weekend harvest - seeds

We don't have too many pictures of veggies to show off this week.  We had a couple groups of friends who came to visit the garden last week.  We had fun walking around the garden.  Everyone tried their hands in harvesting veggies and took home the harvests.  And, of course I forgot to take pictures of those harvests.

 I did take pictures of the harvest for Saturday night dinner.  The cucumbers are slowing down.  The tomatoes are ripping faster than we are picking.  On Saturday and Sunday, we picked tomatoes both in the mornings and the afternoons.

This big fat carrot was one of the only two seeds that came up from my failed seed sowing in March.  The other one I picked too early so there wasn't much of a carrot.  Then I kept forgetting to pick this one.  I chopped this one up and cooked it in soup.  It was nice and sweet.  This variety is Oxheart.  They grow very short and fat, so they are good for heavy clay soils.  We don't have heavy clay soils.  I just like to grow different varieties for fun.

Although we don't have too many edibles to show off this week, we do have some non-edible harvest to share.

Here are some stargazer lilies we harvested for cut flowers.

I let some chive flowers go to seed so I can plant more next year, although I think there will be some volunteers next year.  There were a lot seeds dropped to the ground.  The seeds were kind of a pain to collect.  It was hard to separate the dried up mini flowers from the seeds.

I have a monster celery plant going to seed.  It's been there since last year.  I harvested some of the seeds last Sunday.  I can't wait for the rest of the seeds to dry up, so I can dig up the plant and grow something else there.

I had a much easier time collecting these seeds.  I just used a fine sift to separate the debris from the seeds.  I heard celery seeds can be used as seasoning for cooking.  I'm going to give it a try.  I guess you could count these as part of the edible harvest.

catching up

We have been absent from the the blog for a couple of weeks, but things don't stop in the garden.  Here are some pictures from past two weeks...

baby lima bean

yarrow

building the shed

softneck garlics

first tomato! (unfortunately overripe when we found it)

harvest - 'tis the season of summer fruits

saturn peaches, blackberries, ume plums, garlic chives

The peaches started ripping last week.  This signals the start of summer even though the weather doesn't feel like it at all.  The temperature has been a lot cooler than usual and gardening-perfect.  We are trying to enjoy the weather before those 90-some or 100-some degree hot summer days come.

Back to my basket of goodies.  These tree-ripened peaches are mouth-wateringly delicious.  They have a light sweet scent and the skin peels right off.  They are very juicy and not overly sweet.  Just the right sweetness.  Just peachy.

We also harvested a couple of our first blackberries.  We should be getting loads of them in a few weeks.  The two apricot-looking things are ume plums.  They are used to make Japanese pickled plums (umeboshi) when the fruits are still green and sour.  The ripe fruits are rather tasteless.  The tree only bore about 5 fruits this year.  Maybe we'll try making some umeboshi if there's ever a good amount of harvest.

The cooler-than-usual temperature also means happy greens.  In this box there are - tung ho (edible/garland chrysanthemum), curled Indian mustard, a-choy lettuce, spinach, mizuna, summerfest komatsuna... oh ya, and our first cucumber!

Our garlics are pathetic this year.  We didn't notice that our irrigation system wasn't working right for a little while. Their growth is stunted and the leaves are burnt.  For now, they are hanging on.  Earlier during the week, I harvested our garlic scapes.  I was excited to see the garlics producing scapes since I had never grown hardnecks before.  The scapes are a little tougher than I would like (probably because of the lack of water) but still good.

baby preying mantis

When I was working in the garden, this little guy came along and wanted to play.  I asked it to pose for a few pictures, then it left to get some aphids for dinner.

I saw this caterpillar on my pumpkin plant.  Good bug or bad bug?

Chive blossoms and kumquats

I didn't plan well.  Right now we are not getting much veggies from the garden other than the perennial herbs.  Even the peas are dead (from the heat wave we had last week).  But, I still managed to gather a few things from the garden.

There are plenty of chives blossoms in the garden at the moment.  I've used stalks of garlic chive blossoms (before the blossoms open) in asian cookings, but I'd never eaten the blossom itself before.  I don't know why but I thought chive blossoms would be tasteless or have a floral scent.  I snipped a blossom off and took a bite, and it tasted like, well, chives.

First I used it as a garnish for an appetizer dish.  I simply boiled and strained some seaweeds and clear noodles (they are also called glass noodles, bean threads, mung bean vermicelli...).  Then, I mixed in a little bit of salt, pure sesame oil, chive blossoms, and thin threads of ginger.  This dish can be served warm or cold.  These delicate lilac flowers really add a nice touch of color and flavor to the dish.

I also made a quick omelet with the recipe here.  All I used was chive blossoms, thyme, and sliced mushrooms.  It was satisfying and delicious.

Another recipe I want to try is Villager's chive blossom vinegar.  I don't have white wine vinegar.  I wonder if it works with rice vinegar, too.  Maybe I'll give it a try if I can find a glass jar.

I was delighted to find some kumquats still hanging nicely on the trees.  We harvested some back in February and March then we kind of forgot about them.  I thought they would have rotted or dried by now.  I was surprised that the fruits have not turned tough or dry.

I decided to make some sweet treats with Thomas' recipe that I've been wanting to try.  I didn't roll them in sugar, because there was the right amount of tanginess and sweetness after they were simmered in the syrup.  They were so addicting that we finished them before I had a chance to dip them in chocolate.  There are still some kumquats left on the trees.  Maybe I'll make another batch of these or try making some kumquat preserves.