Picking Beans, Eggplants, Beets, and More...
My large half-acre vegetable garden that I just designed and planted earlier this year is definitely a garden that keeps on giving.
We've been picking lots of wonderful and nutritious vegetables here at my Bedford, New York farm - string beans, edamame, Swiss chard, eggplants, peppers, beets, shallots, and more. While all the rain we've had has affected our tomato crop, others are thriving.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- There has been so much growth in this vegetable garden in the last few weeks. Many of you ask what I do with all these vegetables. I share most of them with my daughter, Alexis, and her children, Jude and Truman – they love all vegetables. I also serve them at my dinner parties and share them with my friends and staff here at Bedford. And, I use them for various media shoots whenever needed, or when we test recipes here at the farm. Nothing is ever wasted – whatever isn’t used goes to my beloved chickens, geese, and peafowl.
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- One can harvest any time of day, but when possible, the best picking time is early morning, when the sun is just clearing the eastern horizon and greens are still cool and dew-covered from the previous night.
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- On this day, Elvira picked many string beans or bush beans. Beans grow best in full sun and moist soil. Bush beans are second only to tomatoes as the most popular vegetables in home gardens. Bush beans are eaten when the seeds are small. They are also called string beans because of a fibrous string running the length of the pod. Purple beans are so pretty – violet-purple outside and bright green inside with great flavor.
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- These yellow beans are also pretty. Bush beans grow on shrubby plants and are very prolific producers. They can continually produce throughout the season with the proper care. In general, bush beans should be ready in 50 to 55 days.
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- And here are the more familiar green colored beans which are also ready for picking.
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- There are so many beans under the big leaves. Elvira moves the leaves aside and finds lots and lots of these delicious beans.
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- The blooms on bush beans are self-pollinating, meaning they do not need to be pollinated by insects in order for their seeds to grow.
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- Growing in another bed are the edamame beans – whole, immature soybeans, sometimes referred to as vegetable-type soybeans. They are green and differ in color from regular soybeans, which are typically light brown, tan, or beige.
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- And look at the Swiss chard. The leaves are perfect. Swiss chard is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. The leaf stalks are large and vary in color, usually white, yellow, or red. The leaf blade can be green or reddish in color. Harvest Swiss chard when the leaves are tender and big enough to eat.
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- Here is the yellow Swiss chard. Swiss chard is actually a beet but without a bulbous root. It’s referred to as a member of the “goosefoot” family due to the shape of its leaves. And always cut chard leaf by leaf, so the plant can continue to grow new leaves during the rest of the season.
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- Beets are sweet and tender – and one of the healthiest foods. Beets contain a unique source of phytonutrients called betalains, which provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support.
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- Although typically a reddish-purple hue, beets also come in varieties that are white or golden orange-yellow.
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- Our shallots are also so pretty. Shallots, Allium ascalonicum, are a member of the allium family, closely related to onions, garlic, and chives.
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- Ryan picked some gorgeous onions. Look how big they are.
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- And here’s just one of many potatoes still to be harvested. The potato is a starchy tuber of the perennial nightshade plant Solanum tuberosum. As the world’s fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice, potatoes are grown from “seed potatoes”, which are certified disease-free and specially grown in nurseries for planting purposes.
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- This is our best year for cucumbers. We have harvested buckets of cucumbers. Cucumbers require a long growing season, and most are ready for harvest in 50 to 70 days from planting. The fruits ripen at different times on the vine, but it is essential to pick them when they are ready. If they are left on the vine too long, they tend to taste bitter.
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- And look what else is growing – fresh bird’s beak peppers, also known as Pimenta Biquinhos. These little Brazilian peppers have a fantastic floral flavor and a medium heat. My daughter, Alexis, and I love them. I pickle jars of them every year.
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- Ryan also harvested several eggplants. Pick eggplants when they are young and tender. Try to pick a little early, which will encourage the plant to grow more, and will help to extend the growing season.
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- And do you know why it is called “eggplant?” In the 1700s, early European versions of eggplant were smaller and yellow or white. They looked like goose or chicken eggs, which led to the name “eggplant.” See Ryan’s fun video on his Instagram page @RyanMcCallister1.
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- Sweet bell peppers are popular in the garden – all grassy in flavor and super-crunchy in texture. I love making stuffed peppers – so easy and so delicious. After picking, just wipe them down and put in the fridge. One can wash them just before using.
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- We grow more than 100 tomato varieties every year. Most tomato plant varieties need between 50 and 90 days to mature, but this year, they seem to be taking longer because of all the wet weather we’ve had. Are your tomatoes still green?
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- Tomatoes are heat loving plants, so they need the hot weather to mature, but ours are getting there – some of our cherry tomatoes are red enough to pick.
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- Everything is loaded in trug buckets and brought up to my flower room, where they are washed if needed, then bagged and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use. How was your harvest this weekend?
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