Monday, November 9, 2009

Harvest Monday - 11/9/09

It's Harvest Monday, time to show off what's coming out of your garden. The stars in my garden this past week were the peppers.

Here's the first small picking of Aji Angelos. This is a mild baccatum type pepper.



Most of the peppers on the tray below are Aji Angelos. I found a number of  "twins" that had formed. The smaller peppers with the shorter stems on the left are Aleppo, a type of cayenne. My Aleppo plant is a survivor from 2008. I didn't get around to photographing the cherry tomatoes until we had eaten half of them. And there's another bunch of fennel seeds. The fennel seeds are wonderfully aromatic, much better than the store bought stuff. I'm not sure if it's because they are so fresh or because the fennel that I'm growing is more aromatic than the varieties that are comercially harvested.



Can you spot the problem with this basketful of Chilhuacle Amarillo peppers?



Piment Doux Long Des Landes sweet peppers arranged around the rim of the tray shown below. Piled in the center are Christmas Bells. I made a quart jar of pickled peppers with some of the Christmas Bells (thanks for the idea Stefani!). The Piments were seeded and quartered, then roasted with some olive oil, garlic and parsley.



The basket below contains Marconi Purple sweet peppers which I roasted over a fire, then skinned and cleaned and froze. And there's another harvest of Pimento de Padrons.



Another bunch of Piracicaba broccoli.



A box of less than perfect looking tomatoes that came off the plants as I pulled them out. You won't be seeing any more of those this year.



I haven't pulled out the cherry tomato plants yet because they are still producing, especially the sweet little yellow Galinas. There were a couple of cucumbers that looked funky but were still good. And there's a couple of Black Sea Man tomatoes, that plant hasn't been pulled yet - it's still looking pretty good and has a number of green fruits on it. And a couple more Aji Angelos that went into a chickpea salad (along with half the big cuke and a bunch of the cherries).



The passion fruit has has been trickling in, one or two fall off the plant every week. You have to wait until they get wrinkled before eating them. There's the first one that I've eaten and the next one closest to being ready to eat. Actually, that's the very first piece of fruit from that plant that I've eaten.



I also picked a bunch of the Portuguese kale for my own consumption (the chickens have been getting most of it so far). I blanched it and then tossed it with some chopped garlic, put it in a cazuela (a shallow terracotta casserole), put a quartered chicken of top and roasted it all together. That was good...

Other than another bunch of Pimento de Padron peppers, broccoli, parsley, and basil, I can't think of anything else that I harvested that didn't get photographed.

Get on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what other garden bloggers are harvesting from their gardens. And then join in the fun yourself - show us what you've got!

10 comments:

  1. Nope I can't tell what is wrong with the peppers. They look very lovely to me. In fact all your peppers do. You grow so many kinds!

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  2. Daphne, thank you! And sorry too, it's a bit of a trick question, it helps if you can recall a bit of your high school Spanish (if you studied that).

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  3. Aha, I get it now that you've given us a clue... they're the wrong colour. How strange. Michelle I just love the way in which you present your crops, I should learn a lesson or two from your photos!

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  4. How very beautiful Michelle, I'm so jealous of all your lovely chillies! No but they look lovely and splendidly presented, very artistic.

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  5. Jan, you got it right! The peppers should be yellow. I've got two plants of this pepper, one came out red, the other has yellow pods. Wouldn't you know it though, the plant that is true to type has a lot fewer pods and they're not quite ripe yet.

    Tyra, thank you!

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  6. A beautiful and bountiful harvest as always, Michelle! You never disappoint. I'm amazed by your many different varieties of peppers and tomatoes. Do you save seed?

    I'm very impressed by your passion fruit. I need to search your blog for pictures of the plant! I'm curious to see what it looks like.

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  7. Thomas, It won't be too long before the harvest is kale, kale, and kale.... maybe a carrot or beet. And I'm not sure that I've ever taken a picture of the passion vine, it's pretty scraggly looking! Oh, and I only save a few seeds, no pepper seed this year.

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  8. Ah I should have gotten that. I've never taken Spanish class, but I have picked up a lot of it and know most of the colors.

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  9. I have no idea how you ingest all of what you harvest.

    Another tip? Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book has a recipe for "Lemony-Fennely Bread" that is truly special. I bet it would be spectacular with your homegrown seeds!

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  10. Stefani, I have to share at least half with my husband! :> And the chickens get a bit of it also...

    I have that book! And the bread sounds great, thanks for the tip. I had some fennel flavored breadsticks at a restaurant a while back that I want to try to replicate also.

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