Monday, August 26, 2013

Harvest Monday–26 August 2013

Sunburst

 

The Sunburst squash is continuing to produce a good supply of sunny yellow patty pans, but you wonder if it was named after the color of the fruit or the exuberance of its flowers. The other story in this picture is the persistence of the powdery mildew this year. I have sprayed with various organic-approved concoctions including Green Cure and Serenade, but the strain of mildew this year seems resistant to everything and does not go away and it is affecting even the “resistant” varieties like Dunja and Summer Dance.

 

four_firsts

 

Despite the powdery mildew plaguing most of the squash and cucurbits, I recorded four firsts this week: from the left, first Dunja zucchini, first Summer Dance cuke, first Green Fingers, and first Jackson Classic pickler, with more on the way if I can keep the vines healthy. The Crystal Apple cucumber has also set several fruit so I should be able to try those soon.

 

four_beans

 

Every couple of days now I am picking a large pile of beans, so I won’t show all of them. Above are the four types of bean I am growing this year. Top from left: Provider bush, Trionfo Violetto pole, and Fortex pole. On the bottom are the Jade beans which are just now coming into production after almost all of the first planting failed to germinate. In this photo you can see the difference in color from Provider and Fortex. Jade is a much darker green and one of my favorites. Below is a close up of Jade (top) and Provider.

 

two_beans

 

With all these beans coming in, there is pressure to do something to preserve them, even though a lot still go to the local food pantry. I don’t like freezing them. It’s a lot of work blanching them and I don’t like the mushy texture or even the taste, even when I vacuum sealed them. Forget canning them. Dilly beans are on my wish list but will probably not happen. I do make batches of stewed beans and tomatoes and freeze them, which works well. But then I ran across this article on freezing beans without blanching. It is simple enough, just trim the beans and throw in a zippered freezer bag.  I am trying this method this year as an experiment. I am also labeling the variety of bean so I can compare which type freezes better. Now I just hope we don’t have another week-long power failure this winter.

p> 

Finally, the Beedy’s Camden kale is prolific this year and is being used in many creative ways. My garden neighbor mentioned using it in a “massaged kale salad” and said her kids, who are otherwise allergic to the color green, like this salad. She described sprinkling chopped kale with salt and lemon juice and “massaging” it for 5 minutes, then adding olive oil. I’ll leave it to your imagination how you massage kale leaves, but I did try this classic method and it was very good. If you search the Internet for “massaged kale salad” you will find dozens of variations that can even turn it into a more substantial main dish. So there’s hope in getting through piles of kale like the one below.

 

kale

 

This is a sampling of what came from my garden last week. Check out what other gardeners around the world are doing in their gardens by heading over to Daphne’s Dandelions, out host for Harvest Monday.

13 comments:

  1. Same here with the powdery mildew on the squash. Seems like they have so many enemies, the squash. Borers, mildew, bugs. Thankfully I've been able to keep them alive this year, been more proactive in dealing with the enemies.

    Been getting beans, too! :-) Lots of them! Thanks for the link, I have 2 big ziploc bags full of beans in the fridge and was wondering what to do with them!

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    1. We seemed to duck the squash bugs and borers this year but the mildew is wreaking havoc.

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  2. Great looking harvest this week!! Thanks for the advice on the kale salad, I'll have to look that one up as our kale plants are starting to get to the harvest-able stage and we are going to have a lot of leaves soon!!

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  3. Powdery mildew is alway a huge problem in my garden. There's another organic treatment for it that you might try, it works well for me, that's a 70% Neem oil. These days I'm trying to grow PM resistant varieties instead of doing the annual battle, I do hate having to haul out the sprayer.

    Love that pile of beans, those purple ones are so pretty! I think I'm going to have to add a purple variety to the mix next year.

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    1. To today's concoction I did use Neem with some Green Cure (potassium bicarbonate). I used to add Neem to my milk and baking soda brew. Maybe that was why it was effective.

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  4. Very nice harvest! Thanks for mentioning the massaged kale salad. I've never heard of it, but is sounds like something worth trying since I've had more kale than I know what to do with this year.

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  5. Not blanching the beans sure goes against the conventional wisdom but if it works why not? I just froze about 5 pounds of beans last week and blanching is a lot of hassle. My summer squash got powdery mildew really bad last week. I cut off the most infected leaves and sprayed the remaining foliage with Neem oil - not the purified azidirachtin. It really set the powdery mildew back some.

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    1. Maybe I will try a stronger dose of Neem. The strain this year is nasty stuff.

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  6. PM is hitting my garden hard right now, too. I keep thinking I'll try spraying something on it, but I procrastinate.

    Fortex and Provider are my go-to beans. I've never tried the no blanch method of freezing, but I will now put a few in the freezer as a test. It certainly would be a time saver. I experimented with corn last year, and preferred the non-blanched. Of course, corn never lasts more than 3-4 months at most, before it gets eaten.

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    1. I've been thinking of freezing some corn. If I didn'y have to blanch it, I might do it.

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    2. When I froze it last year, it was on the cob and frozen in vacuum bags. This year I cut it off the cob, heated it in a pot on the stove, with a pat of butter, then froze it in glass canning jars. It tastes great! All I do is thaw in the fridge, then heat it up and serve.

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  7. Hi Dave,
    I've nominated you for some cool awards. Pick them up here, if you're so inclined. :-)

    http://thenovicegardener.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/awards-are-awesome/

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    1. Wow, thanks for the nominations. Quite unexpected but I'm thrilled.

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