garden | weekly harvest

yum!... We'll be feasting in style this week after today's harvest. The Tipoff Romanesco broccoli is simply stunning. This is the first year I am growing this variety, so I'm excited to give it a taste. I'd probably grow it again next year for sheer looks alone.

I harvested my first crop of beans. The Black Valentine bush were a plenty. They provided enough for several dinners and some freezing to boot. The Masai Haricot Verts provided a handful, but they've got a little ways to go. The Indy Golds are just starting to change to a greenish yellow.

Pulled up my first Borrenttana Cipollini of the summer. I think I will always grow cipollinis. No other onion roasts up as sweet, and they provide early onion picking for us northern folks.

The Teide Red Summer Crisp isn't quite as red as it should be, but I blame the lurching bean poles that have provided a bit too much shade to the lettuce below. But neighbors of the same variety are shouting from the garden with its purply-red leaves.

I harvested the largest green bell pepper of my gardening career. It was blocky and beautiful. The Carmen peppers are already beckoning to be picked. It'll be hard to keep any left on the plant so they can ripen to a rich red.

The basil that I seeded early last month and took what seemed to be forever and a half to germinate, finally took off and I'm now tossing in Genovese, Sweet Dani, Thai, and Amethyst Improved basil into everything.

I even found some straggler radishes. They weren't at their finest, but they weren't horrible either. I sowed my fall radishes the other week, so I'm excited to see how the Black Round Spanish radishes will grow.

To celebrate the harvest, I tossed together the tomatoes, peppers, onions, herbs, and garlic into a tasty salsa. A definite treat for the tastebuds. The only thing missing were the cucumbers.