Broccoli Still!

Mid October and still getting significant broccoli harvest!

Harvesting Continues

I just harvested my stevia plants and hung them up to dry this past weekend. And even into October I've continued to reap green peppers (just from 1 single plant), tomatoes, carrots, and the broccoli has kept on keeping on. One of my green peppers had a little tiny hole in it and I thought someone had moved in. I didn't find any critters inside, though, just clean fresh seeds and fruit.

Broccoli oh Broccoli

I just want to make a note that this year's broccoli crop continues to produce significant usable florets. They've produced vegetables consistently from the beginning of June through the end of September, giving me at least 4 full months of production. What a great crop!

Harvesting, Cooking, Freezing

I've done a lot of the following 3 things lately:

1. harvesting green peppers, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, basil, and oregano
2. preparing them in various meals
3. storing and freezing them in mason jars

I made a big batch of plain (no meat) tomato sauce with about 10 tomatoes, and I have at least another dozen or two tomatoes ready to go. It made over 4 pints of sauce, most of which I froze in mason jars.

4 frozen pints of tomato sauce

The other day on a whim I thought I would try to throw together a pizza on a tortilla because I had the fresh sauce I had just made plus fresh basil and green peppers and a chunk of mozzarella in the fridge. So I made 1 pizza with the sauce,  cheese, and green peppers and the other with sliced tomatoes and basil instead of sauce. I think they would have turned out a lot better on a pizza crust, but the thin wheat tortilla worked adequately :-) I froze two of those as well.

I've had frozen pierogies from the Italian store for a couple of weeks and I finally got around to makeingthem into mason jar meals to freeze. I used carrots, broccoli, green peppers and herbs from the garden. I boiled the sliced carrots in broth and fresh dill and steamed the broccoli over top of it. I sliced and stir fried a couple green peppers with onions and then added the pierogies after I boiled them. I also heated up two cans of blacks beans with a couple of chopped tomatoes from the garden with butter and Old Bay seasoning. I layered them in 32 oz. mason jars as follows: veggies on the bottom; then the beans, which filled half the jar; 4 pierogies each with the peppers and onions; and a small pat of butter on top to keep it moist when reheated. It made 6 jars, which I let cool and then put in the freezer.

pierogi, beans, and veggies mason jar meals

I've also made dozens of salads in the mason jars. You layer them appropriately, with the dressing on the bottom, then heartier veggies, lighter veggies, cheese, other stuff, and greens on top. I made my own balsamic vinaigrette (1 part olive olive, 3 parts balsamic vinegar, plus brown sugar and garlic) and used as many veggies from the garden as possible. The mason jars have amazing preservation powers! The salads can stay in the fridge for a week without the green wilting. Some of the veggies soak in the dressing and the flavor really pops.

mason jar salads stay fresh for at least a week

I thought all the cilantro going around this time of year might taste good in hummus so I've experimented a few times with that: chick peas, olive oil, lots of cilantro, garlic, lime juice & sea salt.

cilantro hummus

Another Typical Day

that looks like a meal right there

As we plow through these, the dogs days of Summer, and start to feel Autumnal clues in the air, the Bloomfield backyard urban garden aka yarden still keeps putting out hits! Like the Summer of Love, 1969, you can feel the love produced by my two little herb and veggie plots all Summer long. Broccoli continues to flourish. Tomatoes have begun to ripen. The basil, oregano, dill, and, of course, mint only get bushier as time goes on. Now, some fat little yellow worm ate through the stem of my zucchini plant, so that motherfucker died. The plant I mean, not the worm. Fat little worm gorged him or herself long before I figured out what happened. Oh well. The carrots turned out great, and the green pepper plant continues to put off nice little tennis ball sized fruits. Yarden 2014 for the win.

fat little worm destroyed my zucchini plant

Simple Broccoli Bacon Quiche

What does one do with 9 backyard broccoli plants putting out some serious florets? How about a quiche!?! You'll need a bunch of broccoli, a half dozen eggs or so, 1-2 cups of shredded cheese, milk, butter, chopped onions and garlic, salt and pepper, a pie crust, and I highly recommend bacon!

Have the pie crust ready in a pie pan. Chop up the bacon (maybe remove some of the fat in the process) and start cooking it in a pan over low-medium heat. After a moment, add a tablespoon or 2 of butter to the pan, and then the chopped broccoli, onions, and garlic. Cook slowly until the veggies get soft. Scoop/pour into the pie pan and sprinkle some cheese on top. 

Mix 4-6 eggs and about a half to whole cup of milk. Add your salt and pepper, the rest of the shredded cheese, and some more butter (melted) to the egg mixture. Pour this over the veggies in the pie crust and bake at about 350 until the middle sets, about 25-30 minutes.

Open for Business

I just divvied up this week's harvest into manageable packages to distribute among friends. Nice...

Everyday I'm Harvestin'

With my Bloomfield urban yarden fully popping off as we roll through these lazy, hazy days of Summer, and Weird Al Yankovic releasing 8 new videos, I really wish the master of parody had turned Rick Ross's 'Everyday I'm Hustlin'" into 'Everyday I'm Harvestin'" so I could use it as my theme song this Summer...

Anyway, I have harvested three of these massive zucchinis already, and I can see at least 2 more fully developed on the plant. The zucchini plant went into the ground last and it has already produced a massive amount of fruit. Absolutely tremendous yield. I've sliced-and-grilled it, chopped-and-baked it, and cooked it in tomato sauce ... so far. What else lies in store for this classic Italian summer squash, a casserole perhaps, or maybe a loaf of bread? I went ahead and pulled out a carrot or two as well, although they will certainly grow larger over time.

My green pepper plant has produced two solid peppers so far. I'd call them larger than a baseball but smaller than a softball -- about the size of a standard coffee mug or a decent sized apple. Yesterday I chopped one up and tossed it in a salad. Now that I've picked it (and will soon pick the other one) the growing power will shift to the smaller peppers already starting to blossom at the top of the plant. This plant appears to have a great yield in store!

Oh, and lest we forgot the broccoli! I planted both seedlings and seeds this year, to spread out the yield, and it worked out well. I've harvested the seedlings several times already, and now the ones planted from seed have produced their first heads. This broccoli has gone on the grill, in the steamer, in tomato sauce, pasta dishes, and even a quiche (which turned out really well). Super high yield again on the broccoli this year. It has become my most tradeable item.

Broc and Zook from the yarden for tomato sauce

Now on to the herbs. I love saying herbs with a voiced H. I got a bit lazy with the cilantro and it all flowered. I think that means no more cilantro this season. I did just cut all the tops off so maybe it will restart the growing process? Thank god I put the mint into a pot, else it would take over the world. The oregano grows steady and wide so I can clips sprigs any time I need it fresh. Very high yield there. I usually tie up a bunch to include in my veggie giveaways since I have so much. 

I don't know exactly how to handle the stevia. I planted to seedlings from Home Depot early in the season and they have done quite well. Each one had a few stems growing so I have about 5 or 6 tall stems producing broad leaves. I clipped about 6-8 inches off the top a few weeks ago and let the leaves dry out. I'll probably do the same thing again this week, and then continue clipping the tops every few weeks. I don't really know. I plan on grinding the dried leaves into powder, which I can use as a sugar replacer. I highly recommend mojitos with mint and stevia from the garden!

top of stevia plants flourishing

cut the tops off the plants

what a lovely herb

dried and ready to grind into powder

Aloo Broccoli

Check out what my friend made by substituting my home grown broccoli for cauliflower in this recipe. Yih!

JoeSoGarden 2014 Bloomfield Edition, Part 3

I used faux bamboo and potted flowers
to cover the dilapidated fence.

Everything has begun to flourish in JoeSoGarden 2014. I've already started to harvest mint, oregano, and cilantro, and I harvested my first head of broccoli before June 1st. Before June! So let me list a complete inventory here and post some pictures of the yarden in bloom. 

• 5 broccoli plants in the planter box
• 3 in the triangle plot
• plus a row of broccoli seeds
• a row of carrot seeds
• a row of cilantro seeds
• a basil plant
• 2 stevia plants
• a green pepper plant
• a zucchini plant
• tomatoes from seed
• a random seed, maybe a bean of some sort
• potted mint
• oregano

Early season broccoli success! 

The triangle plot looks great with the red and brown mulch, flowers blooming, and broccoli, zucchini, and oregano spaced throughout.  

Everything else, especially the carrots and cilantro (both started quite early and from seed) has done well so far. I need to get some little army guys or something to live in the carrot forest. 

    I put grass seed in half a dozen spots around the yard and it came in well. As did this mystery seed, probably from next door, that started growing in the box.