The Vegetable Garden and the Season's First Harvest
We're harvesting some of our first vegetables of the season here at my farm.
My vegetable garden is looking excellent and producing such wonderful and nutritious foods. My head gardener, Ryan McCallister, harvested a bounty of beautiful vegetables early yesterday morning before the heavy rains arrived. He picked broccoli, artichokes, lettuce, turnips, radishes, beets, Chinese cabbage, parsley and spinach. All of them looked so gorgeous, I took my camera out right away and photographed everything in my kitchen. I am so happy to have an abundance of fresh produce to share with my family and friends this weekend.
Enjoy these photos and the update on my vegetable garden.
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- My vegetable garden is thriving down by the chicken coops. All the plants are looking so great. I am certain it will be a productive season.
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- Our crops are already looking strong and vibrant. Many vegetables are ready to harvest.
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- In the vegetable gardens, I like to use salt hay in the footpaths to enhance the look of the garden and to enrich the soil.
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- Ryan is picking the first vegetables of the season. Lettuce, Lactuca sativa, is a cultivated plant of the daisy family, Asteraceae. Lettuce is a fairly hardy, cool-weather vegetable that thrives when the average daily temperature is between 60 and 70-degrees Fahrenheit. Look how beautiful these lettuces are.
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- I love all the different colored lettuces. We always grow several varieties. My daughter and grandchildren will have many delicious salads this season.
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- Everyone always asks what I do with all the vegetables I grow. I share them with my family, but I also love sharing the bounty with friends, colleagues, and my hardworking crew here at the farm. I provide fruits, vegetables and eggs for magazine and video shoots. And, of course, all my birds get vegetables too.
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- Look at our tomatoes! These tomato plants are all very strong. We’re growing both hybrid and heirloom varieties.
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- I like to use bamboo canes for my tomato crops. They’re easy to buy in bulk, and can be found in a variety of sizes. They should be seven to eight foot tall stakes that are at least an inch in diameter.
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- Each of these tomato plants has three uprights creating the teepee-like support. Wilmer embeds each stake about three to four inches deep, and angles them slightly toward the middle of the plant.
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- The plant is also secured with stake in the middle, and then growing vines are tied gently to the closest stake. The loop around the plant stem should be twisted, so it doesn’t hurt it, and just tight enough to keep the vine secure, but not break it.
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- Wilmer uses jute twine to secure the vines – we use so much twine around the farm. Tomato plants grow fast, so Wilmer keeps a close eye to make sure each plant is well supported.
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- Staking is the best way to ensure the plants get the support they need for the many vegetables they will produce this season. Look at these beautiful young tomatoes. There are already so many growing.
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- Every year, we grow about 100-tomato plants, with about 20-different varieties. Most tomatoes are red, but other colors are possible, including green, yellow, orange, pink, black, brown, white and purple.
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- I use a lot of different seeds every year. I purchase many from seed companies such as Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but I also collect seeds during my travels, and from other gardeners and friends.
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- Just a few more weeks… I will be eating fresh tomatoes and making lots of sauce very soon.
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- Wilmer also cleans up any weeds that may have grown around the base of the plants to keep everything looking as tidy as can be.
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- Look at our crop of broccoli – it’s growing so fast, and so wonderfully this season.
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- Broccoli is a hardy vegetable of the cabbage family that is high in vitamins A and D.
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- The bold red of our radishes is already peeking through the soil – so amazing.
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- Kale or leaf cabbage is a group of vegetable cultivars within the plant species Brassica oleracea. They have purple or green leaves, in which the central leaves do not form a head.
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- The cabbages will be ready very soon. They are also developing so beautifully.
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- Red, or purple, cabbage is often used raw for salads and coleslaw. It contains 10-times more vitamin-A and twice as much iron as green cabbage. I can’t wait to harvest some of these cabbage heads.
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- The leaves of the Savoy cabbage are more ruffled and a bit more yellowish in color – so pretty.
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- Green cabbage is what is most familiar – the wide fan-like leaves are pale green with a slightly rubbery texture when raw. To get the best health benefits from cabbage, it’s good to include all three varieties into the diet – Savoy, purple, and green.
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- The onions look wonderful too. We planted a lot of white, yellow and red onions. Onions are harvested later in the summer when the underground bulbs are mature and flavorful. I always look forward to the onion harvest!
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- Ryan harvested many globe artichokes, Cynara scolymus – popular in both Europe and the United States. Artichokes are actually flower buds, which are eaten when they are tender.
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- When harvesting, use sharp pruners and carefully cut them from the plant leaving an inch or two of stem. Artichokes have very good keeping qualities and can remain fresh for at least a week.
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- Look at our bounty of artichokes – and there are many more still growing! These were all picked yesterday during an early morning harvest.
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- We also harvested turnips – such gorgeous pure white turnips. Turnips are round, tuborous roots grown as one of the cool-season vegetables. Botanically, they belong to Brassicaceae family, along with the cabbage.
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- And look at these beautiful radishes. The radish is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family. Radishes are grown and consumed throughout the world, and mostly eaten raw as a crunchy salad vegetable. I already tasted them, and they are so delicious.
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- Beets – the beetroot is the taproot of the beet plant, and is often called the table beet, garden beet, red or golden beet or simply… beet – these are so colorful and fresh.
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- We also picked tender, leafy spinach for my morning green juice. Look how big the leaves are!
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- Here is just one of the several lettuces we harvested yesterday. Lettuces can generally be placed in one of four categories: looseleaf, butterhead, crisphead, and romaine.
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- Here is another impressive head of fresh lettuce.
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- We harvested a lot of broccoli. I set aside a large bag of broccoli for my grandchildren, Jude and Truman – they love broccoli – and it is one of the healthiest vegetables.
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- Here is a large Chinese cabbage – it is so pretty. Chinese cabbage is among the highest nutritionally ranked vegetables too, and provides many nutrients including omega-3s, and the antioxidant mineral zinc.
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- And we harvested a generous bunch of parsley. This will find its way into my morning green juice also.
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- To store all these greens, I wrap them in a small bar towel.
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- Not tight, just lightly to keep in the moisture.
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- Then, I place each bunch in a large plastic bag, and put it in the refrigerator.
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- We have also used paper towels to wrap the vegetables; however, paper towels can be very expensive. Since these paper towels were wrapped around freshly washed vegetables, we removed them and just let them air dry – they can all be used again. I draped them over the side of my stove and they were dry in just a few minutes. A little frugality can go a long way.
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- We had a bounty of magnificent vegetables in this first harvest. I am so excited about this year’s growing season. How was your first harvest? I would love to know – share your comments in the section below.
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