When I harvest the first zucchini, summer is here. Our “June gloom” has departed and days are long and sunny.

Stuck at only a few inches in length, the undersized zucchini responded to the weather change yielding several nearly perfect specimens. These are ‘Raven’ dark green zucchini from Renee’s Garden which I grow every year. Plants are smallish but produce well. You can read about its many other attributes which make it my go to variety.

Thinly sliced white carrots from my garden, chunks of onion and zucchini roasted for a barbecue on the Fourth. I forgot to snap a photo of the finished veggies and the fresh thyme mix-in.

So I pulled out the zucchini recipe folder and prepared to file the oranges one.

We harvested the last twenty navel oranges from the tree which produced about 500 oranges this year. I squirreled the best ones away in the produce drawer, removed zest for the freezer and then squeezed the oranges for a final round of juice.

The rhubarb plants still offer plenty of sturdy, thick stalks. I’ve been making apple-rhubarb-guava sauce (ARG) for several weeks. Strawberry guava puree frozen last fall adds a pleasant flavor and color.

Since our small chest freezer is full of stewed apricots, applesauce, ARG, guava puree and other preserved foods I canned this batch of apple-rhubarb-guava sauce.

Don’t we all anticipate the seasonal fare from our garden harvests? Waldorf Deluxe from the Original Moosewood Cookbook is one of those for me. I’m between lettuce harvests so time to use what’s at hand: apples, cheddar cheese, raisins (golden if I had them), celery and cashew pieces. The salad, with a light yogurt dressing thinned with orange juice and flavored with zest, seems so California to me.

The ‘Queen Red Lime’ zinnias popularized by Floret and these from Johnny’s are the stars of this bouquet. Fennel growing wild in the alley, red buckwheat from the native garden and other garden gleanings made a composition to my liking.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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