The Modern Victory Garden

Harvest Monday

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens in so many different regions.   Check it out and join in!                            

The garden is still producing greens almost exclusively, but this week we did introduce something new to the mix – broccoli!   The week started off with a big harvest of romaine lettuces which was cleaned, torn into chunks, spun dried, and then made into a large salad topped with some crumbled goat cheese and roasted/salted sunflower kernels that was used for Monday nights dinner and several subsequent meals.                      

 Wednesday I harvested a very full (packed down and overflowing!) colander of kale.   The kale was sautéed with diced garlic until wilted and then some vegetable stock was added to the pan along with some raisins and allowed to simmer on medium high heat until the stock was mostly evaporated, the kale tender, and the raisins plumped.   This was then tossed with cooked and drained orzo pasta, seasoned with salt to taste and topped with freshly grated parmesan.   The kale and pasta side dish accompanied baked salmon filets seasoned with dill.       

The spinach patch was showing signs it was about to bolt, so on Saturday I harvested all of the leaves and then pulled up the plants to make way for some carrots (which I planted on Sunday).   The spinach was used to make a spinach and bacon quiche and a large spinach salad topped with cranberry raisins and roasted/salted sunflower seed which was our Saturday evening meal.   There was a large amount of the spinach salad left over which will be used for lunches and other meals over the course of the next several days.     Most of the left over quiche was used for Sunday brunch the next day.    

Finally, on Sunday several medium sized heads of broccoli were harvested.   These were showing signs they were going to start flowering so I went ahead and harvested them.   The broccoli was just simply steamed until tender and served with a little butter and salt with grilled steaks and sautéed mushrooms for our Sunday dinner.                                          

Harvest totals for the week of June 6th through June 12th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Broccoli 1.00 lbs
• Kale 1.00 lbs
• Lettuce 0.75 lbs
• Spinach 1.25 lbs

Total For Week 4.00 lbs

Total Year To Date 45.75 lbs                              

Eggs collected this week – 31                 

Video Of The Early Summer Garden

On Sunday morning I tackled weed whacking the walkways of the garden and knocking back the blackberries and other items encroaching on the edges of the garden.   It takes about 2 hours to do the entire garden including the preparation ahead of time to move things out of the way etc.   This garden tidy up needs to be done about every 6 weeks during the summer growing season to keep the walkways neat and remove hiding places for slugs and other pests.   It’s a bit of a job to do but well worth it in how nice it keeps the garden looking.   After I was done, I decided to make a short video to show where the garden is at this point in the early summer season.   I was working hard to keep the video at approximately 5 minutes in length and as a result I totally skipped the vertical grow beds; celery; tree kale; beets; carrots; artichokes; rhubarb; bush pie cherries; apples; lettuce patch; and raspberry patch.   However, I did manage to capture the main growing beds and the greenhouse.   So here it is – our modern victory garden in early summer.     

   

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener