Harvest Monday - 24 July 2023

July is winding down, and we're just now starting to get some large harvests. As usual, I'll start with the "first harvests of the season." 

On October 15 of last year, I planted 48 hardneck garlic cloves, anticipating that a normal cool fall and cold winter would put them into dormancy. Well, it was the opposite. They immediately began to grow and sent up leaves, only to have those leaves killed by the arrival of true winter. So I had fears that the plants would be harmed by this. That turned out not to be the case, fortunately. We harvested the entire crop this week.

2023 garlic harvest

From left, Vietnamese Purple Striped, which had the smallest bulbs. Then Spanish Roja, a new variety for me, which is supposed to be strongly flavored with red-clad cloves. Finally, Katterman, a variety that as far as I know is only produced by one grower, whom we buy from directly, at the Vermont Garlic Festival. It makes huge bulbs and cloves.

We also did first harvests of a number of greens. This is "Top Bunch 2.0" hybrid collards. It's the only collard I've ever grown, and I'm very happy with it.

Collard greens

Next are two types of Swiss chard. This one is "Oriole" (hybrid).

Oriole chard

And this one is "Peppermint," also a hybrid.

Peppermint chard

There's no difference in taste between the two; I just like the color contrast.

We also did a first picking of kale. They come from a mesclun mix, so I don't know the actual variety.

Kale

Some of the above greens were given away, and the rest we chopped and froze raw for use in our breakfast smoothies.

My sweet pepper plants are still pretty small, so I took some of the early fruit to hopefully encourage them to put on stronger growth. This is "Ace," a hybrid bell type.

Ace

I also did a first picking of carrots, to see how they're doing, and also to add to a recipe I was going to make (broccoli cheddar soup...it was good). This variety is called "Newhall," and is new to me, so we'll see how they progress They are still small now.

Newhall carrots

Among continuing harvests, we cut more broccoli, both main heads and side shoots. We've really harvested a lot of broccoli, and are trying our best to use it up fresh.

Broccoli

There is still loose-leaf lettuce growing, and it has not turned bitter yet.

Lettuce

More artichokes (hooray!) and zucchini. We expect the artichokes to be petite, and they are, but the small size of the zucchini is somewhat puzzling. I think the're not getting pollinated well. There seems to be a lack of male flowers for some reason. But no matter, they taste really good.

Imperial Star artichokes and Pantheon (F1) zucchini

Wrapping up, more fennel was cut, including this really large specimen.

Orazio (F1) fennel

So, a pretty good week! Hope your harvests pleased you too. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.