Harvest Monday - 11/23/2009

Harvest Monday is here again, what a nice way to start the week! I'm still bringing in some "summer" vegetables in spite of night time temperatures dipping down as far as the low 30F's. This is the final harvest of Diamond eggplants shown below. We've already eaten half of them this week and they have still been very very good.

The Pimento de Padrons are still trickling in also. I roasted the picking shown above on the day I harvested them and they were delicious also, not a spicy one in the bunch. There's also two more Chilhuacle Amarillo chile peppers and two ripe Marconi Purple sweet peppers. And the first handful of Opal Creek Yellow snap peas! The snap peas are distinctly yellow when the pods are young and flat. As the green peas inside develop they start showing through the translucent yellow pods, turning the pods a pale yellowish-green. These were sweet and tender.

The pepper plants have been surviving the low night time temperatures, although a couple of the chinenese plants got a little bit of frost damage on their tender young new growth. Here's a trayful of Aji Angelo chile peppers.

And here's a few Petaluma Gold Rush beans, some coriander seeds, and another bunch of fennel seeds.

I used the very last of my seed stock to grow the Petaluma Gold Rush beans this year and they didn't do very well. Fortunately, enough beans dried on the plants to try again next year. These beans don't seem to available anywhere so I want to try to grow out enough next year to offer some seeds.

Piracicaba broccoli shoots.

I finally harvested the Magadalena Big Cheese squashes.

I had two Magadalena Big Cheese plants, but both of the squash that I harvested came off of one plant. These weighed in at 6lb 2oz and 4lb 12oz. The other plant set a couple of squash much later than the first plant. Those squash are still on the vine and the plant is still alive so I'll leave them for now.

Gigantesque and Black Sea Man tomatoes - I'm not sure if these will have much flavor after spending a few nights in the cold. But the Piment Doux Long des Landes sweet peppers are still flavorful.

Cherry tomatoes harvested on Saturday.

The Black Cherry and Isis Candy tomatoes plants bit the dust on Sunday. The cold weather has definitely affected the flavor of the cherry tomatoes and I've decided to pull them out in spite of them still producing. Time to move on...

The Meyer Lemon tree is loaded with newly ripe lemons.

I picked a bunch of lemons yesterday, at least 20, but neglected to take a photograph. Some of them were juiced to make a tart that had a thin layer of bittersweet chocolate on the bottom of the crust, the rest of the filling was lemon curd. That little bit of chocolate was fantastic with the lemon. The lemons that I didn't use were given to a friend who doesn't have her own Meyer Lemon tree yet.

I nearly forgot about the big bunch of Portugese kale that I harvested. It was braised with some garlic and chicken stock - my husband loved it!

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne of Daphne's Dandelions. Get on over there to check out what other garden bloggers are harvesting. And if you're harvesting something, join the fun and show us what you've got!