bean

First Harvest of September

September 6, 2010 By Stevie 9 Comments

It’s harvest season. There are piles of produce filling my fridge, tabletop, counters, bootroom and basement. I have bags and bowls and boxes of fresh food overtaking the house, overflowing the allotted foodstuff spaces, making it so I need to step over it all to just get through a doorway. It’s definitely harvest season.

Here is what I’ve harvested from my community garden and home gardens. While I don’t grow a lot of any one thing, I grow a few of a lot of things. Over 100 varieties of edibles making this definitive season of plenty.

From my community garden plot:

Potatoes: Red Chief, mystery white variety

Tomatoes: Black Russian and La Roma
Beans: Kentucky Wonder Brown, Kentucky Wonder Wax, Fortex Filet, Orca, and Purple Peacock
Grapes

Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Peas (the last of them this week due to powdery mildew taking over)
Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden
Squash: Small Wonder spaghetti, yellow spaghetti, Little October pumpkins

From my home garden:

Tomatoes: Siletz, La Roma, Green Zebra, Red Zebra, Sungold Cherry, Sweetheart Grape, Isis Candy, Gold Nugget, Patio, and Moneymaker. I recently saw a recipe for roasting them in a dutch oven and now I have one on my kitchen gadget wish list along with a food strainer for making roasted tomato sauce.

Green onions
Italian Prune Plums
Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden

Fairy Tale eggplant
Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil
Peppers: Filius Blue, Thai Dragon, and Garden Salsa
Aunt Molly’s ground cherries

Wild arugula and lettuce
Rainbow chard
Soybeans

I took some time this week to reflect on this abundance and the colder months to come. While the days are long and busy now, I’m growing as tired as my plants are from a healthy growing season. But the glut of produce is available now to enjoy. The rainbow of colours and fresh flavours will soon be a fond memory so I best savour this season. With these thoughts I planted my winter seeds and regained my energy for picking and packing away summer’s bounty.

thanks to Daphne’s Dandelions for hosting another wonderful Harvest Monday.

Filed Under: Growing Food, Harvest Tagged With: arugula, basil, bean, beet, chard, eggplant, grape, ground cherry, harvest monday, lettuce, pea, pepper, potato, soybean, Squash, tomato

Summer Quinoa Salad

September 5, 2010 By Stevie 8 Comments

It’s still summer, technically, and so I’m still going to eat summer salads. This one is a variation of my Festive Black Bean & Quinoa Salad Recipe using freshly picked produce from the garden – I used purple carrots, french filet beans, leeks and snow peas.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups of quinoa
1-1/2 cups canned black beans
1/3 cup carrots, finely diced
1/3 cup snow peas, finely diced
1/3 cup snap beans, finely diced
1/3 cup feta cheese, chopped into small cubes
1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted and rough chopped
1/2 cup leeks
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the quinoa according to package directions, taking care to rinse at least five times before cooking to eliminate bitterness. In a separate pan, saute leeks in olive oil until soft and set aside to cool. Meanwhile combine apple cider vinegar and well-rinsed black beans together in the salad bowl you will be using. Let the beans marinate until the quinoa is cooked and cooled, then drain the beans and assemble the salad by combining the beans, quinoa and chopped veggies. Stir to combine and drizzle with a dressing made of lemon juice and a good quality olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Store in the refrigerator and serve as a healthy lunches or a side dish to chicken or pork.

Filed Under: Growing Food, Recipes Tagged With: bean, black bean, carrot, leeks, pea, quinoa, Recipes

Harvesting in Early August

August 9, 2010 By Stevie 8 Comments

This month my neighbours and I have more growing than we can harvest and eat so there is quite a bit of food sharing going around. Almost daily I get a delivery of somthing, like a giant bowl of fresh figs, that I turn into some lucious creation. I have also now organized a farm fresh egg delivery in my city neighbourhood and been out picking wild berries – all making for a crazy first few weeks in August.

I’m currently harvesting the following veg from my home garden and the community garden plot:

Beans: Purple Peacock, French Filet

Peas: MammothMelting Snow Peas

Tomatoes: Black Russian, Siletz, Sweetheart Grape, Gold Nugget Cherry, Sungold Cherry, Isis Candy Cherry, Red Zebra, Tumbler

Sema Fino Florence Fennel

Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden

Chard: Rainbow, Fordhook Giant, Rhubarb

Peppers: Filius Blue, Garden Salsa

Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil

Squash: one Gold Nugget was ready at the community garden

Potatoes: Red Chief, French Fingerlings

All this has made for some interesting recipes like carmelized figs, fig ginger jam, walnut pesto, and mixed veggies ragu. I’ll be sure to share very soon. If I can get out of the kitchen long enough. help.

Filed Under: Community Garden, Gardening, Growing Food, Harvest, Photography Tagged With: basil, bean, beet, chard, fennel, fig, harvest monday, pea, pepper, potato, Squash, tomato

Why I Love My Heirloom Veggies…

September 18, 2009 By Stevie Leave a Comment

I grow heirloom veggies because 1) who needs flowers?, 2) mmmmmmmmm, and 3) I can save the seeds and grow them year after year. Now I must go eat them. Come here my pretties….