The Modern Victory Garden

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 from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check it out and join in!        

Wednesday night was the first opportunity this week for me to get out and do some harvesting.   I picked the large patch of Royal Burgundy bush beans, the raspberry patch, and snagged a few cucumbers, zucchinis, peppers, and tomatoes.        

I held out a few of those green beans but the majority of them were blanched and then frozen.   The raspberries were just eaten fresh as snacks and on my morning bowl of cereal.   The tomatoes were also eaten fresh for snacks and as part of my lunches.   The cucumbers were sliced up into spears and placed in the big jar of refrigerator dills I have going in the fridge.   The green beans I held out were combined with the zucchini and the pepper to make a tasty stir-fry with strips of lean beef and some teriyaki sauce for our Wednesday night dinner.                        

It was another busy workweek so there was no more harvesting done until Saturday.   The haul on Saturday included the first ears of sweet corn for this year plus some celery, some tomatoes, a few carrots (which did not have any carrot fly damage!) and quite a few ripe red bell peppers.   I also picked about a half pound of Royal Burgundy bush beans.             

The tomatoes went on the counter to finish ripening up.   The celery and the pepper were both trimmed and chopped up and put in the freezer for future use.   The carrots were eaten for snacks and did not last very long.   The green beans and the corn were used for our Saturday night dinner.   The menu was slow cooked baby back ribs in a tangy sweet barbecue sauce, corn on the cob, and steamed green beans.   Both the corn and the beans were simply served with just a little butter and salt.                     

Sunday’s harvest included more cucumbers, some raspberries, a handful of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, some potatoes, more ears of sweet corn, and the first harvest of young spinach from the late summer plantings.          

The cucumbers were cut into spears and added to the jar of refrigerator dills.   The cherry tomatoes were eaten for snacks shortly after they were taken into the house.   The rest of the Sunday harvest was used to make the  evening meal.   The menu was individual spinach salads topped with fresh raspberries and home made candied slivered almonds with blue cheese dressing, grilled rib eye steaks, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Yum!     

The freezer is getting quite full now but I have yet to do any canning this season. Hopefully the cucumbers will start setting heavier amounts so I can do a batch of dill pickle relish soon.                

Harvest totals for the week of August 22nd through August 28th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Beans 3.25 lbs
• Berries (raspberries) 0.75 lbs
• Carrots 0.50 lbs
• Celery 2.50 lbs
• Corn 2.50 lbs
• Cucumbers 1.25 lbs
• Peppers 1.00 lbs
• Potatoes 1.00 lbs
• Spinach 0.25 lbs
• Tomatoes 0.75 lbs
• Zucchini 0.50 lbs

Total For Week 14.25 lbs

Total Year To Date 203.75 lbs                         

Eggs collected this week – 28                            

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener