Monday, October 14, 2013

Harvest Monday - October 14, 2013

It's catch-up time for harvest reporting. I was going at about half speed for the past month and the blog fell off the priority list. I did continue to record the harvests from the garden and took a number of photos. Here's the highlights.

I harvested the first pomegranate because it had started to split.
 "Sweet" pomegranate

The arils were beautiful but they were small and still rather tart. They tasted good though.


All the tomatoes have been ripening in earnest.

Isis Candy, Green Grape, Chianti Rose, Potiron Ecarlte, Martian Giant

Bean harvests continued but are near the end now.

Australian Butter, Emerite, French Gold, Spanish Musica

I cleaned out the beet patch to make way for some Romanesco broccoli seedlings.

Red Baron, Chioggia, Renee's Golden

More beans. The zucchini and cucumber harvests are still generous. Pimento de Padron peppers trickle on.


The Romanesco zucchini harvests have slowed down a bit but the zucchinis are as beautiful as ever. That's the first harvest of "Sonora" peppers, they're a mild Anaheim type pepper and are delicious fire roasted. I don't remember what the red peppers are.


I found the first ripe Halona melon. It had already slipped off the vine and unfortunately it was over ripe. The second melon was better but not great and the two plants only produced 2 melons between them. I won't be growing this variety again. I also harvested the first Alvaro charentais type melon but didn't photograph it. I knew that the Alvaro melon was ripe because it was so deliciously fragrant. That melon was sweet and flavorful and there are another 5 or 6 melons left of the vines. I will grow that variety again.


I was keeping track of the different peppers as I harvested them, but now I don't remember which are which in the photos.


The Sweet Chocolate pepper isn't hard to miss though.



Di Ciccio broccoli harvests continued and I thinned out a Golden chard plant and the yellow bell pepper was from a volunteer plant.


Eggplant galore still. That's Sicilian at the top, Bonica center, and Salangana underneath.


Here's the first head of Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce. Just in time for a BLT sandwich.


The dark pepper in this photo is Negro de Valle.


If you click on the photo below you can see the names on the slips of paper that I put in each box.


I've been drying the ripe chiles for future use.


Isis Candy, Green Grape and Galinas cherry tomato harvests are continuing. These were harvested just a few days ago.


As were these Nyagous and Jaune Flamme tomatoes.


Ah ha! These I remember because I just harvested them a few days ago as well, these are Lady Bell peppers.


A basket of Andine Cornue paste tomatoes which were promptly canned the other day. Andine Cornue has been a big disappointment this year, there has been so much blossom end rot that I've tossed out well over half of the tomatoes that set. I've barely harvested 17 pounds from three plants so far this year and probably have less than that left on the plants that will properly mature and ripen. Next year I'm going to grow Amish Paste again.


The first head of Red Salad bowl lettuce. These are already starting to bolt, but that's ok because I need to clear out the space where they are growing for my garlic and shallots.


More of the usual harvested this past Saturday.



And one more big beautiful volunteer yellow bell pepper.


I won't bore anyone with all the gory details of the harvests. Here's the harvests by type of vegetables:

Amaranth greens - 1.9 lb.
Beans - 10.2 lb.
Beets - 9.1 lb.
Broccoli - 2.3 lb.
Chard - .3 lb.
Cucumbers - 22.9 lb.
Eggplant - 13.6 lb.
Garlic - .5 lb.
Lettuce - 2 lb.
Melons - 4.1 lb.
Peppers - 25 lb.
Tomatoes - 72 lb.
Zucchini - 16.4 lb.

The harvests for the past 4 weeks came to - 180.5 lbs.
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 647.8 lb.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what garden bloggers from around the world have been harvesting lately.

9 comments:

  1. WOW! That's an amazing harvest. Congratulations. I am especially interested because you are showing off all the things that I am just putting into the ground now here. I cant wait for my summer crops to start.

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  2. Beautiful harvests. Halona did pretty well for me this year. Better than last year. I wish I could find the perfect melon for the garden, but every year the weather is different.

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  3. Michelle, you could open a farm stand! Your harvests are outstanding, just perfect! Wish I could have some.

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  4. I second the farm stand idea! How do you possibly use it all?

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  5. Amazing, amazing, amazing! I'm just looking at it all and imagining all the wonderful things you will no doubt make with it. Do you make chilli powder with the dried chillies or use them whole or as flakes?

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    1. I use the dried peppers for flakes, sweet paprika, chile powder and such. Last week I made a seasoning with a blend of sweet and mild peppers, cumin, home dried garlic, and salt. That has been delicious as a rub on poultry and a seasoning on vegetables. I also like to reconstitute the mild peppers and use the flesh in romesco sauce. The thin skinned dried peppers can be cut up and used in soups or in fritattas. I love my dried peppers!

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    2. So so so lovely, and so organized. I can only sigh and aspire. Good to see a post.

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  6. Beautiful, Michelle. So many of the things that are coming in strong for you are finished here; however, I'm harvesting lots of beautiful beans too because of my second cropping I planted out in August this year. The last few weeks have had me mostly prepping and planting out seedlings: cole crops, frisee, etc. This weekend, I'll be planting out my garlic. Also, your posts have convinced me that I need to plant Romanesco zucchini next year. I sure do love my zucchini.

    Seeing this post made me happy! :)

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  7. So glad you are public again. I really missed reading your blog. Our micro-climate is similar to yours and we just picked our first pomegranate today, also because it had split. This has been a great year for figs (Brown Turkey) after getting none in 2012.

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