's on hold while I figure out some sort of hardware solution. The landlord turned off my raccoon fence while I was on vacation and those jerks pulled up all my eggplants. Seedsavers sent me some bad seeds and I've got some sort of leaf disease that's spread through my tomatoes. I'm down to just a few low maintenance vegetables and my peasant flowers. 

Yes

Harvest Monday - April 23rd 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday series over at Our Happy Acres.

Before I show the handful of things I pulled out of my garden this week, I have a question for the blogosphere. About a year ago I found this blog (I can't remember if it was recent) by a couple who grow a crazy amount of food in only containers neatly arranged on a concrete pad. Do you know this blog? Let me know!

This onion was masquerading as a leek. It was in with my bucket of leeks and also bolting. Gardening is full of surprises when you suck at labeling things. I am relieved my leeks are not bolting.

Fennels and rotten dog.

Last of the fennel. I finally harvested one at the right size. It went into my favorite fennel/pork dish.

I did not know fennel grew back after being clear cut until recently so I was very surprised to see this root grew two fennels!

I also thinned my beets.

Doin' it.

And that's about it as we transition from Los Angeles "Winter" to Surface of the Sun Summer.

Harvest Monday - April 16th 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday Series at Our Happy Acres.

I pulled up my carrots! I assumed there would only be a few runty ones left, but there were so many. All gorgeous! I was listening to a WWII thriller about a precious treasure and it really amped up the drama of my discovery.

Purple Haze on the left Cosmic Purple on the right

I found a few surprise Purple Haze carrots in the mix. The Purple Haze were straighter with less wonky shapes than the Baker Creek free seed carrots, but I wasn't crazy about the way they tasted. Sort of blah.  

PH / CP

In fact I think they're just the standard carrots that come in the TJ's mixed bag colored carrots. You know the ones I'm talking about right?

IN SUMMAatION: Cosmic Purple is, really, a very tasty carrot.

Last lettuce. Truchas from Territorial seeds. I'm into it. 

(This pot is one of the the many Very Ugly Potteries I fished out of the goodwill box. I had to buy a new concrete masonry drill bit because it was so thick that my tile bit didn't work.)

Getting down to the last of the fennel. They grow approximately one inch every time I turn my back. 

Last of the loquats. Sad this season was so short.

How are these still blooming?

Yes.

Harvest Monday - April 9th, 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday Series over at Our Happy Acres. 

Castelfranco Radicchio and a perfect tiny joker lettuce wearing radicchio camouflage. There was a pale little heart inside that radicchio, but I did a spit take it was so bitter. It was a good try, but radicchio is - unsurprisingly - not a great fit for my climate. Wish I had gotten it together to force some heads in the basement.

More loquats.

Chard. Kale. Fennel. Lettuce.

Kolibri. This variety was excellent.

Pulled up the rest of the spinach in anticipation of some 90 degree days. Bloomsdale. Very lightly blanched and tossed in the freezer.

Jewels. 

Harvest Monday - April 2nd 2018

This post is part of the Harvest Monday series over at Our Happy Acres.

I grew a cabbage in Los Angeles! It's Renee's Pixie, but it's formed a nice tight head and is pretty heavy! A+++++ for this hybrid.

Fennel. Blush lettuce. Joker lettuce. Loquats. Celery. Collards.

BEAUTY SHOTS. Pink Plume Celery. I'm veeerry ambivalent about this variety. I don't know about the taste. It's got an intense"celery" taste that I think is intriguing/nice for soup/stock, but it's weird for just eating raw. It also grew so slowly. I sowed this in August, but I really only have reasonable sized from one plant now. On the other hand it is pink.

Joker lettuce is easily my favorite lettuce.  It's really bolty compared to other varieties, but it's so tasty and so pretty. Worth it.

Monster orion fennel. Rotten dog for scale.

Still drowning.

Jewels.