Garden 2011

We’ve been having a great garden year here and while I can’t send all of you veggies in the mail, I can share pictures of some of our bounty. It’s been nice having such a great year since last year was only mildly successful.

We had a great raspberry harvest this spring. Since the canes have been growing for 3 years, they are really established now and producing beautifully. This was what we picked toward the end of the harvest. One of the varieties we have will produce again in the fall and has tiny berries forming already.

We ended up with 13+ pounds of potatoes this year. I do think this is the last year we’ll be doing the potatoes in the bags. While we don’t have to dig (we dump out the bags) we end up moving a lot of dirt around. We also don’t get the yield per bag that I would expect. Especially for how many seed potatoes we plant.

Our artichoke produced it’s first arties this year. I really would like to plant a few more of these. I think they are beautiful plants as well as so very yummy. Our homegrown artichokes were delish and I can’t wait to harvest a larger crop next year.

We planted a TON of garlic in the fall and this was the result. We always plant one hardneck variety and one softneck. Our softneck variety had smaller heads than I would have liked, but otherwise I was very pleased with our harvest. Garlic is super easy, stores well and we use it a lot. I’m hoping this will be close to enough for the entire year and am looking forward to seeing how long it’ll last.

I like storing our garlic in braids. This year we ended up with two braids (one huge and one medium) that are gracing our kitchen with their garlicky goodness. My garlic braiding skills improved a ton by watching this video and buying this little booklet with my last seed purchase. By the way, if you’re looking for a great seed source that is independently owned, Nichols is wonderful.

Finally, we have had lots of crookneck squash and zucchini coming out of the garden (who doesn’t). I had been dreaming about this recipe for a Zucchini Ricotta Galette since TheBon tweeted the link to me a year ago.

It is absolutely as amazing as it looks. It takes a little time, but is not hard. There were several steps I left out (didn’t freeze the flour and the dough didn’t sit in the fridge for a whole hour) and the dough was easy to work with plus delightfully flaky. I will most definitely be making this again (possibly this week). There is something so intensely satisfying about cooking with our homegrown food.