Harvest Monday - September 28, 2015

A couple of weeks ago there was a parade of tomatoes in the harvest post. This week it's a parade of peppers. Eighteen of the twenty varieties of peppers that I'm growing this year have found their way into the harvest basket so far this year, not all of those in the past week though.

A friend from my days as a volunteer Master Gardener tipped me off to Gogosari peppers. He gets his seeds from a source in Hungary, I found mine through the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook (called Gogosar there). They are a beautiful, thick fleshed, heavy sweet pepper. Just recently harvested, I haven't had a chance to try them yet. I think I'm going to try some of them stuffed - just cut the tops off, remove the seeds, stuff and roast them. I also have to try them roasted and peeled.

Gogosar

Gogosar

I'm not exactly sure what the provenance for my Florina peppers are. They were given to me in exchange for some of my Greek Gigante beans. Thank you Jack! Jack says he got the seeds from a friend who got them in Greece. All of this harvest got roasted, some used in a salad and the rest preserved "a la Hank". They are large and thick fleshed, roast beautifully, and do seem to have a particular sweetness to them, definitely a pepper to grow again.

Florina

Criolla de Cocina is a Chiltoma type pepper from Nicaragua. William Woys Weaver describes them in his book 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From. Chiltoma is the Nicaraguan term for any sweet pepper. It's a very wrinkled and fairly thin fleshed pepper. I haven't sampled this one yet either. Mr. Weaver says Chiltomas are a must for Criolla Salsa Campesina which he describes but I can't find a recipe for, I guess I'll just have to make up my own.  Shephard's Ramshorn has been one of my favorite roasting peppers for a few years now. All of these got fired up on the Egg and made into another batch of preserved peppers.

Criolla de Cocina, Shephard's Ramshorn, Padron

Rosso Dolce da Appendere is a large sweet frying pepper from Italy, similar to Corno de Toro. I've tried a few of them green after harvesting them accidentally when harvesting Sonora Anaheims. I've been so overwhelmed with peppers this last week that I haven't been able to try a lot of the harvest so I still haven't sample the ripe Rosso Dolces. The Anaheims have been roasted and stashed in the freezer for future use.

Rosso Dolce da Appendere and Sonora Anaheim

NTR started off as an off-type Topepo Rosso last year which turned out to be really tasty. The three plants that I grew this year are each producing a different type pepper, so now I'm calling them NTR Mutts. What fun!

NTR Mutts

Back to an old favorite. Lady Bell is one of the few hybrids that I grow. It does so well in my climate and produces such generous amounts of good tasting peppers that I'm reluctant to try any other red bell. These have been roasted and preserved for tasty treats through the next year.

Lady Bell

You've seen these before. The Rezha Macedonian plants have been fairly productive, especially considering that 2 of my 4 plants are growing in pots. These came from the vegetable garden.

Rezha Macedonian

This batch came from the pots. The pots are in a fairly isolated spot away from the rest of the peppers in the garden so I saved seeds from the best of this lot. All of these have been dried in the dehydrator to make paprika.

Rezha Macedonian

These De La Veras got smoked and are nearly dry enough to grind into Pimenton. I'm letting these dry at room temperature rather than in the dehydrator, a sort of accidental experiment since I didn't want to dry them while I had the dehydrator stuffed with non-smoked items.

De La Vera

Long des Lands looks similar to the De La Vera but I like to eat these fresh or sauteed. One day I cut them in quarters, removed the seeds, and tossed them with some some sliced sweet onions, herbs and olive oil and baked them in a cast iron skillet in the egg after I had finished roasting up a batch of peppers. Ooh they were tasty!

Long des Landes

I love roasted sweet peppers (if you hadn't noticed) and Odessa Market is really well suited for that preparation. This entire basket got roasted last week and preserved.

Odessa Market

They look just perfect! I've got a generous stash of roasted peppers in the fridge now - 9 jars, each containing 12 ounces of finished peppers. And I'm not done roasting peppers yet...

Roasted and skinned Odessa Market peppers

Aji Amarillo was a freebie seed that Artisan Seeds sent me. I love baccatum peppers so I had to try growing these. I wasn't sure how spicy these would be, they are described as medium heat, but these turned out to be just as I prefer, mildly spicy with a delicious fruity flavor.

Aji Amarillo

Two small fruited sweet peppers. Yummy Belle was bred in Czech and is a delicious snacking pepper. I've been slicing them up and packing them for lunch when Dave and I go out hiking. But they also fry up nicely, I threw a few in with the latest batch of Padrons, and they roast well also. I'll be growing these again next year. The IPK CAP 268 peppers are an unnamed pepper from Chile, the original seed was collected by Nikolai Vavilov on one of his collecting expeditions, the seed is being maintained by a seed bank in Germany, and the Seed Savers Exchange acquired some of those seeds and offers them to members. I tried it on a whim and it's turned out to be an interesting pepper. It's sweet with a very thick skin, medium thick flesh, lots of seeds. It's not great for eating fresh because of the thick skin, but it roasts beautifully. I've also halved, seeded, and dried enough to try making paprika.

Yummy Belle and IPK CAP 268

The tomato harvests are coming to an end, sob...

Amish Paste, Sweet Gold, Penn State Plum, Jaune Flamme

Even the Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes are just down to a trickle. And that's just about the last of the Pantanos. I also had one last nice round of Chianti Rose but forgot to photograph them.

Pantano

The snap beans are producing a second round. All three varieties are producing but I read that Rattlesnake beans are good as a dry bean so I'm letting all of them mature and picking them when the pods are dry.

Stortino di Trento and Purple Pole

The eggplants recovered enough to produce a fall crop. I've got four plants from a package of seeds that is supposed to produce purple, green, and white Fingers, but it turns out that I only got white and green.

White and Green Fingers eggplant

I saved seeds from a Sicilian eggplant a couple of years ago, but not all of them came true. There's a globe type and an elongated type, but they're both tasty so that's ok. There's one Bonica in the basket, the darkest elongated one.

Sicilian and Bonica eggplants

I continue to harvest side shoots from the Batavia and Di Ciccio broccolis. The Batavia produces larger and less leafy shoots and Di Ciccio produces longer stemmed shoots with smaller heads and more leaves.

Batavia and Di Ciccio broccoli

Also harvested but not photographed were the rest of the Winter Density lettuces which had all started to bolt. I tallied a few more onions as I used them. An there was one variety of pepper that I harvested but didn't photograph because they looked terrible, most of the Syrian Three sided peppers developed blossom end rot. And the last of the Mavritanskite tomatoes looked awful but produced a good tasting roasted tomato puree for the freezer.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:

Purple Pole beans - 9.9 oz.
Stortino di Trento beans - 6.6 oz.
Batavia broccoli - 9 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 5.7 oz.
Bonica eggplant - 11.4 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 2 lb., 7.5 oz.
Fingers eggplant - 1 lb., 9.4 oz.
Winter Density lettuce - 1 lb., 2.5 oz.
Tonda Musona onions - 16.7 oz.
Aji Amarillo peppers - 2.6 oz.
Criolla de Cocina peppers - 12.3 oz.
De La Vera peppers - 11.3 oz.
Florina Greek peppers - 2 lb., 6.6 oz.
Gogosar peppers - 3 lb., 3.1 oz.
IPK CAP 268 peppers - 1 lb., 14.6 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 4 lb., 9.9 oz.
NTR Mutt peppers - 1 lb., 8.3 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 4 lb., 12 oz.
Padron peppers - 2.9 oz.
Long des Landes peppers - 1 lb., 1.6 oz.
Rezha Macedonian peppers - 1 lb., 7.1 oz.
Rosso Dolce da Appendere peppers - 1 lb., 5.4 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 1 lb., 9.3 oz.
Sonora Anaheim peppers - 1 lb., 10 oz.
Syrian Three Sided peppers - 1 lb., 4.6 oz.
Yummy Belle peppers - 1 lb., 7.3 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 3 lb., 4 oz.
Chianti Rose tomatoes - 4 lb., 4.4 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 1 lb., 7.4 oz.
Mavritanskite tomatoes - 4 lb., 14.5 oz.
Pantano tomatoes - 4 lb., 2.1oz.
Penn State Plum tomatoes - 12.3 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 11.6 oz.

Total for the week - 58 lb., 7.9 oz.
2015 YTD - 880 lb., 11.1 oz.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to be inspired by what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.