Harvest Monday - April 18, 2011

The challenge was on as another Harvest Monday rolled around and I found myself scouring the garden for something worthy of harvest. Having planted a small patch of six tiny salad burnet plants last summer, because it takes quite a while for this perennial herb to mature, I did not harvest any last season. Fast forward to this spring, now the plants are growing rapidly - so rapidly in fact, soon I must divide them.

Anxious to finally get to taste their cucumber-like flavor, today I snipped off some of the youngest, most tender stems.

Back in my kitchen, after washing and drying the salad burnet, I stuffed several pieces into a cruet, added a garlic clove (not from my garden), heated vinegar to boiling and poured it in.

The fragrance was wonderful. First a whiff of something like cucumbers, then the garlic. I took a taste, and yum! But really it must sit for a few weeks for the flavors to fully mature. For now I must wait as this batch of herb and garlic infused vinegar is destined to be enjoyed with a bit of olive oil, splashed onto salad greens fresh from the garden later in the season.

With the temperatures here at night still dipping into the low to mid thirties, would you believe I thought I heard Seattle's Channel 5 weather guy say tonight that we have had only two days so far this year where the afternoon temperature topped 50. Only two? Can that be true? I'm pretty certain this will be the last year I go without a cold frame in my garden! Here's the state of Garden Nbr. 01 as of today. Growing ever so slowly, when it comes to Harvest Monday, it's slim pickin's.

This is Garden Nbr. 02, the new garden I built last year. Visible are only a few slow growing herbs, a couple of Dad's ancient pots full of hens and chicks, and some obvious fast growing weeds. The remainder of this garden still sits empty, waiting for warmer days so seeds will sprout and plants can overflow their boundaries.

Back in Garden Nbr. 01 though, I do have some soon to be harvested treasures that I am watching closely - like these soon to be blooming tulips.

And this rhubarb. Suddenly starting to grow again, soon I hope to add some of this to a Harvest Monday report.

The chive blossoms are near ready to open too. Last year, I made the most wonderful Chive Blossom Vinegar (see - Chive Blossom Vinegar). Another favorite flavored vinegar, and I'm out. I shall make more very soon.

Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions set up Harvest Monday as a way for garden bloggers to show off their harvests. It sounded fun, and a great way to challenge myself to be more creative with my harvests - especially this early in the spring. She's got a great garden going herself this year. Check out her blog to see what's growing there, and read about what's being harvested.