It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The winter planting of lettuce is done for now, and I harvested the last leaves of the Starfighter green leaf variety last week. The spring plantings are ready to cut now, so we should be able to enjoy fresh lettuce for another month or so. I also set out a few plants outside in the bed where the kohlrabi is planted that should be ready in a few weeks.
Starfighter lettuce
And we have certainly been enjoying the homegrown lettuce! It’s been featured in many salads and sandwiches, and I got photos of a couple of them last week. I freeze our leftover homemade bread, and it makes tasty croutons for our salads. We also enjoyed tuna-cado sandwiches last week with lettuce under the tuna/avocado mixture..
salad for lunch
Tunacado sandwich with lettuce
I still have salad greens to go with our salads too. The purple leaf pac choi and Miz America mizuna are especially colorful, and the younger leaves are mild tasting enough to use fresh in salads.
mizuna and pac choi
The asparagus beds are slowing down, but we are still getting a few spears most every day. We have cut 11 pounds so far, and will likely continue harvesting for another week or so. I made Asparagus Mimosa yesterday for lunch, and I am hoping to share that recipe here soon.
Asparagus Mimosa
In the future harvests department, the curly kale plants I set out a few weeks ago have really taken off in the protected environment on the south side of our greenhouse. I planted Starbor and Winterbor, and the leaves are big enough now to begin cutting on them as needed. I interplanted these with onion plants, and they are doing well too.
curly kale plants
And in the far-in-the-future harvest department, pawpaws are setting on the trees in our little mini-orchard. Pawpaws are not self-fertile and must be cross pollinated to set fruit, and I have been helping out the last couple of years by hand pollinating. Insects should be able to do the job when the trees get bigger and have more blossoms. The fruits grow in a cluster, and while some of these will likely drop off it’s still a good sign that pollination did occur. We’ve been getting a few ripe fruits every year, though the raccoons and opossums like them too and often beat us to the ripe ones.
young pawpaw fruits
Pawpaws are the largest edible fruit trees native to North America, and often grow in thickets in the forest understory. The fruits look a bit like a mango and taste more like a banana, though that description doesn’t really do them justice. They generally have big seeds inside, and I’ll share a photo of a ripe one from a few years back. Here’s hoping I get a few like that later this year!
inside of Shenandoah pawpaw
In other news, I potted up the container peppers last week. I have these between the beds behind the greenhouse. I call the area Fort Pepper since I have it protected with netting to keep the deer and other critters from eating the plants. I will overwinter some of these indoors this winter, and others are new varieties I am trialing. I am growing Pot-a-Peno jalapeno for the 4th year now, and this 2021 AAS Winner was bred for growing in containers. I can always count on it to give me the first jalapeno peppers of the year here.
container peppers (aka Fort Pepper)
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please check out what everyone is harvesting!
