Harvesting

I don’t want to discuss the cost, or the effort, involved, but we are eating now from the garden.  I am still grateful to live in a wonderful locale where there are others who will make sure we don’t starve, however.  Last week we had the most wonderful, crisp, fresh and BEAUTIFUL Swiss Chard.  We had organic hamburgers and I cut up the Swiss Chard leaves below and put them with some onion, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper inside a tinfoil envelope.  We cooked it on the top shelf of the grill for just a few minutes.  I should have photographed the dinner but we just wolfed it down, making all the same noises you hear when you watch Food Network.  It was so simple and steamed just perfectly. 

I started to cut some of the peas when I can find them.  I’m still a novice at this and need my veggies color coded so I can find them.  Tonight we’ll eat some of these peas along with some more that I’ll find this afternoon, on our salad.  I hope to remember to take some photos of the finished dishes, but don’t hold your breath.

Oh yeah, there have been a few strawberries along the way.  They don’t get far before they are sampled.  My loving husband has only gotten one so far.  Maybe next year, our yield will be larger but there are lots of flowers on the plants now.  We just need more hot days, I think.

According to the spreadsheet, today is the day the beets should be ready.  I could have pulled out the big ones and left the others to get bigger but since my sister is coming and she loves beets I just decided to harvest them all.  It was a very short row as you may recall from the plan.  I harvested several last weekend to give to my friend who also loves beets so this is not all the beets we got but is probably 75% of the total yield.  These were the easiest to grow of all except for soaking the seeds.  The greens look beautiful too and I have a huge bunch of beet greens in the refrigerator waiting for my sister and her wonderful ideas.

I took the smallest of the yield and roasted them for our salad tonight.  They are in the refrigerator now but here is what they looked like before the olive oil and the oven:

I think we’re going to be eating well tonight.  Wild caught Alaskan Salmon, fresh salad, Swiss Chard and some great bread with olive oil for dipping.  Does anyone notice that I LOVE olive oil? 

Lastly here is a photo of the garden taken today.  I can’t believe how large the plants get from such tiny seeds.  It’s truly a miracle, especially in my case!

I hope you all have wonderful family to share fantastic fresh food with.  Cheers!