This has been a great month for garden produce for us. I haven't bought any fresh fruits or vegetables all month long. In fact, the only fruits and veggies I've bought this month were a little bit of dried fruit (for fruit and nut bars) and some canned and frozen veggies for fall and winter use.
But for our consumption in August, our garden and orchard (plus a few free bananas here and there) has provided all that we needed.
So, for the month of August, our garden provided:
- 2 heads of cabbage
- lots and lots of lettuce
- uncountable numbers of tomatoes
- over 50 pears
- about 30 quarts of blackberries (about half are frozen still)
- some summer squash and zucchini
- some Swiss chard
- some kale
- a few baby carrots
- lots of green, waxed and Romano beans
- many cucumbers, eaten as salads (I still need to make some pickles)
- just a couple of beets
- 2 meals of baby potatoes
- a second harvest of watercress (early spring is when the main harvest of watercress is ready)
- lots of herbs -- sage, oregano, thyme, basil and rosemary
- a few handfuls of blueberries at the beginning of the month
- about 10 red apples
- lots of rhubarb
- about 200 shallots
Our most prolific veggie has been tomatoes -- we've eaten fresh tomatoes just about every day of August, followed by pears and blackberries (3 or 4 times per week, each).
I prefer to use the cabbage, fresh, in slaws, with our garden cabbage. It's very tender and delicious. I'll use market cabbage in fall in cooked dishes. In fact, while we have fresh produce from the garden, I prefer to use most of it, raw, in salads, as is, or lightly steamed. Fresh produce has enzymes, which are mostly destroyed by cooking. These enzymes help with digestion, in breaking down what's eaten. Plus, there's the vitamin C content in fresh, uncooked produce. This time of year, I don't buy traditional vitamin C foods, like oranges. But uncooked blackberries, tomatoes, cabbage and watercress are all good sources of vitamin C.
The peppers, eggplant and pumpkins/squash have still not produced anything pickable. One more month, so we'll see if I can get much of those veggies out of our garden.
I am making my plans for next spring's garden. Do you have any suggestions for other veggies I could plant, that have done especially well for you?
The peppers, eggplant and pumpkins/squash have still not produced anything pickable. One more month, so we'll see if I can get much of those veggies out of our garden.
I am making my plans for next spring's garden. Do you have any suggestions for other veggies I could plant, that have done especially well for you?
