August gardening tips: Harvest festival
Harvest and Store
August 01, 2011
During July and August the harvest reaches its peak, and it's time to store or cook all products from our plants, avoiding waste.
This year I chose to grow many vegetables in the rooftop, taking into account my family needs and preferences, but without sacrificing my curiosity to try new variety. I must say that I'm quite satisfied with the project and I'm already planning next year's plants.
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 The alkekengi are ripening: inside these shells you'll find orange fruits, sour, sweet and with a hint of grape.
 A... blinking picture of my cucumber harvest. From the top: a small round lemon cucumber, a gherkin and an armenian cucumber.
I used some cucumbers for the Cold Cucumber Soup with Mint.
 The birds began to feast on sunflower seeds, and I harvested them.
 Left: peppers, alkekengi, parsnip, lemon plum tomatoes.
Right: rhubarb chards, rainbow chards, sorrel, green purslane.
 A sorrel close-up: I'm really surprised by this productive plant, it can be added to salads, used as an ingredient in sauces, pasta, chicken and fish recipes... just take a look at all my sorrel recipes.
I used this in a salad of bresaola (dried beef), chives garlic and buck's horn plantain with olive oil and lemon juice.
I realize now I haven't taken any picture of the chilies, I harvested some aromatics Numex Suave Orange and some Piquillo Pimento. I used them in a recipe from last year, the Vegan Chili Bechamel.
I harvested also a few herbs this week: buck's horn plantain, chives garlic, chives and mint. All were used fresh in the mentioned bresaola salad and in the Cucumber and mint cold soup.
Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, parsnip, sunflower seeds: 490g
Chilies: 50g
Chards, purslane, sorrel, lettuce, dandelion flowers and buds: 90g
Total 630g (1.39 pounds)
This harvest joins to Harvest Mondays.
To my great pride and satisfaction of my partner who loves salads, every week I can prepare one (or more) salads using only products from my rooftop. The ingredients tend to be similar: sorrel and chards are very productive and tasty, green purslane is a weed and grows everywhere, and there are always tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. We call it...
Rooftop salad
This week salad:
Rhubarb and rainbow chards
purslane
dandelion flowers and buds
lettuce
purple beauty pepper
cuore di bue tomato (ox heart)
lemon plum tomatoes
lemon cucumber
Dressing: olive oil, white vinegar and salt
To have one/two salads for weeks throughout the summer from your rooftop or balcony:
2-3 small containers of leafy vegetables (chards, lettuce, spinach...)
at least 2 tomato plants
at least 1 bell pepper and/or cucumber plant
basil, sorrel, chives for seasoning
Some other rooftop salads:
Salad with basil vinaigrette
Couscous salad with cherry tomatoes and aromatic herbs
Indonesian-style purslane salad
 Read also:
July and August gardening tips
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