Several weeks ago I wrote about our bountiful Spring harvest in South Florida – it’s prime time! for vegetable gardeners here. That post described several of the organic crops we grow. Well, here’s some more – this is a continuation, describing more of our mid-Spring harvest, if you will.
KALE
I would guess that most South Florida vegetable gardeners grow kale. It has become so popular over the last decade, whether people are putting it in smoothies, making kale chips, massaging it for raw salads or producing a wide range of cooked dishes with it. Kale is incredibly nutritious, is a very hardy and long-lasting crop, and offers so many versatile uses in the kitchen.
So much of what I cook has to do with the fresh ingredients that happen to be on hand, as of course is true of most cooks. Right now our garden is bursting with organic veggies to harvest, which presented me with the challenge of what to do with some green pole beans, a big beautiful carrot, two kinds of kale and some very ripe tomatoes. I’ve been pining for some minestrone soup lately, and I was excited to have these fresh ingredients along with garden herbs and a good sized Parmesan rind stored in the freezer. I was all set!
I keep talking about “the most exciting time” in our organic garden, from ordering seeds for the new season, to planting our fall crops and seeing those first seedlings sprout up, to the beginning of our harvest – but NOW, it’s just beyond exciting – when our crops are flourishing and there is so much to harvest and cook with that we can barely keep up! So I think I will have to concede – Spring harvest tops them all!
The “fruits” of our labor in the fall-winter months are now ripe and ready, as you will see in our photo gallery and descriptions below. Enjoy!
I am always looking for something different to do with green beans besides my go-to-favorite of simply steaming and dressing them with butter, salt and pepper – and a little dill if I have it on hand. While this is never boring – can anything beat lightly steamed and crispy green beans freshly picked from the garden? – it’s always nice to change it up now and again. I wanted to try a cold salad, and though I’m not typically a big fan of canned beans, I’ve been hankering for a three bean salad lately and it is green bean harvest time… I opted to combine the fresh green beans (again, lightly steamed to perfection) to go along with canned kidney beans and then, to add a nice contrast in texture, shape and color: chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans). This worked really well.
I can’t think of a better way to eat bok choy than to saute it with garlic and ginger, add a little salt and heat, and finish it off with toasted sesame oil. It absorbs the aromatics well, and the contrast between the crunchy stems and the tender leaves makes it all the more pleasurable. Garlic and ginger bok choy is an excellent addition to any protein-based Asian dish, e.g., tofu, fish, beef, etc. It provides a “kick” as well as a nutritious boost to any meal.
Bok choy is really a generic name for many varieties of choy, which are readily available not only in our own organic vegetable garden, but in the many Asian markets (and large general grocery stores) across South Florida. I recently purchased a few different kinds at one local market, which were very fresh and inexpensive. See our post “Ode to Choy” for more information about different choys and how we grow them.
Green beans are one of our staple crops throughout the fall-winter-spring growing season here in South Florida. We usually (if we’re lucky) have our first harvest at Thanksgiving time, and our last in late April to mid-May, depending on how soon the heat of summer begins to roll in.
There are many advantages/benefits to growing green beans in South Florida:
The preference among our gardeners is pretty much bush beans over pole beans (though we do plant both). There is a variety of purple bush beans that we’ve been enjoying in addition to our typical green ones. But here’s a warning: the purple ones turn a vibrant green color when cooked. I only found this out on Thanksgiving one year. I was so excited as this was our first harvest ever of purple beans, just in time for the holiday! – and I thought I was going to have a beautiful mixed colored dish of fresh green and purple beans. Until, that is, I lifted the lid off the pot of steaming beans. They were a beautiful green color, much to my amazement and disappointment!
For many years I never knew that there was more than one kind of bok choy. Actually it was probably when I started gardening and buying seeds that I learned what an incredible variety of choys there is to choose from.
Choys are so easy to grow organically here in South Florida. I like to joke that it would probably grow on a pile of rocks, that’s how readily it thrives in varying conditions. If we have a spot in the garden that doesn’t seem sunny enough for most plants, or wet enough, or dry enough, or soil-nutritious-enough, sure enough – choy will prevail! And I can’t think of a time – ever – when it has been bothered by any diseases or pests.
Our fall and winter crops here in South Florida are basically the same. Most of the things that we start in the earlier part of the growing season (fall), we can start another rotation of in December or January. Much of our work is planning what seeds need to be started when. We will either direct seed some of our crops, such as carrots and beans directly into the beds. Or, with many other crops, we will be getting them going in flats, and then transplanting seedlings as they mature into four inch pots and/or directly into the beds, and then watching them grow! For a list of what we can grow in the fall/winter here, please see our post http://www.soflagardening.com/fall-planting-beds/
Is there anything more gratifying than finding uses for a “small harvest” from the garden to enhance a meal? Well, after a thoroughly enjoyable and productive gardening session, my husband and I stopped by one of our favorite shops on the way home – Proper Sausages is an artisanal store located in Miami Shores, specializing in homemade (off-the-scale!) sausages as well as a range of other meats and goodies (like bacon jam, homemade condiments, incredible sandwiches, etc.). As soon as we laid eyes on the bleu cheese burgers, we knew what dinner would be. Adding a package of those wonderful special buns they have, along with two pounds of the best bacon in town, we were on our way.
Tarragon grows like a weed year-round in our South Florida garden – not to mention how easy it is to grow green beans here in the fall-to-spring. We were lucky to harvest our first crop of beans right before Thanksgiving (actually, we do try to time it that way each year). And while we didn’t have enough to feed our big crowd, we were proud to add them to this dish as representative of our organic garden’s harvest.
Tarragon has a lovely fragrance and flavor, and it makes a delicious vinaigrette when mixed with mustard and olive oil. This is a very simple dish – steamed green beans tossed with the dressing, adding some toasted almonds on top for crunch. It’s a great way to use harvest from the garden and homegrown herbs to boot. I guess if we were really ambitious, we could start making our own mustard… actually, we had a garden member in the past who made killer mustard for us, and we sure do miss him!
We are a small group of South Floridians who share a love of organic gardening, cooking and leading a healthy lifestyle. We garden together in Miami on a weekly basis year round, and enjoy the labor, harvest and feeling of community that this provides us. We are learning together what it means to grow food in South Florida, with our unique climate and seasons, which are so different than the rest of the country. This website is a venture in sharing information and resources relevant to gardening (and enjoying the harvest) in our South Florida environment. We hope you will find it useful!
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