Mid-August Veg Garden Updates
Favas keep cranking out the beans, tomatoes are coming on strong, shiitakes gave me a surprise harvest, calalloo is cranking out the leaves, basil & lettuce are wimpy.
Fava beans - I’ve had four good harvests off of the plants that I started early spring. They seem to want to keep going, which is a bit unusual. From my understanding favas usually die off similar to pea plants. Perhaps it is a variety thing?
The variety that I planted this year is called Sweet Lorane - which is a small seeded fava known for supposed exceptional flavor. I’m not sure I agree about the flavor. They are good, but it took me awhile to cook them right. Most gardeners say that favas only need minimal cooking, but I find them to be much better when simmered 10 minutes or more.
I don’t like that this variety is very difficult to shell. Hank Shaw has a great article on growing and using fava beans. His method for shelling the beans simply does not work with this variety. And when I work with these beans, my nail beds inevitably turn black for several days from some reaction between the compound in the shells and my skin. I wouldn’t be able to use gloves. Bummer.
Next year I’ll likely try a different variety. And I hope to get around to growing them in fall this year. What varieties do you like?
Tomatoes are just starting to come on. My garden is somewhat shady, so this isn’t too much a surprise that not a lot of them are coming on yet, but this is a bit later than usual for me. From what I hear, other gardeners are having a late year with tomatoes as well. One gardener said that the early strong heat prevented pollination. Seems a likely scenario to me.
The cherry tomato Sungold is the first to ripen (as usual). There are hundreds that will come on soon. Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of freezing again this year. I like them frozen and added to things like tacos or chili where their loss of texture isn’t bothersome.
I also planted several paste tomatoes for preserving, which are looking pretty good. I’ll talk more about them in the future posts.
Lettuce: as I reported last month… I was struggling with getting lettuces going at the height of summer due to tip-burn. I decided to spend a fortune on getting some seed that is tip-burn resistant, bred for growing at the height of summer. It is from Osborne Seed, called Casey. My first two trials with this variety did not come up at all. I reported the failure to the company, and they sent me replacement. The replacements did come up, but are rather slow. We will see how they turn out.
Basil: while I was seed shopping at Osborne, I came across some stellar looking genovese seed. It is supposedly huge yield from single plants and late to bolt. I’m sad to report that they are growing incredibly slowly, and I don’t know if I’ll get enough for a significant amount of pesto to freeze this year.
Callaloo: is a type of amaranth (used like a spinach), seed that I completely forgot I had until this year. I’ve experienced it in the past, and can attest it puts out massive growth during the hot weather months. I’ve put a few harvests off of the plants in the freezer already.
Shiitakes decided to fruit early August for me, after a break from the hot temperatures.
What’s happening in your veg gardens?
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