Harvest Monday - May 20, 2013

Red mustard, spinach, lettuce, yellow chives, chive flower buds (use as garlic scapes).

I also harvested green chives and goji greens.

Temperature is shooting up to the 80s in our neck of the woods, most of the leafy greens are showing signs of bolting, I harvested some of them next to the mioga ginger bed and I might have few days left before having to pull all the lettuces. 

The yellow chives are exactly 1 week to the day I blanched them, they didn't have curly leaves this time because I didn't want to let them grow to the top of the pot and get cooked.  This is the last batch of  blanched chives for this year.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, go check out what others have harvested from around the globe.

  

Growing Yellow Chives 韭黃

If you don't like regular chives you might enjoy the sweet mild flavor of yellow chives.

Green chives are blanched in darken condition to produce delicate texture and flavor yellow chives.

I started with harvesting from a small patch of chives, give it a good haircut to about ground level.

Cover the cut patch with a pot to exclude light and prevent photosynthesis,
  the new leaves grow in darken condition without producing chlorophyll remains pale and tender.

Remove the dark cover approximately 1 week later, the delicate yellow chives are ready for harvest.

I usually do this in spring while daytime temperature is on the cool side to prevent the vegetable from being "cooked" in scorching heat.  This is my second year of blanching chives, I found covering the cut patch with a tall pot or a black tunnel is doable for small homegrown production.

Yellow chive is mild, tender, and sweet, it can be used in salads, stir fry, and soups.  It combines well with egg dishes such as quiche, frittata, etc.  

  

Harvest Monday - May 13, 2013

Yellow chives, chrysanthemum greens, and sugar snap peas are new for this week.

I continue to harvest kale, green chives, goji, and mix lettuce.

  Forgotten onions and jicama sprouted, I planted the onions but threw away the jicama.

Did some reading on growing jicama, it grows like potato, requires 150 warm days to mature,
the plant requires lots of water and growing space, plus the leaves are poisonous,
that's enough to convince me not to grow it.

Here's What I'm Growing Now

 Goji

Snap Peas

Kale, currant in the background.

Mix Lettuce

Mioga Ginger returns for a 3rd year.

Garlic Chives, I'm blanching another clump for next week's harvest.

Peonies:  Copper Kettle (darker color petals) on the right,
and Garden Treasure on the left (lighter yellow petals).

 Sarah Bernhardt Peony, this one is grown in ground.

Go visit Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see what other gardeners are harvesting around the globe.

Hand Processed Green Tea 手工綠茶

I spotted this hand firing of green tea leaves while touring Yuyuan Bazaar (豫園) in an older section of Shanghai City.  If someday I can grow camellia sinensis (茶花) in our garden I would love to process my own green tea.

Fresh picked tea leaves are spread out in a basket to reduce moisture until the leaves are withered.

Firing withered tea leaves in a wok further reduces moisture and to stop the oxidation process.

Green tea leaves in different stages of drying, the leaves can be packaged for storage
when the moisture is reduced to 2%.

Harvest Monday - May 6, 2013

Mix lettuce greens and kale.

Goji and garlic chives, this is 1/2 of the harvest, I shared the other half with friends.

Goji green, I use the leaves for soup, stir fry, omelette, or quiche.

There's not much going on in my garden except the perennial veggies and lettuces and some snap peas.  Tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings are not quite ready for transplant to their permanent homes maybe in about 2 weeks or so.  We had a freezing night few days ago, I'm holding off in sowing beans, cucumber, and squash until next week, the weather has been acting strangely this year. 

Drop by Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see more harvests from around the globe.

 

Ancient Watertown Tongli 同里古鎮

I'm home from my trip to China, it was an enjoyable trip, here are some photos from places I visited.
 
Tongli is one of the many ancient watertowns in Yangze River Delta of Jiangsu Province in Southern China. The town was established over a thousand years ago, it has seven islets separated by 15 rivers connected by 49 ancient bridges, people still live and work along the canals today.

 

 

Main Street

 

 Resident Exit Gate

Village Entrance

Gondola Ride

 

 Growing leeks and green onions.

Greens, leeks, green onions in containers.

Tomatoes and peppers?

Restaurants on both sides of the canal.

Fishing Birds

Yes, Italian coffee, ice cream, and desserts here.

Photo Shoot

Pedicab

 

Harvest Monday - April 8, 2013

Mugwort (Asiatic wormwood 艾草) is an herb commonly used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean rice cakes. The young tender leaves are ground (fresh or dry) and mix with rice flour to make pastries,

older leaves are used for pest repellent, soap making, and herbal cosmetics. The herb is also used for medicinal purposes which I'm not qualify to discuss.

To read more about this herb click here for a short intro about mugwort.

I posted the herb as mugwort back in 2009, thanks to The Novice Gardener's commend about the difference between wormwood and mugwort.  

The garlic chives passed kitty inspection,  sending them to friends, I don't have time to cook now.


Drop by Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see more harvests from around the globe.

Fifth Grader Friendship

Seeds from Australia

We were friends in 5th grade, we are still friends fifty plus years later, we are not buddy buddy type of friends, but we are friends. We don't communicate much with each other often and we live in opposite side of the globe.  For some mysterious reasons, coincidence or ESP, whenever I thought about writing or calling her, she was thinking about the same, either one of us would call or send a message at approximately the same time, kinda spooky.

She came to visit me in the states couple times, and I visited her in Hong Kong. Whenever we have a chance to get together we giggle and talk through the night as if we were still in 5th grade, nothing has changed!

My friend was vacationing in Australia recently and she sent me these seeds, she is not a gardener and she doesn't drive, but she went through the trouble of searching for seeds to send me.  We haven't talked to each other in over a year and I'm touched that she even thought about me on her travels!
Thank you O, you're the best.

Harvest Monday - April 1, 2013

First bowl of mini salad greens.

I transplanted the larger size mix greens to their permanent home today, these are too small to bother with but it's good enough to toss with other ingredients for a salad later.

Drop by Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see more harvests from around the globe. 

Simple Stir-Fry Bean Sprouts and Chives

Stir-fry bean sprouts, garlic chives, and fried tofu.

 This is a tasty dish, only light seasoning of salt and oil is needed,

the vegetables can be used as fillings for spring rolls or wraps.