Monday, August 23, 2010

Harvest Monday - August 23, 2010

The harvests are finally looking decidedly summery. A tray full of tomatoes, including Gigantesque on the left, a couple of Chocolate Stripes and some Ananas Noir next to that, a pile of Aunt Ruby's Not Green and Galinas cherry tomatoes, and a few Katja. The Chocolate Stripes are the best tasting tomatoes so far this summer.



The Ananas Noir and Aunt Ruby's are very pretty when sliced open.



Andine Cornue paste tomatoes and Pimento de Padron Peppers. I'm not getting enough paste tomatoes at any one time to bother with canning them so they are going into the freezer whole. I am really feeling very lazy about canning and preserving right now. I harvested a lot of green beans last week but managed to avoid blanching and freezing them by taking them to a family function this weekend and giving them away.



Zucchini with blossoms, one of the first Suyo Long cucumbers (very sweet), and a sprig of basil.



Here's what happens when I don't get around to picking zucchini for a couple of days.



And a zucchini that grew under the main stem, out of sight until it got to be overgrown and crazily distorted.



I'm having problems with some sort of fungus that is killing some stems on my tomato plants. I had to harvest a bunch of green tomatoes off the Katja plant, a number of which I used to make a green tomato spice cake (good but not outstanding).



We actually have a heat wave starting so perhaps that will give a boost to the tomato and pepper harvests this coming week. And look for some eggplant in the coming week's totals as well. Whoopee, it looks like summer has come at last!

The totals below are for 2 weeks since I didn't have time to post for Harvest Monday last week.

Garafal Oro romano beans - 7 lb., 14 oz
Piracicaba broccoli - 2 lb.
Capers - 2.75 oz.
Suyo Long cucumbers - 4 lb., 15.25 oz.
Butterhead lettuce - 13.5 oz.
Donkey Ears pepper - .75 oz.
Madrid Bell Sweet pepper - 2.5 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 5 oz.
Strawberries - 1 lb., 12.25 oz.
Ananas Noir tomatoes - 2 lb., 7.5 oz.
Andine Cornue tomatoes - 4 lb.
Aunt Ruby's cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 10.75 oz.
Chocolate Stripes tomatoes - 3 lb., 5.25 oz.
Galinas cherry tomatoes - 9.25 oz.
Gigantesque tomatoes - 2 lb., .75 oz.
Katja tomatoes - 6 lb., 13.25 oz.
Katja tomatoes (green) - 3 lb., 5.25 oz.
Zucchini - 7 lb., 13 oz.
Zucchini blossoms - 6.25 oz.

Total for 2 weeks - 50 lb., 12.75 oz.
Total for the year - 388 lb. 1.5 oz.

You can find more Harvest Monday posts at Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there for a eyeful of wonderful home grown produce.

17 comments:

  1. It's good that you're getting tomatoes now and the zucchini look great. Do you make fritters with the flowers?

    I hope the heat wave speeds everything up without drying them out!

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  2. The summer has started for you, and ended for me. I harvested last of my tomatoes, although plants are still there, I'm still hoping for some new fruits.
    You have a beautiful harvest and that long cucumber looks very interesting!

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  3. I wonder if that fungus on your tomato stems is blight? 'Mr Tomato King' has just written an interesting post all about tomato blight.

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  4. Finally beginning of tomato harvest for you, it's been a long wait. Pretty Ananas Noir and Aunt Ruby.

    The only preserving I've done lately was roasted tomato sauce and freez them in cup size containers. I've never acquired the taste for stovetop tomato sauce, that's one of the reasons why I don't do much canning, but I like roasted tomato sauce, I like the taste and ease of preparation, I've been roasting tomatoes in small batches as I get them, it's easier and I don't mind doing it this way. I'm too lazy to do the big batch thingy.

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  5. chaiselongue, my favorite way to eat the blossoms is stuffed and baked, I haven't tried making fritters out of them, yet...

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    vrtlarica, your summer is ending :( but it looked like you harvested a lot of tomatoes while it lasted. The long cucumber is spiny, but the skin is tender and the flesh is sweet and not seedy, I really like it.

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    Matron, it doesn't look like blight, I think it's probably gray mold (botrytis), we've had weather conditions that favor that mold. I'll have to google 'Mr Tomato King', see what he has to say.

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    mac, the tomato harvest is picking up a bit now that a couple more varieties are coming in, but the other two varieties in the garden just showing hints of ripening fruit. I hope our current taste of summer weather hurries them up.

    Maybe I'll try roasting the next picking of paste tomatoes and then freezing them whole but cooked.

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  6. Oh boy, the heat wave is here in the south! It's 93 today and scorching. Your tomatoes look delicious, yum.

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  7. I always love your harvest photos. Which tomatoe is the Ananas Noir and which is the Aunt Ruby's? They are beautiful. How do they taste?

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  8. Nartaya, oh boy, it's hit here also, over 90 today and not even a hint of fog this morning. Summer, finally! I hope it sticks around a while.

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    Robin, thanks! The Ananas Noir is the beefsteak cut in half and the Aunt Rubys are the little ones. On the tray in the top photo the Ananas Noir are the dark tomatoes at the bottom left next to the pile of cherry tomatoes.

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  9. That last tray of tomatoes is just gorgeous. I am so envious that you are getting really warm weather. I was doing some celebrating over gettin up to 70 degres for a high today - sadly that is a warm up for us this summer. I have gray mold infecting four of my container planted tomatoes. At this point, I am just hoping to keep my plants healthy enough long enough that the fruits get big enough that they break color so I can finish ripening them off of the vine indoors. I think that is the only way I am going to get a reasonable harvest this summer.

    Beautiful harvests as always - your garden and it's bounty is always an inspiration.

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  10. Oh those photo's do look summery!

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  11. kitsapFG, oh my, and I thought it was cold around here, it's such a weird summer on the west coast this year. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that you get to share some of the warmth and get some decent tomatoes. What would summer be without tomatoes!?

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    Dan, yippee, they do! :)

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  12. Nice to see that your tomatoes are starting to really come in Michelle. Green tomato spice cake? That sounds both odd and interesting.

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  13. Thomas, the green tomato cake comes out very similar to an apple spice cake. It was good, but if I make it again I have to remember to chop the tomatoes finer.

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  14. I've never heard of using green tomatoes for cake before. It odes make me curious about it, but maybe not enough to try it.

    All those zucchini are wonderful (assuming you aren't tired of them yet). My zucchini are barely putting out enough to eat fresh. I haven't grated enough for the winter yet. Usually I'm done with that by now.

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  15. Your harvest looks awesome. The Ananas Noir and Aunt Ruby's are gorgeous. How do they taste?

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  16. Those are all lovely. The heat wave didn't do anything definite to the tomatoes here, but I have my fingers crossed (partially to keep them warm for the incoming fog front).

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  17. I hope you've been enjoying the heat, your garden looks like it sure has been enjoying it. Nice tomatoes! Let's celebrate that our harvests are finally looking normal for this time of year.

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