The harvest was smaller this week. My garden is pretty productive right now, but somehow I didn’t need to harvest much. We started the week eating left overs and later on I did some freezer harvesting–tomatoes, some peppers–both of which mean that fewer freshly picked vegetables are needed.
Saturday I picked this bowl of thin stemmed pac choi, I don’t know the exact variety. I was initially disappointed when I realized that it doesn’t have the wide succulent stems that I love in bok choy. It turned out to be quite delicious stir-fried with a good amount of garlic, ginger, soy sauce and a bit of white vermouth. Now I am glad I planted it, and I still have enough for a few more dinners.
These are the last of the blood oranges. I have been harvesting oranges since late January, which is pretty good considering the trees are very young. I expect the harvest to increase every year until they reach maturity. In about a month I will be planting one or two Valencia orange trees, hoping that some day we will be able to eat oranges from the orchard year round.
The scallions are sweet and pungent cipollini onion thinnings. They are coming very handy in the kitchen right now, since I finished last summer’s onion harvest a while back and I keep forgetting to buy onions when I’m in town.
I’ve also been picking lots of lettuce, some carrots, fava beans and kale. Actually, I guess the harvest hasn’t been so small after all. In any case we’ve been eating home grown veggies every day of the week, and, I have to admit, it is nice to be able to pull some tomatoes or peppers from the freezer to add to all the greens we harvest in the spring.
For more delicious pictures and stories of harvests, head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions, host of Harvest Monday, and take a look at what other gardeners have been up to this week.
April 19, 2010 at 6:14 am
Home grown veggies every day sounds like a good deal to me! Have you ever tried drying your tomatoes and peppers? We do that with ours and they are nice on salads and other dishes. Just soak them in water for a bit to plump them up first.
It is great to have fresh onion thinnings for use when you need a few. It beats buying a bundle of them when you only need one or two.
April 19, 2010 at 11:12 am
Never tried drying tomatoes and peppers. Do you have a dehydrator or you simply sun dry them? I fire roast tomatoes and peppers and them freeze them. They are then ready to be added to all sort of dishes. I use the peppers for salads, the tomatoes for cooked dishes only.
April 19, 2010 at 6:29 am
Here in Canada we are having an unseasonably early spring which means we’re getting the itch to plant. Yesterday, I prepared the soil to receive some snap peas and dinosaur kale – things that can be planted before the last frost. But I’m dreaming of tomatoes and peppers!
April 19, 2010 at 11:17 am
Peas and kale are a good start. And those are some of the better veggies to have on the table. Soon you’ll be planting tomatoes and peppers, but before this you have a whole long list of cool weather things you can plant. Follow the link to Daphne’s Dandelions up in the post and you’ll find the harvest reports of a few Canadian gardeners, just so you get a feeling of what is possible in your area. Next winter you’ll be overwintering greens and harvesting your fist spring lettuce by now:-)
April 19, 2010 at 7:18 am
I can’t wait until I get to eat homegrown veggies every day. Your harvest looks just so beautiful. I so wish I could grow citrus fruits up here in the north. Maybe I’ll get an indoor tree someday.
April 19, 2010 at 11:24 am
Soon, soon, you’ll be eating your own veggies every day. have you thought of trying a dwarf Meyer lemon or a kumquat in a pot? They do well, just need to watch out for scale.
April 19, 2010 at 7:58 am
Beautiful harvest, the bok choy looks so delicious.
I love citrus, but I have to limit myself to dwarf indoor variety, every winter and spring we move them in and out out the house and take them to the other house which has a sunroom where they overwinter. It’s a chore, and it’s getting harder and harder every year as we get older.
April 19, 2010 at 11:30 am
Maybe you can put the pots on top of a platform with coasters and wheel them in and out of the house? Provided there are no steps, of course?
Now that I am hooked on citrus I think that if I need to move to a colder place I’ll have to build a removable greenhouse to put on top of each tree in the winter. Like one of those garden cloches but gigantic. I once saw pictures of such a contraption used in a botanic garden to cover large tender succulents.
April 19, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I’m always amazed by how pristine home grown vegetables look, they don’t get smashed into a crate and hauled to market, your pack choi looks particularly lovely.
April 19, 2010 at 1:24 pm
That’s right, they are pristine. This pac choy was picked maybe 10 minutes before I took the photo, and about 15 minutes later I was cooking it. That’s what’s cool about home grown veggies, they are as pristine as they get.
April 19, 2010 at 1:29 pm
We have an Excalibur dehydrator. I roasted peppers on the grill last year but never thought about tomatoes. Do you roast the tomatoes whole?
April 19, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Thanks, I need to look into dehydrators, specially for fruit.
I roast the tomatoes whole or halved, depending on how large they are. I smear a little olive oil on them so that they don’t stick to the grate too much, but other wise no seasonings so I have more flavoring flexibility when I actually use them in a dish. I freeze them, but I suppose you could also can them.
April 19, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Beautiful harvest!
I have never tasted pac choi, but it looks delicious. I would love to have orange tree, but I find it to complicated to move it indoors and outdoors depending on weather.
April 19, 2010 at 1:38 pm
It tastes like a sweet and mild kale, or maybe something in between chard and kale but without the astringency that chard can have and without a strong cabbage flavor. Hard to describe but give it a try if you can. They are ready much faster than kale or cabagge, so bolting is not as much of a problem, which basically means you can grow them when it is too warm for other brassicas.
April 19, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Looks good!
April 19, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Thanks a lot!
April 19, 2010 at 7:59 pm
I would give anything to have a citrus harvest right about now. Unfortunately, my potted trees won’t produce again until next fall.
I’m not familiar with that kind of bok choy. It looks tasty though!
April 19, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Your lemon trees are still young. As they grow their season extends. I would think that eventually, if you are willing to house a lemon in a large pot, you can have lemons year round.
April 20, 2010 at 11:20 am
I really like the look of your pak choi – it’s quite elegant. It IS nice to have some saved tomatoes for spring meals. We’re using up dried tomatoes and tomato sauce from last year’s crop.
April 20, 2010 at 11:43 am
Oh, yes, it’s so nice to have those tomatoes. All the summer’s hard work really pays off now.