In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen
Over the weekend we savored the first of the heirloom purple artichokes, ‘Violetta Chioggia,’ from Northern Italy We favor this later maturing artichoke over the traditional globe artichokes despite the wicked thorns (which I snip prior to cooking). We find these purple artichoke leaves tender and meaty with a delicate artichoke flavor.
The celery harvest happened a few weeks ago, but my homegrown keeps well in the fridge for several weeks. Rhubarb is coming along as I compare dessert recipes to try. Beets and carrots must make way for the corn. This week all but the smaller ones were harvested.
I take a child-like delight in harvesting carrots and often have a young neighbor assist. There are surprises, despite fingering the top of the carrot. After the fun of pulling the carrots I did a blogpost on Harvesting Carrots and learned that for storage, it is better to snap off the greens. I’m always learning new garden ways.
I grow beets very intensively in the loose soil of my two foot deep raised beds. The area allotted is 30 inches by 42 inches. Previously, I had harvested about five pounds and last week a hefty 15 pounds of beets and 10 pounds of greens awaited processing. I’d guess another five pounds remain in the ground.
I spent some time sorting and preparing for next uses. The greens in the lower right corner were “critter grade” and were delivered to a family with chickens, along with some beet greens for humans.
The pile on the left went to the compost pile. About half of the trash can lid went to a friend who dislikes beets but clamors for my beet greens, which she reports, store very well in her fridge.
With some of my reserved beet greens and a pile of ‘Black Magic’ kale I made my usual Galette of Winter Greens. From year to year the greens in my galettes vary and can include arugula, mustard greens, radicchio, spinach and chard. I use what needs to be used.
Six to eight cups of chopped winter greens, spring onions, a bit of Swiss cheese and cream and a pie crust turns into a fabulous meal. Link to a previous post, A Galette of Winter Greens for the recipe. Later this week I’ll try a beet galette.
I made some refrigerator Swedish pickled beets which we’re devouring. Leftover peperoncini brine does nice things for sliced carrots.
One night last week, I paused to look at dinner before starting to eat. There was the galette of winter greens, pickled beets, artichokes and sliced strawberries with blueberries. I felt very thankful.
A ‘Hot Cocoa’ rose with maidenhair fern.
You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.
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