Harvest Monday: Tomatoes, parsley and tabouli

I love seeing the progression of cherry tomato development along a stem.  

Heirloom cherry tomato Gardener's Delight
Lycopersicon lycopersicum

This week, we've been eating lots of cherry tomatoes, which I love.  Lately I've found myself even eating a few with breakfast, which has been surprisingly satisfying.  

Ready-to-eat cherry tomatoes (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

It's a good thing I like cherry tomatoes so much, because our Brandywine tomatoes have a while to go before they'll be ripe.

Brandywine tomato 

Thanks to our trees, we have a lot of shade in our garden...

Shagbark hickory trees (Carya ovata) and others, shading the garden

so sun-loving crops (such as those Brandywine tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and other large-fruited crops) take longer to mature.    However,  we have enough sun for smaller fruits, and we've been harvesting lots of cherry tomatoes and green beans.  The strawberries have also had a good year.  

Green beans, cherry tomatoes and strawberries

The butternut squash that I planted also has a long way to go.  I always feel lucky if I get to harvest a few squash before the fall frost.  

The tiny butternut squash is hidden under the leaves

We often have a few surprise volunteer cucurbits growing from our compost.  I always let a few of them grow.  Last year, I thought a cucurbit growing from compost in a raised bed was going to be a pumpkin, but it ended up being a delicious cantaloupe!  

This year I am letting a volunteer cucurbit grow right out of one of my compost bins.  It looks like it might be a pumpkin, but maybe it will end up being a cantaloupe.  

Volunteer growing out of the compost bin.
The dark-green fruit is against the bin.  

The parsley and chives continue to thrive.  We harvested a basketful of parsley

Parsley

added some of our garden chives and garlic, and my husband made some delicious red quinoa tabouli (with the help of a farmer's market yellow heirloom tomato).

Quinoa tabouli salad

 (This post was shared on Harvest Mondays and Green Thumb Thursday.)

Harvesting and planting more

Yesterday I went out to pick some basil leaves to have with dinner, and I discovered a handful of Cascadian snap peas were ready to be picked!  

 

Cascadian snap pea

I'm glad the peas are ready, because it's almost time to stop picking the asparagus.
Although this week we had no shortage of asparagus:

lots of asparagus this week

More lettuce, asparagus, strawberries and cilantro.

Today I harvested more peas, strawberries,
chives, cilantro, and lots of kale.

Aside from the basil which I planted from seed this spring, everything else that I harvested this week was either a perennial that I planted in a previous year (asparagus, strawberries, chives) or a volunteer that seeded itself from plants that went to seed last year (lettuce, kale, cilantro).

This week, the Reduce Footprints Change the World Wednesdays challenge (#CTWW) is to plant some food.   I decided to plant some of the bean and squash seed that I saved from last year.  

Black beans saved from last year, still in their pods.

A mixture of beans I saved including black beans and scarlet runner beans. 

Butternut squash seed saved from a particularly delicious squash.

 I planted the bean seeds along the fence where the peas are now so they'll have something to climb, and I planted two kinds of squash in small hills of compost right next to the beans - sort of a modified three sisters garden minus the corn.

compost hill

I encourage you to plant some food for the Change the World Wednesdays challenge and to check out the wonderful harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.  

 Elsewhere in the garden, the roses are in bloom along with foxglove, columbine, geraniums, irises, oxalis, forget-me-nots, bleeding heart, peonies, and more!

oxalis

geranium

columbine

foxglove

(This post was also shared on Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party Hop.)