Harvest Monday

It's yet another "Better Late than Never" Harvest Monday. The garden is slowing down, but everything else in our lives has picked up, so we're late. We're not just late with Harvest Monday but other things too. I really, really, really need to get our cold frames built. We have seedlings growing in the basement that are counting on me!

This week we had a nice harvest of leeks on Tuesday, tomatoes on Wednesday, romaine lettuce on Thursday, (nothing on Friday), more romaine lettuce on Saturday and lots of jalepenos and beans on Sunday.

This year we planted cover crop. It's our first time ever, and I've got to say we're really enjoying its potential. Planting cover crop has for us been like starting a compost bin. It's a really good thing to do for organic gardening.

Here are a few pictures of our harvest and a couple dishes we made with our fall vegetables.

What to do with leeks? See the next picture!

Cooked and frozen leeks with other vegetables for winter kale soup.

Romaine Lettuce, Beans and a few Jalapeno Peppers

Winter Rye Cover Crop

Chinese Chicken Salad with romaine lettuce.

 
Chinese Chicken Salad allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon hot chile paste
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 16 (3.5 inch square) wonton wrappers, shredded
• 4 cups romaine lettuce - torn, washed and dried
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. To prepare the dressing, whisk together the hoisin sauce, peanut butter, brown sugar, chili paste, ginger, vinegar and sesame oil.
2. Grill or broil chicken until cooked, cool and slice.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Spray a large shallow pan with nonstick vegetable spray, arrange shredded wontons in a single layer and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool.
4. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, wontons, lettuce, carrots, green onions and cilantro. Toss with dressing and serve.
5. Mmmm good the boys totally love the crisp won tons and sweet dressing!

Garden Totals

beans 1 lb

jalapenos 1 lb 10 oz

leeks 6 lb

romaine lettuce 2 lb 15 oz

Tomatoes 13 lb              

Total: 23 lb 9 oz 

Stop by  Daphe's Dandelions and see what gardeners worldwide are harvesting.

There's Cauliflower and then there's Cauliflower

See the difference between the greenhouse cauliflower and the seeded plants we began indoors on February 24th. Who knows, maybe we'll get two separate harvest times. That would be nice.

The top plant we seeded, and the bottom one we purchased from the nursery. What a difference!

Tiny broccoli heads are appearing everywhere. They're about 3/4 of an inch around.

Last year's new raspberry plants are spreading like wildfire! Today Bel transplanted about 10 wandering shoots into a new row, while I worked in the vegetable garden. Between the berry plants we bought last month and the spreading plants of last year, we now have about 60 or 70 feet.  In the garden I added a new row of leeks interspersed with beet seeds. The tomatoes will have to wait until Monday. The onions that were unhappy as indoor seedlings are thriving in the garden, and the shallots and carrots that we direct seeded two weeks ago are beginning to appear now.  We're so happy to see them! We thought the storms had washed them away.