A kitchen garden has a rhythm of its own, and this is the time of year when the garden needs to be picked daily. And the more you pick, the more the plants will produce. Here’s a week’s worth of midsummer harvests.
Sunday: (above) Zephyr summer squash, Sungold cherry tomatoes, Fairy Tale and Orient Express eggplant, National Pickle cucumbers, Costada Romanesco zucchini. We’ve been sauteing up the summer squash, having cucumber sandwiches, and the eggplant went into a mixed grill. Like peas, these early cherry tomatoes barely make it into the kitchen.
Monday: Bull’s Blood and Early Wonder beets. The greens were blanched and frozen for later, the beets roasted with herbs and turn up in salads or eaten on their own with a side of goat cheese.
Tuesday: Favas, Peacevine tomato, carrots, cucumbers, and summer squash. We also pulled one each of the German Extra hardy, Music and Phillips garlic to see how they’re developing, and will harvest soon.
Wednesday: Rainbow chard, Red Russian and Siberian kales, along with salad greens. The kale was shredded up for topping pizza, the chard tossed in a dish with crusty beans.
Thursday: Perfection fennel, summer squash and another cucumber. We picked up our first CSF share and made fish in parchment, with shaved fennel tossed with olives and basil as a base, and the summer squash sauteed for a side dish.
Friday: Favas, cherry tomatoes, and summer squash. It was cool enough to make paella with favas, and slicing tomatoes from the farmers market.
Saturday: Summer squash, cherry tomato, and cucumbers. We’ve been accumulating the cucumbers all week to make into a quick pickle. The summer squash, along with their blossoms, went into an herby frittata.
Sunday: Carrots, beets, uno zucchino, cucumber, and first of the season’s Masai and Dragon Langerie beans. A salad of arugula and roast beets with the beans simply steamed went with a dinner of grilled local beef.
If ever this is true, now is the time when every day is truly a banquet — enjoy!
Diary of a Tomato 
What beautiful assortments of colours and textures. Not sure what I’d do with all those zucchinis but otherwise I’d love to have all that bounty.
I’ve a collection of recipes that begin, “Take 2 pounds of zucchini…,” just for this time in the season!
You are a getting a steady harvest of lots of good eats. What variety are those young yellow summer squash? It is really attractive and I was curious what variety it is.
The yellow summer squash is called Zephyr. It’s a hybrid that’s incredibly productive and versatile for cooking — it’s fine-grained, nutty and sweet, and are meant to be picked at 4″ to 6″.
Beautiful harvest!
Thanks, you’re sweet!
wow what a great harvest! You are making me hungry! Your garlic and fennel are really beautiful; I’m going to try fennel soon; I haven’t got the timing right for it yet so thought I would try some late summer and early fall plantings.
I don’t think we’ve gotten the timing right for fennel either… we left it too long before planting the seedlings and half of them bolted. But then again, the other half didn’t. We’ve yet to figure out if they like to grow into cold or warm conditions…
Gorgeous and bountiful harvest, zephyr squash is so pretty, tasty too. Hope I get tomatoes and eggplant soon.
Norma, I’m surprised to hear you don’t have tomatoes and eggplant considering you’re further south than us!
Wow, something every day! Wonderful pickins’ this week :)
Yes, our philosophy is harvest while you can!
Your garden is doing great. That garlic really pops out in the picture. Looks great and healthy.
Potatoes we’re not so good at, but we’ve learned a few lessons from growing garlic these past few years!
You have such a wonderful assortment of vegetables! A banquet indeed, but lots of work for both the gardener and the cook, but that just makes everything taste better.
You’re right, it’s an enormous amount of work but we bring joy to both tasks and besides, once you tasted homegrown, it makes it impossible to turn back!
How beautiful! You have so much variety, it really must be a joy to cook it all!
It is truly a daily source of happiness… :)
What great looking pictures! Nice presentation. And I love the recipe ideas.
Thanks, Christina! It really all does get cooked or preserved, or goes to our local food pantry.
Oh, eggplant how wonderful! I don’t have any in my garden this year, but I can’t wait for the farmer’s market to have some!
Like tomatoes, our short season forces us to grow only the the smaller sized eggplant but we’re always happy to have the excuse to patronize our farmer friends for the larger varieties!
Everything is looking great!! I love the pictures! And you have a great variety coming from your garden right now!!
With the consistent heat we’ve been having, we can’t really take credit… but, thanks!
What a lovely harvest you are getting throughout the week.
Thanks, I really wanted to show that a kitchen garden differs from farming in that it engages one every day.
Just love the colour and arrangement of your bounty-and your garlic look so clean-unlike mine I have to say!!