what are you eating from your garden today 2017

[PaulF]

Six spears of asparagus have poked up through the cool ground. It will be ready in a few days if the rain stops and the soil dries out a little.

[rainbowgardener]

Tonight's dinner - pesto potato salad, made with garden pesto made and frozen last year and fresh picked parsley. Last night was the bean cheesy chard recipe, made with a whole big bowl full of chard. The chard out there is getting huge! That was served with a green salad that was mostly from the garden.

[imafan26]

All I used was some green onions for my cheese omelette.

[rainbowgardener]

My contribution to the Easter potluck at our Quaker meeting will be a torta pasqualina (Italian Easter pie). https://www.thebakingfairy.net/2016/03/ ... asqualina/

It calls for spinach, but although we have lately been eating spinach from the garden, I would be hard pressed to come up with a pound of it. But I can easily harvest a pound of swiss chard (which is huge and vibrant) without denting the supply too much, so that's what it will be.

Maybe next year I can do it with our own fresh eggs!

[imafan26]

Right now I have eggplant, lemons and limes for a quick and easy dish. Slit the eggplant in half and nuke it for about two minutes. Cheese is optional. I like soy sauce and lemon or lime juice. The rest of the lime makes flavored water.

[rainbowgardener]

So I did make the torta pasqualina. Came out beautiful looking, though it won't get cut into until tomorrow.

A pound of swiss chard turns out to be about 30 big leaves (weighed after being peeled from the heavy mid-ribs). Two big serving bowls piled full. It does cook down a LOT though. And there's still more chard out there than I know what to do with. The recipe also called for 5 oz of baby kale. I was able to harvest that from the garden also - the first time this season I have harvested kale. a

Chard is amazing. I always tell people if you could only grow one thing, grow chard! The chard that is out there was planted more than a year ago. It made it through extreme heat and drought (though it did look pretty sad there for awhile) and through winter frosts (wilted for awhile but popped right back up) and then started thriving again. One 5' wide row when it is thriving is more chard than the two of us can use!

[digitS']

I had thought to post this in the weather thread but it hardly makes sense to follow RainbowGardener's post on being almost uniquely in US drought with a lament on a lingering, almost-winter coolness.

So, I'll post here following RG's wonderful Torta Pasqualina information .

Quiche isn't too unusual in this home in the spring. I decided as a teenager, that since I learned to make pumpkin pie as a child, I should be able to make a quiche. The problem is I have no spring greens in 2017! Undeterred, we have had scrambled eggs with chives . And, that seems like always where we start off on the garden harvesting.

Not a very auspicious start but I don't even have as much as a spinach seed in the ground. I'm sure that if I did - that seed would be doing nothing in the way of growing. Officially, we have only had 2 days above 60°f this year! As usual, the local area is running neck and neck with communities in North Dakota for growing degree days. Yeah, that's a weather link and not a recipe .

The Weather Service says that today, should be day #3 in the 60's. I will be busy with family today but expect to finally be sowing seed for the cool season crops this week! Maybe I will have made a spinach quiche by this time in another month.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

We had company over the weekend and for brunch I made a spinach omelet for five people with my garden spinach. Still mainly eating greens, but lots of them in abundance. We are giving lettuce away, since it will be bolting soon. Eating spinach, chard, kale.

We are not far away from broccoli season and there are pods on the pea plants! Soon the garden will be giving more than greens and herbs! And by summer the omelet will have fresh eggs!

[rainbowgardener]

Oh and tonight's dinner, along with green salad completely from the garden, had stir fried veggies, including a red onion I pulled from the garden. It would have gotten bigger if I left it longer, but was already like three times golf ball size and beautiful with a purple-red skin. Yay! First thing from my garden that wasn't greens or herbs.

[rainbowgardener]

Gave away a bunch of lettuce to my neighbors, since it will be bolting soon anyway.

Dinner tonight was a big pan of swiss chard lasagna. Ate some, save some for left overs, and froze half. It used another pound of swiss chard and still there is tons of it out there.

[Taiji]

Been eating on this all week. Smallest of the 4 Blue Hubbards I grew. Only 3 more to go. It's been sitting around since last Sept. 15, when I harvested it, the day of the first fall frost. The rind was so hard I had to cut it open with a handsaw, then cut into smaller pieces with a handsaw too. Amazing how moist it still is inside after over 7 months.

The blemished area is where the squash sat on the ground. Next year will put fruits on some layers of cardboard or straw or something as they grow.

[gumbo2176]

I've been eating, and giving away Kale, Swiss Chard, Collards, green beans and cucumbers of late. My soybeans for edamame are almost ready to pull and pick, as is my garlic I planted last fall in early October. My few tomato plants do have quite a few green orbs that are nearing the ripening stage and my Japanese Yard Longs are finally producing beans that will be ready to pick about midweek.

I also have several bell pepper plants with good size peppers on them and my hot peppers are starting to bud like crazy. I even got to pick a couple Butch T peppers that overwintered and are coming in slowly but surely. Seems the hotter the pepper, the slower they grow and produce-----until it heats up in the summer months, then it's gangbusters.

[rainbowgardener]

I made minestrone soup again tonight. It had a ton of spinach and chard from the garden and basil, oregano and thyme, and onion stems chopped up for green onions. AND it had green beans and peas from last year's garden, which I had frozen. So I made a big pot of it and froze half for later. So I'm cleaning the freezer out the last of last year's frozen stuff and starting to fill it up again with this year's.

And I'm eating and giving away tons of lettuce.

[rainbowgardener]

Does it count if I am eating from my neighbor's garden? My neighbor a few doors down the street just gave me a gallon bag of carrots from her garden, because she had too many to use.

These are carrots she planted in the fall. Somehow it never occurred to me to fall plant carrots for over-wintering. I guess it's a Southern thing! Definitely will try it this fall!

Last night I made the bean cheesy swiss chard recipe for four of us.

So since April 16 I have made the torta pasqualini (enough to take to potluck), the swiss chard lasagna (enough for two of us to eat twice and then freeze the other half), the minestrone (likewise to eat twice and freeze) , and the cheesy chard (to serve four). That is total well over 100 LARGE chard leaves I have picked in that time, from my one five foot row of chard. And there is STILL lots out there. It is getting ready to bolt now, so I may just leave a couple plants to go to seed and pick and freeze all the rest.

If you can only grow one thing in your garden, grow chard!!

[rainbowgardener]

Strawberries!!! Sugar snap peas!!! Yay!

Also tonight I am making "chard utopia" which is basically spanakopita made with swiss chard instead of spinach. I often like the spinach recipes better with chard, which has a little more body and flavor.

Still using my bounty of chard!

[rainbowgardener]

And also carrots!!

I usually thin carrots by eating, so I don't start thinning until they are big enough to have tiny baby carrots. So I thought I would start thinning and was expecting the tiny babies. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out carrots 5" long and carrot shaped! That seed was planted in the ground Jan 19th!! (Yes January, the ground never freezes here. )

The chardokopita from above turned out yummy. We had a salad with it all from the garden and including the carrots.

[applestar]

Wow, you really ARE eating out of the garden already

...What variety carrots were these? Last year, I tried several different varieties in the same bed well labeled, and noted some were definitely much earlier and well formed. One was in a mixed color packet, but luckily was kind with different varieties listed -- and am pretty sure it was Bambino.

[digitS']

... Undeterred, we have had scrambled eggs with chives . And, that seems like always where we start off ...

bok choy from covered beds in the most protected part of my gardens

This location is still behind on spring warmth (but ahead of Devil's Lake, ND ), according to the Weather Service. More warm days, however ...

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was pesto pasta, using the last of last year's frozen pesto. (Thought I might as well use it up as we will soon be able to make fresh). With it we had a big green salad, all from the garden except I added some grape tomatoes. The salad was topped with fresh picked garden peas and carrots (sliced and lightly steamed). Wonderful dinner!

And I have started harvesting and drying herbs - lavender, thyme, tarragon, mint, lemon balm, oregano.

[rainbowgardener]

So I hit my all time personal best of amount of peas to harvest at one time-went out and picked a pound of peas! But peas are so transient. There may only be one more pea harvest, since some of the vines are starting to wither at the base. Dinner tonight will be curried garden peas and carrots served over rice, with a garden green salad. (And cut up fruit, not from the garden).

[digitS']

Enjoying Siberian kale and ..

. broccoli raab from the hoophouse the last few days.

The bok choy left in there wants to bolt. It's okay that way. After all, the broccoli raab is supposed to bolt.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was baked potatoes (unfortunately NOT yet from the garden) with garden broccoli!!

Harvested the first two heads of broccoli, along with some carrots, peas, lots of greens, an onion, and the first ripe cherry tomato (which I have to confess didn't make it into dinner, I just ate it!! )

Along with the potatoes and broccoli, we had a veggie stirfry with all of the above and some grocery store zucchini and lots of fresh herbs.

[imafan26]

snow peas and beans.

[PaulF]

strawberry/rhubarb crumble, lettuce and the last of the radishes.

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was a veggie stir-fry, almost entirely from the garden. The last of the garden peas, with carrots, broccoli, onion, swiss chard, tomatoes, with lemon grass and thai basil. Threw in one potato for substance and some garlic, but everything else was garden grown.

I froze up some swiss chard, which keeps stubbornly refusing to die!

[digitS']

The last of the bok choy from the hoophouse ... the last of everything, although I see escarole and a few mustard plants that are struggling to adjust to the direct sunlight. The plastic film has been off the hoops for a week. The hoops have been put away. The frames for the window at one end and the door at the other, stand rather oddly out there behind the greenhouse ...

The escarole really could have been used by now but harvesting the bok choy and broccoli raab buds before the flowers opened took precedence.

Lettuce and onions from sets are coming out of the open garden. Kale leaves, too. For some reason, we have no radish to slice and go in the stir-fries this year. Just a matter of having forgotten to put any seed in the ground .

Snow and snap peas are enough for garden snacking. By the weekend, I think there will be sufficient for kitchen use. Then, a good plenty will be coming out of a 4' by 45' bed!

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! Forty-five foot bed of peas! I never manage to grow enough peas to have any left over to freeze, but then I've never had a whole bed of peas, just plant them around the edges of other stuff.

It's summer solstice. I pulled the pea plants, some of the cabbage and some of the broccoli. Planting beans and squash.

[Taiji]

These butternuts are my last 2 from last year, so I don't know if they really count for 2017, but, just shows how long they can last. Still nice and moist inside. For tomorrow's dinner.

[rainbowgardener]

That's amazing that they lasted so long (and that you had so many you hadn't eaten them all up yet! I don't know how long mine would have lasted, because I finished eating them up a few months ago)

What I'm fixing tonight is a tomato/cabbage curried stew, almost all from the garden:

onion, garlic, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, carrots all from the garden (and if I wanted to use up some of my frozen peas, that would be from the garden too. ) and I threw in one jalapeno pepper, just because it was sitting around.

Love summer!! And in a few more days there will be ripe corn!!

[digitS']

Lots!

Of!

Snap & Snow Peas!

Steve

[PaulF]

Blackberries, beets and zucchini.

[applestar]

We are drinking elderflower drink made from freshly made elderflower syrup

...also, Lettuce Basil leaves have been subbed in for Lettuce in sandwiches.

[rainbowgardener]

Yummy! I bought an elderberry plant early this spring (late winter actually) and planted it and it had been thriving. But it is on the fence line. My next door neighbor sprayed some kind of lawn chemicals and the elderberry got blasted. I'm watering a lot and hoping it pulls through. GRRR

[applestar]

Oh no! I hope it survives.

.…wait did you say plant (singular?) my understanding is you need two cultivars to cross pollinate for good fruitset?

Of course I don't know if I do any more. I originally bought "Johns" and "Adams" but neither of the original plants are alive any more. Birds helped to spread them and I just kept ones that were growing where I didn't mind.

I suppose since they are seedlings presumably from the original two, they are hybrids with sufficient genetic variations.

[rainbowgardener]

Our first ears of Silver Queen corn were dinner last night! Ripe corn before the Fourth of July!

[rainbowgardener]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint. And I made a vegetable plate to take to a July 4 party with tomato slices (red) and cherry tomatoes (orange), broccoli, green pepper, carrots, swiss chard, with a sunflower in the middle of the plate for ornament.

[Taiji]

Today's salad. Chard, and the first Scarlet Nantes.

[xtron]

baseball sized red potatoes, sliced, wrapped in foil with red onion, also from the garden, butter, salt and pepper, then roasted on the bar-b-que with pork chops. side of peas that were picked and frozen 3 weeks ago. salad of fresh picked lettus, spinach and swiss chard...gonna be the last salad before it all bolts..kind of woody now.
got it cooked and back inside with 5 minutes to spare before the rain started

[rainbowgardener]

We had company for dinner and picked TEN ripe ears of Silver Queen corn!!

Since we had already had two dinners with corn on the cob, that is most of the ears from my 4x4 patch, just a few left.

But the second planting of corn is getting pretty tall now!

[pepperhead212]

I made some Szechwan eggplant tonight - a dish I usually make as soon as I am getting enough eggplant (2 lbs for a double recipe, which I almost always make) from the garden. I also used garlic from this season, and dried peppers from last season. Usually the scallions would have been from the garden, but I didn't plant them, due to that Allium leaf miner threat here.

On the side I also had some cucumbers I always make - simple quick pickles, made by halving the cukes, de-seeding them, then cutting into sticks about 1/2" x 2-3". Simply soak these in and equal amount of white vinegar and sugar, and a bit of salt (about 1/4 tsp to 1/4 c each vinegar and sugar for 2 medium cukes) in a sealed jar, shaking them occasionally, and in 3-4 hrs they are ready! I drain them, and add nam prik pao, or a tsp easch of sesame oil and hot oil, to give them a kick.