All that waiting has paid off, root veg at the ready
It is high time to start harvesting your beets, carrots and onions. Harvest them as you need them, and remember that beet greens are absolutely delicious in a sauté, in a quiche, or raw in a salad. Onions are delicious raw as well as caramelized or sautéed, don’t forget to include the onion greens!
Carrot greens can be eaten too. They have a taste reminiscent of parsley and can be eaten raw in salads, sautéd with garlic, olive oil along with your beet tops, kale and Swiss chard. You can also or cook carrot greens into a soup or a stock now that the weather seems to be cooling off.
Beans have also appeared. They can hide under those big green leaves, so you may have to investigate a bit to find them. Like cucumbers, pick them early and often for best results. The young and tender ones are the tastiest. You can certainly steam or boil them for one or two minutes, but I like beans from the garden best chopped raw in a salad with feta or crumbly goat cheese.
Delicious beet green salad
Tomatoes are running later than usual this year. You should have plenty of green tomatoes that will be ripening up very soon if they haven’t already. Please don’t forget to water, water, water the success of large plants like tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis depends on it. Remove any branches that you can not fit on to the trellis. Please also remove all the snow pea vines you may have left over.
A big problem at this time of year is powdery mildew on cucumbers, melons, zucchini and squash. It is a fungus recognizable as white polka dots on the upper surface of leaves. Once the leaf is affected, it is not possible to be rid of the fungus. The only thing you can do is remove affected leaves as soon as possible. You can spray the plant with a baking soda mixture every couple of days to prevent the spread.
Baking soda mixture
2 tbsp Baking soda
3 drops liquid soap
1 tsp olive oil