Harvest Monday - April 30, 3012

Bok choy, lettuce, green garlic, and first strawberry.

Shanghai bok choy and one asparagus.

 I have to pull all the bolting spring planted mustard greens and red choysum.
I'm still working on how to grow these two veggies,
they always bolt on me no matter when I plant them,
any suggestion when and how to plant?

 White garlic chives.

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

Swallowtail Butterfly and Peonies

Copper Kettle Peony

Sarah Bernhardt Peony

Harvest Monday - April 23, 2012

White garlic chives (韭黃), if you don't like strong spicy garlic taste, this chive is for you. 

Very tender, mild, and sweet, good addition to any salad, stir fry, dumpling, and soup.

White and Green Garlic Chives

This is the first time I attempt to blanch chives, the pot I used for the experiment

was too short for the leaves to grow straight causing them to grow curly and wrinkle,
(Note to self:  use a taller pot next time.)

White chives after haircut.

After cutting off all the chives, select another clump to blanch.

Use a tall pot to cover the chives so no light could get through, 

do not peek, when the green chives next to the pot are tall enough to harvest

lift the pot to harvest the blanched chives, that's it, super easy!

You can use the same technique to blanch regular chives.
Blanching can be done in early spring when temperature is cool,
otherwise you'll cook the vegetable.

 Easy Shrimp and Chives Stir Fry.

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

Harvest Monday - April 16, 2012

Goji and overwintered baby beets.

Final harvest of overwintered greens -- Swiss Chard.

This is the last harvest of overwintered vegetables in the garden, I pulled all of them to make room for spring planting.  The weather is quite unstable in our neck of the woods at spring time, I am holding off transplanting warm weather crops for another two weeks, and I'm just beginning to start basil and cucumber seeds.  What are you growing this year, have you started your spring transplants?

Go visit Daphne's Dandelions host of Harvest Monday to see more garden harvest from around the globe.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard - Kumquat Jam

I made strawberry and kumquat jams last weekend, there are many strawberry jam recipes on the net but very few kumquat recipes, I thought I'll share my reduced-sugar kumquat preserve with fellow bloggers. This jam is not too sweet, feel free to add more sugar to the recipe to suit your taste.

Ingredients (yield 6-7 cups)
2 lbs   kumquat
1/2 cup   lemon juice
1 1/2 cups   water
3 cups   sugar
1 pkg liquid pectin

 Strawberry and Kumquat Jams

Cut fruits into half and remove seeds.

Process in food processor until finely minced.

 Combine kumquat, lemon juice, and water -- cook to rolling boil, keep stirring and skim off foam.
To keep the bright orange yellow color avoid overcook, or else the jam turns to a brownish color.

Add sugar and bring the mixture to rolling boil again, continue to stir and skim off foam.

Add liquid pectin, mix thoroughly, return to rolling boil and cook for 1 minute, remove from heat.

Pack jam into clean canning jars and process in boiling water-bath for 10 minutes.

(Add an extra 5-10 minutes for high altitude.)

Drop by The Gardener of Eden host of Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard to see more cooking and preserving recipes from around the globe.

Harvest Monday - April 9, 2012

Kale, lettuce and first asparagus spear.

Seedlings ready to be transplanted - tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, celtuce, 

mustard greens, chard, beets, and chrysanthemum greens.

 If weather cooperates these ginger roots are ready to go.

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

Wordless - Japanese Pygmy Maple Leaves

Harvest Monday - April 2, 2012

 

First cutting of garlic chives (4.30 lbs)

Spring garlic chive is very mild and sweet tasting, most of the harvest will be made into pesto (similar to garlic scape pesto), some will go into stir fry, dumplings, stuffed breads, and savory pancakes.

 Garlic chives before haircut.

Sugar snap peas in half barrel, last year I direct sowed and lost all pea seedlings to birds.
This time I started seeds indoor and grow the seedlings to 2-3 inches tall before transplanting
them to its permanent location, the birds leave them alone, yay!

Broccoli rabe, red choysum, dwarf bok choy, red leaf lettuce.

These babies can use some N.

Red baby beets 

These are spring plant Shandong garlic, I didn't get around to plant them last fall,

maybe I'll luck out and get some bulbs, maybe not.

First success in winter sown sweet pea flowers, I've been trying for years to start the seeds but no luck, last winter I finally try the popular "winter sown" method, threw some seeds into a pot covered with soil and wait, voila!  It worked.   

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