Harvests, 6/2-6/21

So I've been bad over the last 3(!?) weeks and not recording my harvests on this blog, but as usual there's always something going on in the garden and plenty of work to do. Since my last post, I have planted the tomatoes and laid more seed, focused some attention on my herb and flower borders, and tried to catch up on weeding. My sprained foot is slowly healing, but I am able to wear regular shoes now and do more than I was doing before.

Here's what I've harvested since my last post:

6/2
7 baby bok choys

6/4
small bunch of arugula
radish greens

6/5
4 cups 'Jericho' and 'Flashy Trout's Back' lettuce (chopped)
bunch of young yellow multiplier onions
small bunch of chives

6/17
1.5lb Swiss chard

6/19
3 baby 'Detroit Red' beets w/greens

6/21
17 'Shandong' garlic bulbs

As always, there are some missing odds & ends, such as the pod peas that I harvest each day, freezing the peas as accrued. It's also hard to say how everything gets used, though usually I can roughly guess.

Two of the baby bok choys filled out a basic chicken stir-fry, while the rest were frozen for use in a winter stir-fry (I was only able to manage one bag). The arugula was just beginning to flower during the last harvest and ended up in the usual spring pesto, while the radish greens were blanched and frozen to use later (roughly 2 bags worth). The lettuce probably ended up in a tasty taco salad.

I was most please with my last harvest of Swiss chard, which is probably the most I've harvested at once. The 'Fordhook' seems like a steady producer, though it is not getting as big as quickly as the 'Bright Lights' I planted last year. A volunteer chard plant, presumably the white/green from the 'Bright Lights' mixed, turned up in my pepper bed and has been producing enormous and wrinkly dark green leaves. Yum. About half the chard ended up in a pasta dish with an Italian sausage and tomato sauce my boyfriend really liked, while the other half was blanched and frozen the next day for later use.

And though the beets were pretty small, I went ahead and added them to the CSA beets I pickled on Sunday. Sadly, only one jar, but it will make an excellent side once fall hits.

The garlic I harvested only a couple days ago and was fairly impressed with the results overall. The bulbs seem to lose their purple streaks the longer they're left in the ground, and the hardneck in quite a few seems to have gone soft. A lot of the bulbs are smaller than I'd like, but the cloves are quite big. I already know that the taste of the 'Shandong' variety is excellent, spicy and strong without overpowering whatever dish they're used in. As recommended, I will be saving my largest bulbs for fall planting, so I can have as good a harvest next year.

As a final note, I started harvesting raspberries from the last year's canes yesterday. Last year I decided to cut the old canes, which supposedly directs energy to the new canes, resulting in a bigger late summer and fall harvest. Since I've been unable to do as much yardwork this year, I sorta let the old canes go. Honestly, I didn't notice a big difference in my harvest last year and was even a bit disappointed. The old canes are pretty heavy with berries, so I think that overall this is a better plan. as they say in netspeak, YMMV. Most of the raspberries I harvested yesterday ended up in this morning's breakfast smoothie. If I can gather enough in the next few days, they might end up in a dessert or preserves.