Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Summer Harvest Season Has Begun!






I always think this day will never get here and then I am always taken by surprised and delighted when it does.


I have enjoyed the spring crops of lettuce, radishes, beets and the like, but I am always gratified when the summer crops arrive!


The summer squash have started to bear copious amounts of delectable vegetables (sometimes two or more mature squash per day). Obviously there are too many to eat so I will be slicing a portion of them up and freezing them so I can enjoy this harvest well into the winter.


I also harvested the first of the beans. As many of you will recall, I planted a French fillet variety that grows on trellis (like a pole bean) rather than the traditional bush variety. After a tenuous start where I thought I might lose one of the plants, they have proliferated and started bearing their fruit. I only harvested a small amount today and I hope that in the coming weeks and months I harvest more for the table and to blanch and freeze!


Also I am just a couple of weeks away from harvesting the first of the leeks, the garlic which will then be cured and braided and hopefully the bumper crop of potatoes. Now that we are two to three weeks away from harvest I will withhold watering the potatoes much to allow them to cure in the ground and develop a thicker skin. This will help preserve them longer in dry storage (the new pantry) and I will also shred and rice some blanched potatoes, then store them in the freezer in puck form for hashbrowns or other processed potato recipes!


Happy Gardening!

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