Week 15: week of the legumes

Week 15 Box

Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Green Beans- I love them lightly cooked with lemon juice, garlic, and parmesan.

Edamame soybeans- Fresh edamame is a special, nutritious treat. You may have had the edamame appetizer at a Japenese restaurant. The frozen pods are always tasty, but you can’t beat the delicious fresh ones! At home you can recreate the edamame appetizer. The beans are boiled or steamed whole in the pod and sprinkled with soy sauce. 8-10 minutes of boiling or steaming makes lightly cooked beans. Edamame, like all legumes, is high in protein, B vitamins , and potassium.

Sweet Peppers- Mostly green peppers- ripening has been slow and lots of rot when the fruit tries to ripen. Green peppers are better than no peppers!

Cucumbers- See recipe below.

Squash

Basil

Week of the Legumes

This week was a week of legumes. Beans and peas are part of a larger family of plants called legumes that form special relationships with soil bacteria to make atmospheric nitrogen available to the plant. The second succession of fresh green beans that we have been watching with such anticipation still looks wonderful. The plants are large and full of blossoms. But when we went to pick them there were hardly any beans ready. However, the first planting that we had given up on started pumping out more beans. I guess they just needed a little rest through the really hot weeks in early August. We are very glad we didn’t mow them down after the first picking.

The second legume we harvested this week is edamame. It is a soybean for fresh eating. They make a delicious and nutritious snack full of protein. The edamame patch turned into a huge jungle of tangled bean bushes and weeds. We had to put on our bushwhacker outfits to venture in. We are very glad that the beans ripened now because we had started having our first deer problems in months. As Petunia the ferocious guard dog has aged she doesn’t patrol as often as she used to. She does a great job guarding the layer hens, but prefers to nap next to them instead of touring the edges of her territory. The deer noticed the lack of dogs and took the opportunity to sample our beans. Fortunately, they only ate the top leaves off. We harvested them before they found the rest.

Edamame Jungle

Cool weather

As the night time temperatures stay in the low sixties our summer crops slow down dramatically. Tomatoes ripen far more slowly, beans grow at half the speed, and the peppers seem to never size up. It’s as if the summer garden is in slow motion. Meanwhile, our cooler weather crops are enjoying the change. The chard planted last week is looking great as it stretches its colorful leaves to the sky. We look forward to harvesting it in September.

Sprouting Radishes

Fresh Cucumbers in Dill Marinade

From The Fruit & Vegetable Stand by Barry Ballister, 2001.

Marie’s comments in italics.

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon crumble dried dill)

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¾ cup white wine vinegar

Juice of 1 lemon

3 green unwaxed green cucumbers (Cucumbers from the store are often waxed. Pesticides and fungicides may also be on the peel of store cucumbers)

4 radishes (don’t worry about them if they aren’t in season)

In deep bowl combine salt, pepper, dill, and garlic with vinegar and lemon juice. Slice unpeeled cumbers and radishes. Mix with marinade. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours. Serves 4.

Baaaa!