Monday, November 22, 2010

Harvest Monday - November 22, 2010

I read just the other day that we had one of the warmest Octobers on record. And we had more summer-like weather last week, with high temperatures of 90F on a couple of days. That probably accounts for the goodies that I harvested last week.

I stripped the Malaysian Dark Red eggplant plants (again) and came up with this...


The pepper plants are still putting on a show also. Clockwise from the top left are Iberian Long Cayenne (more scrunchy than long now), little yellow Aji Pineapples, Aji Santa Cruz, one yellow Guyana, wrinkled Rocotillos, one more Chorizero, Kaleidoscopes, and yet one more yellow Guyana.


Those are the first Aji Santa Cruz peppers that I've harvested. There's just a couple more that are about ripe and I'll have to harvest the rest of the peppers on the plant green since the weather is acting bi-polar and those 90F degree days have quickly turned into cold days that top out in the mid 50F's and are expected to bottom out below freezing sometime in the next few nights. The Santa Cruz peppers are sweet so I think the green ones will probably be delicious used as a frying pepper, we'll see...

The most productive of all my Capsicum chinense plants this year is this Rocotillo plant. I had to take a photo before I harvested the ripest peppers shown on the tray above. I'm tempted to unhook that pot from the drip system and bring it indoors during the freezing weather so that the rest of the peppers can ripen on the plant. This has also turned out to be my favorite of all the chinense peppers that I grew this year.


I also harvested a bunch more Christmas Bell peppers, the sweet ones were pickled and the picante ones were cored and dried in a 200F degree oven. There's a bunch more on the plants that are coloring up that I'll have to pick a tad under-ripe but they'll still be sweet and tasty.

Other than that, I pulled one more BIG celery root that was still mild and delicious. I made a soup with half of it and a bunch of kale (which I neglected to weigh). That soup is delicious and I'll be posting the recipe any day now... And the Golden Chard has recovered from the attack of the aphids and ants so I harvested a bunch of that to use in Zuni Cafe's Onion and Chard Panade - yum.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Diamante celery root - 4 lb., 4 oz. (just one trimmed of its leaves!)
Golden Chard - 1 lb.
Malaysian Dark Red eggplant - 2 lb., 9.5 oz.
Aji Pineapple peppers - 1.25 oz.
Aji Santa Cruz peppers - 2.75 oz.
Chorizero pepper - .75 oz.
Christmas Bell peppers - 1 lb., 12 oz.
Christmas Bell Picante peppers - 9.25 oz.
Guyana peppers - .5 oz.
Iberian Long Cayenne peppers - 2.5 oz.
Kaleidoscope peppers - 4.5 oz.
Madrid Bell Sweet peppers - 1 lb., 3.25 oz.
Rocotillo peppers - 5.5 oz.
Topepo Rosso peppers - 2 lb., 15 oz.

The total for the week was - 15 lb., 6.75 oz.
The total for the year is - 668 lb., 8.25 oz.

700 is getting closer...

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been gathering from their gardens.

12 comments:

  1. What a colorful harvest! Those Malaysian Dark Red eggplants remind me a little of the Pingtung Long eggplants I grow. It looks prolific!

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  2. Michelle,

    Pretty big harvest for the year. Did you and the family eat all of that near 700 pounds? We might have kale and mustard greens fresh from the garden for Thanksgiving in the cold frames.

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  3. Beautiful pictures! The peppers are gorgeous!

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  4. Wow, beautiful harvest, eggplants and peppers this time of the year.

    We were in SoCal 2 weeks ago, the weather was lovely and we came home to cold and winds.

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  5. It looks like summer never left your garden!
    Beautiful and colorful harvest. I envy you on those beautiful peppers this time of year. I am using frozen ones or dried ones.

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  6. Beautiful eggplant and peppers. It's nice to see some warm weather harvests....it's cold here in the northeast!!

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  7. That harvest makes me feel substantially warmer. I like the picture of the eggplant all whirled around. We had a warm October too though I would say not quite as warm as yours.

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  8. The peppers and egg plants look so pretty! Delicious too. I'm thinking of bringing in one of my chorizo plants to ripen the many small peppers indoors. We're getting lots of sun now, but the cold wind won't do them much good.

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  9. look at all that sunshine -we are under SNOW! We are having one of the coolest months on record. blech.

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  10. We have been experiencing a rather severe winter storm the past several days - snow, high winds, and bitter cold... so seeing those sunny peppers is like a ray of sunshine for this frozen lady! :D

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  11. You always have the most beautiful pepper baskets. The eggplant are trying to show them up however.

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  12. villager, the Malaysian eggplant was productive well beyond my expectations, I harvested over 22 pounds from 6 plants over a period of 3 months. I will probably grow it again.

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    Randy, we're in the process of eating all that, there's dried, pickled, and frozen veggies to get through over the next few months. We eat a lot of vegetables around here, I plan our meals around what the garden is providing.

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    Veggie PAK, thanks!

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    mac, there will only be one more Harvest Monday post featuring summer vegetables, I had to strip the garden of anything that wouldn't survive the last 3 nights we had of freezing weather. Winter has arrived...

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    vrtlarica, Summer finally left this week.:(

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    Robin, It's hard to believe that I harvested all those summer goodies such a short time ago, the cold finally came our way and ended the summer fun.

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    Ottawa Gardener, the lovely warm weather is gone for now and we're shivering through freezing nights, but it's probably not as cold as where you are! We're such weather wimps here.

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    chaiselongue, I brought in my Rocotillo plant and it's siting by a sunny window, it's full of ripening peppers. Most of the pepper plants in the garden are now wilted by the freezing nights.

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    Stevie, blech is right, I'm happy we aren't blanketed in snow and even though it's been cold here the last few days the sun has been out.

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    kitsapFG, I'm happy to bring a little bit of sunshine your way, I hope you get better weather soon!

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    Daphne, the eggplants and the peppers do compete for best of show, I can't decide which is prettier though!

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