August 2011 MKG Harvest

Zephyr, Sunburst & Black Spineless zukes,
Maxibel & yellow wax beans, Sungolds

The August harvest is usually totally over the top.  So much food!  But this year, what with the cool weather hindering tomato ripening and a bunch of traveling, the August harvest is looking a little sparse.  September though- I can feel it.  There will be tomatoes coming out of my ears.

The main veggies on the plate in August were green beans and zucchini, along with a steady stream of strawberries here and there.  The chard is still out of its mind and pumping out plump leaves (the plants are coming up on a year old!).  And finally, last week, I got a ripe tomato that wasn't a Sungold!  I love Sungolds more than anything else, but I've been looking forward to having some proper big tomatoes and was pleased to harvest a trio of Romas.

August 2011 MKG Harvest

9 Black Spineless zucchini
5 Zephyr squash
2 Sunburst patty pan squash
1 Cocozelle zucchini
~ 2 lbs Maxibel green beans
~1/2 lb yellow wax beans
1 large bunch chard
15 strawberries (about a pint)
2 Meyer lemons
2 pints Sungold cherry tomatoes
3 San Marzano tomatoes
plus whatever the cat-sitters harvested

Those items became:

Zucchini Carpaccio
Zucchini Basil Flatbreads
Sauteed shredded zucchini
Sauteed green beans with butter
Raw green beans snack
Potstickers with garlicky greens
Fresh strawberries
"Lemon ice"
Raw chopped tomatoes with salt

I already know that my September harvest will include more peppers and eggplants.  This year just seems to be a couple months behind schedule.  Baba ganoush as a fall dish?  Apparently.

Green Bean Overload

An abundance of Maxibel green beans.
I count at least 17 in this picture alone...

Wow.  And then there were bushels of green beans.  It is truly amazing how much can be produced from a few seeds planted in early summer.  I am literally gathering handfuls of green beans every day now.  This is the first year that I have used drip irrigation (rather than hand watering) and it shows in the bean harvest.  Never before have I been so inundated and it is awesome.  Now I understand why people came up with Dilly Beans - I just never had the volume to preserve before this season.

But what to do with all this bounty?  The easiest thing to do with green beans is steam them and then saute them in butter and lemon juice.  So simple and so tasty.  However, this year I also intend to try grilling them a la DigginFood and to whip up some Frijole Mole as described in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  I must also recreate the dish that was the big hit of last Thanksgiving- garlicky green beans with thyme.  What is even more satisfying about this dish (than the fact that it's delicious) is that I grew the green beans, thyme, lemon and garlic so the only non-MKG ingredients are salt, pepper and olive oil. 

Few things are more satisfying than that.

Green beans, ahoy!



The first Maixbel bean harvest


Yippee!  Not only are the rest of the Sungold cherry tomatoes starting to show some color other than green, but the green beans are here!  They have been flowering for a few weeks but now they are turning into lovely long strings of yum.  Maxibel, a variety of haricot verts, are the first green beans to come in.  They really are long and lovely, kind of like the 90's waify supermodel of the bean family.  The other varieties of beans I planted aren't ready for eating, but judging by the explosion of flowers, they will be soon!

I always get a little intimidated by the season's first harvest of something; I want to be sure I do it justice and make it tasty.  I think these little dudes are destined for a quick blanch and a saute with butter and lemon juice.  Maybe I'll be a little crazy and throw in some garlic and thyme, too, but maybe I'll save that for the next round. 

Man I love eating from the garden.

As an aside, if you happen to go out into your garden in your bathrobe to pick vegetables as I do, you will find that green bean leaves have some sort of magnetic attraction to bathrobes.  They just grab at the sleeves and hang on.  Apparently no harm comes to them if you just gently peel the leaves back off your sleeve, but I must say one could get mighty tangled up in the beans when picking like that.  Note to self- wear a t-shirt next time you dig through the plants for hiding, camouflaged green beans.

Mighty Kitchen Garden Update

The garden continues its slow movement into proper summer production.  I am finally harvesting little baby zucchini and a strawberry or two seems to ripen every couple of days.  Before I know it I'll be inundated in squash and drowning in tomatoes.  It doesn't quite feel that way yet, but I know it's coming.  In the quiet before the storm, I thought it would be a good time to show you what's doing what here at the MKG.

The squash and zucchini are looking like the garden monsters they are.  There are lots of blossoms and some baby zukes starting to come in.  In about a week I will have to start on the Daily Zucchini Patrol, lest I miss one and it grows into a vegetable club.  Seriously, you could knock someone out with an overgrown zucchini.  I'm sure I'll have one to show you later in the season.  Also, it's prime time to whip up some stuffed squash blossoms.  Yum!

The eggplants are all sporting their pretty little lavender flowers, but no baby fruits yet.  I think I might need to add some flowers to the garden to attract more bees, they seem less abundant than in years past.



This is a baby Giant Aconcagua pepper.  It's hard to see - look in the center of the picture to the left of the main stem.  There it is!  It should be ready to harvest in about a week.  The only other pepper with fruit so far is the Hungarian yellow wax.  Let's hope the others get their groove on soon.

The strawberries are chugging along one fruit at a time.  I had two for dessert last night and one for a snack this morning.  There's no point in trying to save them up, better to just give them a quick rinse and pop them in my mouth.

Little baby Sungolds!  The all-time tomato favorite in our household.  In fact, I've yet to meet a person familiar with Sungolds who wasn't a huge fan.  This is a stupendously delicious tomato.  Still looking at another week or more until I can eat one- the suspense is killing me!

I won't have to wait long once the tomatoes start coming in though- there are lots of flowers ready to turn into tomatoes.

Last but not least, we have the corn (back) and beans (front).  The corn isn't exactly "knee high by the 4th of July" but I planted them late and they are a dwarf variety that only grows to 3 feet or so anyway.  It's my first year for corn so I'm not holding my breath.  The beans seem to be coming in nicely.  A few more weeks and I will be able to harvest them. 

Come to think of it - I had a dream last night (seriously) that I was picking a purple bean off a plant and realized it had green beans growing below it on the same plant.  And the beans next to it were Borlotti beans.  Hmmm, apparently my subconscious is ready to get this harvest started!

How does your garden grow?