Another week where I was able to photograph a few of my harvests as they were happening. Sharing the weekly harvest with all the gardeners gathered at Daphne’s is having a positive impact on my documentation habits. I love it!
So, what did I get this week? I am most excited about my kumquats. I have a little Meiwa kumquat tree in a pot that I have been babying for the last two years. This is its first significant crop. So far we’ve been eating them fresh, and we’ve been enjoying them so much this way that I won’t be making marmalade or preserving them.
The scallions are fattening up, starting to bulge. These are thinnings of Valencia onions planted in November. Soon I’ll have to stop calling them scallions. I thin the onion bed as my cooking needs dictate, but I should thin it more aggressively if I want to get some nice fat onions at some point. Maybe I’ll need to make a large batch of Chinese scallion pancakes this week, or add lots of scallions to everything I cook.
Fava beans! Of course, what else? I have been reporting favas every Monday for a while now. I love them, I cannot get tired of them. I am so glad they keep coming, specially since my summer beans are not germinating that well at the moment.
Time to cut the garlic scapes and let the plants make a big fat bulbs. I picked all the buds from my Spanish Roja garlic, a hard neck, very pungent, spicy variety. I also stopped irrigating them since their foliage had started to dry out. I took one out and it seems that the bulbs have reached a good size, are not fully segmented, but are almost there.
I have also been harvesting a regular supply of mixed lettuce for salads–although this will be coming to an end soon, since the lettuce is getting a bit too bitter. Kale, chard and bock choy, as well as carrots, have also made it into the harvest basket this week. All in all, it has been an abundant week. I am very grateful for my little garden that keeps us well fed week after week.
For more delicious pictures and stories of harvests and to add your own, 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.
May 24, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I’ve been dying to dig up a garlic and take a look, but so far I’ve not done it. I’ve got some Spanish Roja growing too – first time I’ve ever grown it.
We’re blessed with scallions too. If you find novel things to do with them, I’d love to hear about it. I’ve been sticking them in everything.
That dish of kumquats is gorgeous, and so are the favas!
May 24, 2010 at 12:18 pm
I hope you like the Spanish Roja. For us it grows very pungent, so a little goes a long way.
I like how you put it, blessed with scallions, because right now I’ve only been seeing them as a reminder of the tasks I have not gotten to complete yet. I’ll like the blessing better.
May 24, 2010 at 12:27 pm
My summer beans aren’t germinating very well either. I don’t know what the problem is.
Did you get your kumquat tree from Four Winds Growers…I believe they have this variety. I have two mandarinquat trees but it think it will be a long time before either of them fruit.
May 24, 2010 at 12:33 pm
I am sorry to hear about your beans, plants have a mind of their own, it seems.
I did get my kumquat from Four Wind growers, and I also got a mandarinquat from them. I am trying to figure out which one I prefer at the end, since it seems that the mandarinquats are easier to work with for cooking. We’ll see… If you got one gallon trees it may be a while before they are old enough. Here we can get five gallon trees from them if we order them through a local nursery, and those fruit a bit earlier.
May 25, 2010 at 12:28 am
What beautiful kumquats! They are huge compared to the kumquats I see here in Hawaii. The favas you harvested are beautiful too. I planted several hardneck garlic varieties last fall and the scapes have yet to appear – then I read that it needs a period of 40 degree weather so it looks like I will be harvesting a lot of green garlic soon…LOL!
May 25, 2010 at 7:36 am
They are one inch in diameter or less. The photo is taken very close so they may look bigger than they are, unless Maui kumquat are really tiny… Does soft-necked garlic do better in your climate?
May 25, 2010 at 1:08 am
You always have an abundance if crops! Everything is looking beautiful.
My garlic is still not in phase of drying, I just hope to get some nice bulbs this year.
I don’t think that I have very tasted a kumquat… does it taste like orange?
May 25, 2010 at 7:42 am
Our climate allows us to keep gardening through the winter, hence the abundance. But we don’t get really warm weather any sooner, and this year it seems to be coming with a bit of delay, so my summer crops will take a long while to be abundant.
You eat the kumquat whole, peel included. This is the major difference with oranges. The peel is thin and sweet, the pulp can be tart or sweet, depending on the variety.
May 25, 2010 at 2:55 am
Yum garlic scapes. I keep checking my garlic and no sign yet of scapes. I can’t wait to make garlic scape dressing for all the lettuce I have. Last year it was mid June, but this year I’m guessing it will be early since all the blooms in the garden have been early.
May 25, 2010 at 7:44 am
This year is early for me too, but maybe it is actually the right time, only that I usually plant garlic too late and last fall I got the job on time. Garlic scape dressing for salad is a good idea, thanks!
Aa
May 25, 2010 at 8:25 am
Your kumquats are beautiful! I have a little tree that is not doing well, the rats decided that the leaves are delicious and that really set it back for a while. What is it with the summer beans this year? I just had to resow because the first round was a dud. Perhaps it’s the cooler than usual weather. But the favas are happy. I got tired of shelling a peeling and have left the last of them to dry on the plants. I’ve got 5 pounds of peeled beans in the freezer, that should get me by for a while.
My garlic seems to be on the same schedule as yours, although the softnecks are slower, they still need to grow a bit before I pinch off their drip lines.
May 25, 2010 at 9:50 am
I had a little kumquat tree that was totally eaten by a bunny. I was not happy.
I do my shelling and peeling in little batches, otherwise it is too much!
The softnecks are always slower. I have cut the water from either.
May 25, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Beautiful and abundance harvest as usual. I have grown both Nagami and Meiwa kumquats over the years, I prefer Meiwa for fresh eating, the Nagami die earlier this year, my husband was too generous with the fertilizer.
Yes yes yes, scallion pancakes, that’s what I’m going to stuff my mouth with next week (CA bound!)
Don’t know what’s going on with beans this year, of all my pole beans only ONE seed germinated, the rest were duds, the bush beans did better with 40% germination. I’ll have to resow again when I come home, no time to mess with them now.
May 25, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Good warning, I was just wondering how often to fertilize my kumquat, since it seems to have some nutrient deficiency. Now I know to be careful.
We all seem to be having trouble with beans this year, What’s going on? A global mystery…