Harvest Monday; Finally Substantial

I'm so proud to finally have what feels like a substantial harvest come from my garden. Here are the highlights of our homegrown goodies from last week.

These shallot shoots were technically harvested on the 16th, but I didn't use them until the end of last week, so I'm counting them in my harvest now. These shoots went into a vegetable quiche which you can read more about on my cooking blog.

I was kicking a ball in the yard with the Little One (LO), and on a whim I pulled one of the few remaining oranges off the tree, peeled, and ate a slice. Wouldn't you know it?!?! They were sweet! I mean, they weren't bitter at all, and they weren't all dried up inside like they were this time last year (maybe all the rain helped in that regard). Anyway, I'm proud to say we had mouth-wateringly sweet oranges with several meals last week, and I'm sure we'll be having them throughout this week too. Yay!

On Wednesday, I trimmed my three Cameo Basil plants for the first time. Besides smelling the leaves until I felt intoxicated, LOL, I threw the leaves in a spaghetti sauce. Nom!

I also harvested the rest of my Green Arrow peas throughout last week. Not the best picture I took, but look at those little fingers trying to sneak more peas while I was taking pictures! LOL. The LO couldn't get enough of them, and kept asking for more, like he does with cheese (He's a little cheese freak. His favorites are Feta and blue cheese. Weird for a 2yo, right?).

We had some pretty high winds on Wednesday night/Thursday morning which blew many of my pea plants off their trellis. This worked to my advantage by revealing another batch of peas, about the same size as shown above. Today I removed the pea plants and the remaining mature pods. The grand total for this week's pea harvest was... You ready? 8.2 ounces. HAHA... Well, it's enough for us all to have as a side...

And for my grand finale, my Short & Sweet carrots from the salad table. I pulled these yesterday.

Below, the carrots on the left side were the few mature carrots that grew in front of the peas...

Without the tops, the carrots weighed in at just under 11 ounces. Woohoo!  I'll make these into Honey Glazed Carrots.

I probably won't grow peas again simply because they take up so much space for so little harvest, and I had to throw a lot of immature pods away since they can't be eaten. I have to say though, that I love the resiliency of the peas within the pods. The peas ended their season covered in aphids, and there was evidence of something laying eggs within the pod walls, but the peas themselves made it through unscathed.

I'm happy that I finally grew carrots, and I'll definitely grow them again this fall. Production for the space is great, and they're fast growers when grown under the right conditions. Fresh carrots are so scrumptious, and the LO can eat them because they're slightly softer in texture than regular store bought carrots.

Each week Daphne hosts Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions. Check out her page to see what other's have been munchin' and crunchin' on this week.