August 2
Plant ID pictures:
Magenta Spreen. The magenta color is a dust that the plant grows itself -- I haven't found out how it does that, and couldn't figure out how to wash the leaves without washing off the magenta, so it's in the little rinse-before-eating bag.
Amaranth, variety Chicago Calalloo. Green on the topside of the leaves, pink underneath. Lovely in the field when the leaves toss in the wind.
Sorrel. Lemony-tart, more a flavor herb than a side dish. Very brittle so I packed it next-to-last.
This week's harvest:
NEW: Lettuce is back! First cut of the post-heat planting.
Magenta Spreen, another hot-weather-specific greens crop. Treat it like spinach. You can see why this variety is called Magenta -- the bright color helps me not weed it when I'm weeding its wild relatives, which are edible but much tougher.
Amaranth, also a hot-weather green, also bicolored!. Also, treat like spinach.
Okra; first harvest. This heirloom variety is called White Velvet and you can feel why!
Cucumbers: a few of the vines have their first cukes. I'm distributing them randomly. Soon there should be enough for everyone every harvest.
Sorrel: A lemony, tangy green, more a flavor/herb than a vegetable.
Kitchen posy, or edible bouquet: as a rule the petals are the good part, the centers are lumpy and tough. Coriander/cilantro, calendula, bachelor's button, and marigold are all starting to bloom, everyone will get at least two of those.
ONGOING: Tomatoes -- the larger ones are beginning to ripen.
Green onions; these are a variety valued for growing big without getting spherical, so you can treat them as onions or scallions.
Carrots; these are Danvers 126.
Beets, small. Beet greens are the same as small chard, cooking-wise.
Rond de Nice summer squash.
The edible bouquets; everything that travels better if the cut end is standing in water.
The white lacy stuff is blooming cilantro. The flowers are edible. The bright green seeds on it are unripe coriander. I think they're delicious.
The other flowers are a blue cornflower and either an orange marigold, or a pair of calendula. Edible petals, all.
Also in the bunch: leaf celery; basil; cilantro leaf (short stubby cut).
Storage notes:
Washed and unwashed: Some crops don't wash well or don't store well when wet, and those will be delivered OUTSIDE the big plastic bag, possibly in a small plastic bag. Big sturdy things like summer squash will just be loose. Rinse before eating.
Basil and cilantro and flowers keep best with their stems in water, like little bouquets, I find. Basil outside the fridge, cilantro in the coolest part of my house or the warmest part of my fridge.
Everything INSIDE the big plastic bag has been washed in at least three changes of water and drip dried.
In general: root veg, including carrots, should have their greens taken off, after which the roots like cool dark storage. The greens on our root veg are all edible. Greens like cool humid storage.
Recipe suggestions:
Discussion of the spreen (summary: treat like spinach. If you read Spanish, there are a lot of recipes for this as a type of quelites.)
Amaranth dal -- Vegan, plus suggestions for dishes to go with.
Sorrel roundup from the Kitchn
Green borscht with sorrel and potatoes
Okra croutons. I don't even bread them, personally; slice thin crosswise to see the star-shape, fry well on one side to get the flavor but leave the bright green of the other side for decoration.
Getting ripe for next week:
Mostly I'm hoping for all the summer crops to get up to speed, tomatoes and cucumbers and okra and maybe sweet corn. There is one more novel hot-weather green that's coming on, a bean plant grown for its leaves, which is so unfamiliar to me that I don't know when it will be harvestable. I have lots of lettuces in the ground with double drip tapes, that might keep them from bolting.
We have pepper plants with blooms and even tiny immature peppers on them, but they're still a ways off. Fingers crossed.