August 27
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| From upper left:Aji Angelo, Pimento de Padron, Little Red Mystery Pepper, Yellow Manzano, and Jimmy Nardello's (center) |
I harvested the first ripe peppers from the 2 year old Aji Angelo baccatum plant. I dried these in a 200ºF oven for about 2 hours. The Pimento de Padron plants have been producing a steady harvest of young peppers. There's a 3 year old chinense pepper plant growing in a pot, I don't remember what variety it is and the tag has disappeared, but it produced the first 3 ripe peppers. Manzanos galore! They got the 200º drying treatment also. And the first sweet peppers are starting to ripen.
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| Salangana eggplant (top) and Diamond eggplant |
Ta da! the first eggplants of the season. I used four of these to make one of my favorite summer dishes, Eggplant and Lentil Stew with Pomegranate Molasses.
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| Salangana is spiny, Diamond is not. |
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| Neckarkönigin beans (again) |
The prodigious Neckarkönigin beans keep rolling in and the zucchini and cucumber vines have been producing like crazy. The first Amish Paste tomato ripened.
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| Zucchini, Tasty Green Japanese Cucumbers, Green Fingers Persian Cucumbers, the first Amish Paste tomato |
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| Gigante beans and green coriander seeds |
August 31
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| Start with a basketful of Neckarkönigin beans |
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| Add a few Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers |
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| And top it all off with a bunch of Green Fingers Persian cucumbers |
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| In basket #2 - Diamond, Kamo, and Salangana eggplants |
The eggplant is sizing up in a hurry. I used two pounds from this harvest to make something similar to ratatouille.
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| With a topping of Padron peppers |
This harvest of zucchini went into the ratatouille.
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| Finish it off with a few sprouts of Apollo Broccoli and some Da Fiore zucchini |
The Apollo broccoli plants keep pushing out new sprouts. I cut the plants down to nubs in anticipation of pulling them out, but they responded by growing some nice shoots.
September 1
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| Jimmy Nardello's sweet peppers |
I harvested these Jimmy Nardello's to use in the ratatouille and also used a lot of the Fiaschetto tomatoes in the same preparation.
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| Mostly Sunshine Cherry tomaotes and Fiaschetto tomatoes, and a few weird Rosabecs, one Amish Paste, and a Nyagous |
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| Melrose sweet peppers. |
The Melrose peppers also went into the ratatouille.
The weather has been has been driving me crazy lately, it can't decide if it's going to be warm or cool or what?
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| August 24 thru 31 |
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| August 27 thru September 3 (am) |
More cool, cool, warm, cold (45ºF this morning!).
The garden is confused. I'm confused. What to wear today - t-shirt and shorts or fleece? Will the tomatoes ripen today or not? At least I don't have to wonder if it will rain or not - it won't.
Anyway, here's the harvest totals for the past week:
Neckarkönigin green beans - 2 lb., 11.1 oz. (down to a relative trickle!)
Apollo broccoli - 3.6 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 3 lb., 13.1 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 3 lb., 14.4 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 2 lb., 11.5 oz.
Kamo eggplant - 2 lb., 1.3 oz.
Salangana eggplant - 2 lb., 2.4 oz
Aji Angelo peppers - 4.7 oz.
Jimmy Nardello's peppers - 9.5 oz.
Liebesapfel pepper - 2.3 oz.
Melrose peppers - 6.4 oz.
Padron peppers - 10.5 oz.
Yellow Manzano peppers - 1 lb., 8.1 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 9.5 oz.
Fiaschetto tomatoes - 4 l.b, 3.4 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 4.3 oz.
Nyagous tomatoes - 8.4 oz.
Rosabec tomatoes - 1 lb., 12.5 oz.
Sunshine Cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 9.6 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 4 lb., 10.4 oz.
The total harvests for the past week came to - 34 lb., 13.6 oz
Which brings the yearly total up to - 169 lb., 3 oz.
Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.
The summer produce is starting to really pour it on for you despite the yo yo weather pattern. If that is what your garden produces when confused, I can only imagine what it does when the conditions are all in perfect alignment and consistent!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, and green beans. I am hoping for a little extension of summerlike weather because I have a bunch of greenish tomatoes on the plants that I would really like to harvest someday. I am inspired by your success of overwintering peppers that I have decided to give it a try myself this year. I think getting a jump on the season will really help me out in that department if I can just manage to keep them alive through the winter months. Any tips from an old pro on that?
Not all peppers will overwinter well. Capsicum baccatums and C. pubescens are the most cold hardy, annuums always seem to succumb to the cold and/or a fungal problem, same with chinense peppers. I keep the peppers that I want to try to get through the winter in a protected spot next to the house with some overhead protection where they will get as much sun as possible. We usually get just a few nights of frost or freeze so that helps. I also do not prune the plants at all until well into spring, the dead branches will help to protect the rest of the plant from getting damaged from the cold. Once the plants start growing back in the spring I give them a very hard pruning to encourage growth from the base of the plants. Sometimes they come back ok and sometimes they don't.
DeleteCrazy weather, but fabulous harvests! It's just hot here in San Diego, I wish it was fleece weather for a spell.
ReplyDeleteLovely harvest. I love the eggplants.
ReplyDeleteawesome harvest this week. All those peppers looks so pretty! I like it when the broccoli keeps on giving!
ReplyDeleteWow, what wonderful and beautiful harvests! What are you planning to do with all those lovely eggplants??
ReplyDeleteFirst we will feast on our favorite eggplant dishes and then I will turn some into pickles and the rest I will slice, grill, and freeze. The frozen eggplant slices are great in Eggplant Parmesan. I simply layer the frozen slices with some tomato sauce (from the freezer), some sliced mozzarella and parmesan, and bake it until it is hot and bubbling.
DeleteWhat a bunch of tomatoes! Lovely harvest you have this week!
ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteWow those are crazy temps. Great selection of veggies, loved the spiny eggplant. We have not seen the 60's since April here. Nothing like baking in your own sweat for 6 months..
Great looking harvest. The tomatoes look great. We have had some crazy weather the last few days as well. But I'm just happy to say it hasn't been in the 90's for 3 days now!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat gorgeous and diverse harvests! I just love all of the colors!!!
ReplyDeleteHey, I recognize those weather patterns! Your harvests are beautiful and abundant.
ReplyDeleteWonderful harvests. Those spiny eggplants look vicious. And your beans look so good.
ReplyDeleteWish I could grow eggplant and peppers like those. Both are complete failures for me this year. The flea beetles wiped out the eggplants for the second year in a row. The peppers just sit there and look sick for some reason I haven't figured out. Anyway, there is always next year and I am going to try the Padon and Jimmy Nardello peppers you grow.
ReplyDeletesuch a wonderful harvest display! All those peppers, eggplants, beans, cucumbers - WOW!
ReplyDeleteFabulous harvests. I want to eat that eggplant dish now - sounds delicious. You're getting a good lot of eggplants, when did you start them? Mine always seem to fruit later in the season than I'd like.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great harvest! I really need to try your eggplant and lentil stew. It sounds divine, and I'm quickly running out of novel things to do with eggplants at the moment, we seem to be drowning in them this year...not that I'm complaining after two chilly summers. Looks like you're gardening just down the coast from us, so it's fun to see what's growing for you.
ReplyDelete