Harvest to Table

Sweet and smooth baby beets–red, yellow, and orange–added to sugary sugar snap peas and sweet baby carrots tossed with a tangy orange zest dressing and you have a seasonal salad that says Spring! You’ll have to search to find someone who doesn’t like this salad. Baby beets, sugar snap peas, and baby carrots will hit [...]

Spring flowers like sweet peas will spill over into the garden this month. The roses will have heady days in May and the time for warm-weather vegetables like beans and peppers and tomatoes is very close. Warm-weather vegetable starts can be transplanted into the kitchen garden probably by mid month and direct sowing of seeds [...]

The weather in cool northern regions can remain unsettled even in May. Remember that both the soil and air temperature are important when planting the kitchen garden. Few seeds will germinate if the soil temperature is below 45ºF (7ºC) and warm-weather crops are not going to thrive until the night temperatures consistently stay above 50ºF [...]

Mix mizuna with other salad greens and mesclun or add shredded mizuna leaves to soups and stir fries at the end of cooking. Mizuna has a mild and tangy flavor. Use mizuna as a bed or garnish for meat and fish, grilled seafood, poultry or barbequed pork. You will find the flavor of mizuna peppery-fresh [...]

The Tokyo turnip is a diminutive, small radish-sized turnip with a crunchy, juicy bitter- sweet flavor eaten raw. Steamed it is buttery-sweet and delicate. You will find the Tokyo turnip in early spring. You might mistake it for a white radish if you don’t look closely enough. The Tokyo turnip is white through and through. [...]

May arrives between autumn and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Grays and browns replace the brilliant fall colors of April this month. Nature is beginning its rest time now as the harvest comes to a close. There still may be a few days of hazy sunshine this month but the first chill and frost are [...]

Is May the most beautiful month of the year in the northern hemisphere? Well, it’s certainly one of the most beautiful months. The snow and ice are gone and the heat of summer has not yet arrived. Wild flowers are in bloom everywhere and the garden is either moving towards its spring peak or well [...]