Mid-June Harvest at Cowlick Cottage Farm

It was a big harvest weekend at Cowlick Cottage Farm!  Here’s what went on!

The heirloom tomatoes are coming on strong. They are a good nine feet tall now, and we are picking daily. I think there 40 tomatoes ripening on my counter. Come and get some maters!

We are still picking green beans, but they have definitely slowed down. I am glad that I planted a bunch of the beautiful Royal Burgundy beans a few weeks after the main crop of green beans were sown. These purple beans will begin their main harvest in another week or so, if we are lucky. We also have several types of eggplant coming along, lots of peppers, and some Thai okra. These veggies hold up well even in our intense heat.

The Japanese Long Cucumbers are doing great. We’ve been picking six or seven cukes a week–enough to make lots of salads and pickles. The long cukes live up to their name, being a good foot in length.

We harvested, cleaned, blanched and froze five quarts of soy beans, or edamame, which are a healthy and delicious snack. Edamame freezes really well, and it will be a fresh taste of spring in the fall and winter. We probably have another five quarts still to be picked.

The butternut squash was picked–all 30 pounds of it!  This is from seed that I saved from a beautiful organic squash grown at Monticello Vineyards, just down the road.  The squash is a beautiful tan color, and the skins are firm. Ideally, I would have let it grow on the vine for another week or so, but the squash bugs were starting to take over. Once harvested, each squash was dipped in a very mild bleach solution to eliminate the possibility of residual pests or fungus. They were given a good rinse and dried and will cure in the pantry for a week or so. Then they will be ready to store. I am curious to see how long they will keep.

We harvested four more pounds of our beautiful patty pan squash. It has slowed down a bit, but it is still producing and still delicious. We have found this heirloom squash to be not only sweet, mild and tasty, but it also keeps very well in the fridge, which is nice when you harvest ten or so a day during peak production.

Finally, we cleaned almost all of our garlic. We made this job quite pleasurable by dangling our feet in the dog pool and sipping a frosty beverage. It is so pretty now, all trimmed and gleaming. The garlic will continue to cure on wire racks in our guestroom, where it is dark and cool.

While working in the garden, we put some brisket on the Big Green Egg and slow-cooked it for a good four hours. First, we gave it a good dry rub of sea salt and black pepper and seared it on a really hot grill. Then we put the brisket in a roasting pan. We added our own onions, tomatoes, zucchini, and fresh bay leaves, along with a healthy splash of red wine. We topped it all off with a fusion of olive oil, garlic, and rosemary. The aroma was heavenly. We had a bunch of “extra” garlic cloves, so I cleaned them up and placed them in their own baking dish with a little sea salt and a good drizzle of EVOO. We covered it tightly in foil and put it on the grill, too. After an hour of roasting, the garlic was so sweet and tender that my husband ate about eight cloves just slathered on a good piece of bread. A roast garlic sandwich. Now that is good eating! Oh, the brisket and veggies were very good, too.