Monday, September 20, 2010

Harvest Monday - September 20, 2010

This was the week for preserving peppers and eggplants. There weren't large amounts of peppers to harvest but there was variety.


Left to Right Topepo Rosso,
Esplette, and PI593480 (Morocco)
The Topepo Rosso peppers are moderately spicy and I used them to make a pepper paste to freeze for later use. The Morocco peppers were made into a sweet pepper paste which is also in the freezer. The Esplette peppers are in the dehydrator even now.


Left to Right: De La Vera, Guyana,
Aji Pineapple (small yellow),
Manzano Yellow (round yellow),
and Drew's Chorizero
De La Vera and Chorizero peppers are in the dehydrator and the rest of the peppers shown above were packaged and put in the freezer whole.


Diamond Eggplants


The Diamond eggplants came through for me this year in spite of the cool weather. Most of these were preserved. I preserved some of them using an Italian method, Sott'Olio, literally under oil. They were sliced, poached in a water and vinegar solution, left to dry for a couple of hours in the sun, and then packed into jars with seasonings and olive oil. They will keep in the refrigerator for months. The smallest eggplant were steamed until tender, then stuffed with a garlic, oregano, and pepper flake mixture and packed into jars and covered with white wine vinegar. And the rest of them were sliced and grilled and frozen.

Eggplant prepared for preserving Sott'Olio


The Petaluma Gold Rush beans are drying on the plants. I started collecting and shelling them this past week. There's still a lot of them left on the plants.

Petaluma Gold Rush Beans


And surprise, surprise! The rats didn't munch my raspberry vines down to the ground this year and I actually get to enjoy a few berries every once in a while. I'm not getting enough of these to bother with putting them in the harvest totals.

Autumn Bliss raspberries


The tomato harvests continue to trickle in. I made a couple more batches of Moroccan Tomato Jam and froze it. Some tomatoes were bagged and frozen whole. I dried the Aunt Ruby's cherry tomatoes, they're large enough to make a nice dried tomato. There's one batch of oven roasted tomato sauce in the freezer.  And the rest of the tomatoes have been consumed or given away.

And the zucchini plants put out one more flush of blossoms that was large enough to gather and stuff, most likely the last time for this year.


Here's the harvests for the past week:

Petaluma Gold Rush beans - 1 lb., 7 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 7 lb.,  4.5 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 2 lb.
Aji Pineapple peppers - .25 oz.
Chorizero peppers -  3.25 oz.
Cuerno de Cabra peppers - 9 oz.
De La Vera peppers - 10 oz.
Espelette peppers - 6.75 oz.
Guyana peppers - 7.5 oz.
Iberian Cayenne peppers - 3 oz.
Madrid Bell Sweet peppers - 17 oz.
PI593480 (Morocco) peppers - 13.25 oz.
Topepo Rosso peppers - 1 lb., 10 oz.
Ananas Noir tomatoes - 8.25 oz.
Andine Cornue tomatoes - 1 lb., 3.5 oz.
Aunt Ruby's Cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 10 oz.
Chocolate Stripes tomatoes - 2 lb., 7.5 oz.
Galinas cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 9.5 oz.
Gigantesque tomatoes - 3 lb., 6.25 oz.
Katja tomatoes - 4 lb., 5 oz.
Lenny and Gracie's Kentucky heirloom tomatoes - 1 lb., 15.25 oz.
Not Wes tomatoes - 3 lb., 7.5 oz.
Zucchini - 3 lb., 5.5 oz.
Zucchini blossoms - 3.5 oz.

The total harvests for the week were: 40 lb., 12.25 oz.
The total for the year is: 544 lb., 9.25 oz.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions, the home of Harvest Monday, to see lots more harvests from other garden bloggers.

22 comments:

  1. The peppers look beautiful, and I'm glad you got some Espelette and chorizo peppers. I haven't grown de la Vera peppers - did you know that in La Vera they smoke dry them, because the sun's not hot enough there to dry them in the sun, and that's why when you buy the La Vera paprika it's always smoky?

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  2. Interesting to see all you do with your eggplants. The Sott'Olio method sounds interesting. I doubt I will have enough eggplants to experiment with this year, but maybe next. Most of this year's crop has been grilled and eaten!

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  3. It looks like a really nice harvest week for you. The peppers are so pretty. Some of my serranos are starting to ripen. I try to keep them picked off a the green stage, but I haven't gotten around to them lately.

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  4. wow, I love the look of red peppers but those yellow ones sure are bright and pretty too! The beans look great too!

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  5. I love the colors of your harvest. Reds, yellows, and PURPLE!!! I think the beans are my favorite!

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  6. I love the eggplant preserving ideas. I rarely grow them as I am the only one that even likes them in my house, but with these ideas I could grow at least one plant and then spread the harvest out by preserving them (particularly the in oil method). Thanks for the info. Great harvest this week (as usual!).

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  7. chaiselongue, I do love the smoky de la Vera Pimenton. I would have experimented with smoking my peppers but didn't end up with enough peppers or enough time at the moment to warrant it, maybe next year. The Espelette and chorizero peppers are still producing and the plants are nice and healthy so I hope to get more peppers later this Fall.

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    villager, the grilling and freezing method is how I eat and preserve most of my eggplant - another 3 pounds hit the grill tonight. This is the first time I've tried the Sott'Olio method with eggplant, but have been doing zucchini that way for a few years and love it so I hope the eggplant are equally as good.

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    Daphne, I sure can't complain about most of the harvest. The pepper yield was really disappointing though, that's not much to show for 70 plants.

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    Shawn Ann, thanks, I love the look of the yellow peppers too.

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    debicleg, yeah purple, I love it too. I love the way a few of the beans have the color pattern reversed, don't know why they do that.

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    kitsapFG, Oh yes, preserving the eggplant that way would mean that you, and only you, will get to enjoy them the rest of the year. Too bad if the rest of the gang decides that eggplant preserved that way is tasty. ;-)

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  8. You grow a lot of beautiful pepper varieties! Colors of the harvest are amazing!

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  9. Oh my I'm pepper envied, the Topedo Rosso sounds good.

    I'll have to grow more peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes next year. So many veggies and fruits I want to grow, so little space!

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  10. oh! bean I've not seen before and purple? Color me interested! :-)

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  11. I've heard good things about Diamond. I'll have to try it. That perserving method is bookmarked so that I can try it next year. Thanks.

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  12. vrtlarica, the colors of summer, I'll be missing them soon.

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    mac, the Topepo Rosso is usually a sweet pepper, you have to search for seeds for the picante variety. My seeds are getting to be old and I would offer you some but I don't want to send you a bunch of duds. It's a nice meaty pepper that also is good charred and skinned.

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    Barbie, Oh, I guess that photo makes the beans look purple, bad photo, they're actually more of a burgundy and buff combo. I'll be offering them for trades later when I've finished the harvest.

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    Ottawa Gardener, Diamond is a good variety for short season or cool climate gardens. Remind me later to post a more detailed recipe for the Sott'Olio, I don't have time to write it up now.

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  13. Those beans are just so pretty! An what amazing capsicum and pepper harvests.

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  14. Most impressive. Wonderful to see all the beautiful stuff you have harvest this week Michelle! Amazing, now I have to ask - How many mouths du you feed?

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  15. And here I was bragging about my pepper harvest ... HA ! (lol) Very nice !
    I think all your eggplants (was it 3 varieties ?) did very well, this season. How many plants of each did you grow ?

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  16. Beautiful pictures Michelle! I always enjoy looking at your harvests. I see you have a hand shot of raspberries this week as well. hahaha.

    P.S. Those beans are stunning.

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  17. Those were the beans you were telling me about. They look great!

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  18. funkbunny, thank you!

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    Tyra, there's just two of us!

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    miss m, it's really not much of a harvest for 72 plants, but I hope to get more in the next few weeks. I grew 2 varieties of eggplant this year and got a few good harvests once the weather warmed up. If I remember correctly there are 5 of the Diamond and 6 of the Malaysian Dark Red plants.

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    Thomas, funny how we each took the hand shot of our big raspberry harvests, ha ha, indeed. :)

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    Dan, those are the ones! They should be dry enough in a few weeks to start mailing out.

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  19. I am impressed by your pepper variety. If you ever are so inclined, I would love to read about your impressions of the different varieties, both from a horticultural and culinary point of view. Or, maybe simpler, which one is your favorite?

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  20. Most impressive. Wonderful to see all the beautiful stuff you have harvest this week

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  21. Angela, my favorite pepper that I've harvested so far is the Guyana, it has a nice fruity flavor and a fair amount of heat without being blazing hot.

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    Tracy, thanks!

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  22. Thanks Michelle, I'll have to try the Guyana. Flavorful, spicy but not blazing hot sounds like a perfect pepper to me.

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