Harvest Monday - October 29, 2012

The harvests fell off quite a bit in the past week, the garden is putting out the last of the summer vegetables and there isn't much out there for autumn. The rain that was promised for the first half of the week didn't really materialize, just a bit one evening and day and then "summer" came back to visit again. 

I didn't get around to photographing all of the harvests, just what I picked on Sunday.

I plucked all the nearly ripe Large Sweet Antigua sweet peppers off of the plants. These are a very late ripening pepper and seem to be reluctant to actually fully color up on the plant. Once harvested and brought indoors they turn completely red in just a couple of days, but left on the plants they stay partially green seemingly indefinitely. It's a very good pepper, large and thick fleshed, sweet and crisp. I like it a lot except that it is a very late producer, although it's actually nice to have a late variety to extend the season.

Large Sweet Antigua

The rest of the sweet peppers are producing nearly the last of their ripe peppers. Odessa Market and Shephard's Ramshorn both produced a last good flush of ripe peppers. These are both OP varieties that I'm trying because they were described as being good producers in cool or northern climates. I'm pleased with both of them and will give them another chance to show me their stuff next year. I'm growing two OP bell type peppers that I'm not impressed with, both King of the North and Wisconsin Lakes produced small thin-fleshed fruits. The flavor of both varieties is fine and are good for eating fresh, but the production and fruit quality does not compare to the two hybrid varieties that I'm trying. I really love roasted peeled sweet peppers and the thin fleshed varieties just don't work as well for that.

Left to Right:
Odessa Market, Shephard's Ramshorn w/ King of the North,
Lady Bell w/ Sunnybrook Pimento,
Wisconsin Lakes w/ Morocco

Flamingo Bell, one of the hybrid bells, had another half dozen really nice peppers left to harvest and a couple of misshapen runts. This has been the second best of the bell type peppers, after Lady Bell hybrid, and only because it produced slightly less so far.  It would be difficult to choose one over the other. I'll probably grow both again next year to test them together again.

Flamingo Bell w/ Liebesapfel

The tomatoes are nearly finished. There were still a number of Martian Giants left on the plants but I only found a couple of Nyagous and three small Jaune Flammes. There aren't really even very many green tomatoes left on the vines. That will make it so much easier to pull the plants out, I hate to have lots of green tomatoes to deal with.

Martian Giant, Nyagous, and Jaune Flamme

There were enough Amish Paste tomatoes to make one more batch of sauce or perhaps some slow roasted tomatoes since I've got more than enough sauce, puree, paste, and canned tomatoes on hand now. The Rosabecs have just about finished also, I only found 3 small ripe tomatoes.

Amish Paste and Rosabec

The cherry tomato vines produced just enough to keep my husband happy for a few more days. The warm weather that we've been having off and on for the past few weeks seems to have given the Wheatly's Frost Resistant tomatoes more flavor and those have been disappearing as quickly as the Sunshine Cherry tomatoes.

Wheatly's Frost Resistant and Sunshine Cherry

I finally weighed all the dried Greek Gigante beans. I'm quite happy with the production I got from the plants and have plenty of beans for both eating and to sow more next year. Now I have to cook up a batch and see if they rise to my culinary expectations...

Greek Gigante Beans

Not photographed this week were the latest pickings of Pimento de Padrons. These surprised me this week with a jolt of spiciness. They have been mild all season until recently. I suspect that the two heat waves we had a few weeks ago stressed the plants enough to make the peppers hot. I also harvested a fair number of zucchini in the past week that I didn't photograph. I think that those will be nearly the last of the zucchini, the powdery mildew is really running rampant and the vines will be ready to pull out very soon. And I also didn't photograph the latest handful of broccoli shoots. The fall harvests are far different from the spring harvests with smaller main heads and fewer side shoots, but the plants look like they will continue to produce more shoots and perhaps they will improve as the days get cooler again. 

We've been cycling between cool and warm weather lately. Earlier this week we had a system come through that produced just a bit of rain and cooler temperatures and a nose-dive down to 40ºF one morning. Then "summer" came back. In a few days we are supposed to have cooler temperatures and another chance at some rain. The garden seems to be tolerating the swings fairly well, the lettuce has slowed it's race toward seed production and the few brassicas that I've got going are plodding along as well.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Greek Gigante beans - 7 lb., 5.1 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 6.3 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumber - 4.1 oz (the final harvest)
Flamingo bell peppers - 1 lb., 5.3 oz.
King of the North bell peppers - 3.2 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 12.3 oz.
Large Sweet Antigua peppers - 2 lb., 15.4 oz.
Liebesapfel pimento peppers - 2.8 oz.
Morocco peppers - 12 oz.
Pimenta Biquinho peppers - .6 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 1 lb., 2.4 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 1 lb., 5.1 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 14.8 oz.
Sunnybrook pimento peppers - 2.3 oz.
Wisconsin Lakes bell peppers - 8 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 4 lb., 3.5 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2.8 oz.
Martian Giant tomatoes - 4 lb., 7.5 oz.
Nyagous tomatoes - 2.3 oz.
Rosabec tomatoes - 5 oz.
Sunshine Cherry tomatoes - 9 oz.
Wheatly's Frost Resistant cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 2.7 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 2 lb., 6 oz.

The total harvests for the past week came to - 31 lb., 10.5 oz.
Which brings the harvest totals for the year up to - 650 lb., 11.7 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.

I hope that all of you who are stuck in the path of Sandy come through whole and well, my thoughts are with you.

Harvest Monday - October 22, 2012

The pepper plants have wildly exceeded my expectations this year. I am truly amazed. And the tomatoes put on a great show as well (fewer rat attacks this year). And their timing couldn't have been better. We are supposed to have a few days of cold wet wintry weather this week starting last night and the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants have managed to finish producing the bulk of their crops before the turn in the weather. I'll be spending the next few days in the kitchen tackling this bounty.

Here's most of what I harvested in the past week.

Friday was the day to collect as many ripe thick fleshed peppers as I could find on the plants.

Flamingo Bell, Wisconsin Lakes (center),
 Large Sweet Antigua (right)

Clockwise: Morocco (top), King of the North, Odessa Market,
Sunnybrook Pimento

Shephard's Ramshorn and Liebesapfel

Lady Bell

Sunday I harvested any eggplant bigger than a baby plus the first Pimenta Biquinho peppers. The Biquinho peppers are a mild Capsicum chinense (same family as Habanero peppers) from Brazil. I'm happy to be getting a few ripe pods off of my plants this year but I'm afraid that the bulk of the peppers may not ripen in the coming cool weather. I'm contemplating trying to cover the plants to extend their harvest as long as possible.

Salangana (left), Sicilian (bottom), Kamo (right),
Pimenta Biquinho peppers

And I harvested all the ripe and nearly ripe tomatoes. I decided to take my chances on the half ripe tomatoes and left them on the plants. The weather is supposed to warm up a bit again at the end of the week and I've harvested plenty of fabulous tomatoes so far, so I'm going to wait and see. Most of the half ripe tomatoes remaining are on the Amish Paste and Martian Giant plants, but the bulk of the tomatoes have already been harvested.

Amish Paste

Martian Giant

The rest of the tomato plants have very few fruits left on the vine, most of them green if any at all. The harvest amounts have dropped off significantly from the peak of their production.

Left to Right: Rosabec, Wheatly's Frost Resistant,
Sunshine Cherry, Nyagous and Jaune Flamme

The powdery mildew riddled cucumber and zucchini plants managed to push out a few more good specimens.

Tasty Green cucumbers, Da fiore zucchini,
Fiaschetto tomatoes

The thin fleshed sweet peppers ripened up most of the remaining pods, although the Padron peppers (not photographed this week) are still pumping out green peppers.

Sigaretta Dolce (top),
Melrose

I harvested all the large green late producing Big Jim New Mexico peppers. This is another pepper that I like green, they are wonderful roasted. The ripe pods are very good dried.

Big Jim Numex peppers

When I am finally able to come up for air after processing the wonderful abundance from my garden I'll be posting about what I've been doing with it and writing up my assessment of the different varieties.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Edamame beans - 12.4 oz. (what a waste of time and garden space)
Apollo broccoli - 3.4 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 9.2 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 1 lb., 13.8 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 1.6 oz.
Kamo eggplant - 1 lb., 10.6 oz.
Salangana eggplant - 1 lb., 14..2 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 7.6 oz.
Big Jim numex peppers - 4 lb., 12.4 oz.
Flamingo bell peppers - 3 lb., 8.5 oz.
Jimmy Nardello's peppers - 6.5 oz.
King of the North bell peppers - 1 lb., 7.4 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 4 lb., 5.1 oz.
Large Sweet Antigua peppers - 5.7 oz.
Liebesapfel peppers - 1 lb., 14.7 oz.
Melrose peppers - 1 lb., .8 oz.
Morocco peppers - 3 lb., 6.8 oz.
Pimenta Biquinho peppers - 1.4 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 2 lb., 10.4 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 15.1 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 4 lb., 6.5 oz.
Sigaretta Dolce peppers - 1 lb., 13.6 oz.
Sunnybrook Pimento peppers - 1 lb., 7.7 oz.
Wisconsin Lakes bell peppers - 2 lb., 3.2 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 14 lb., 2 oz.
Fiaschetto tomatoes - 3 lb., 6.9 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2.5 oz.
Martian Giant tomatoes - 21 lb. (big wow!)
Nyagous tomatoes - 11.1 oz.
Rosabec tomatoes - 2 lb., 12.4 oz.
Sunshine Cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 2.2 oz.
Wheatly's Frost Resistant cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 6.1 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 2 lb., 9.5 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to - 89 lb., 11.3 oz.
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 619 lb., 1.2 oz.

Whoo hoo, I passed the 600 pound mark! Thanks to 283 pounds of tomatoes and 93 pounds of peppers so far this year (vs. 110 and 15 pounds respectively last year total, and 149 and 45 pounds each in 2010), the vast majority of which were harvested in September and October this year and last year. In 2010 the tomato harvests started in August and continued through October. It is interesting to be able to go back and look at my detailed harvest records. What I wish I had for the same time frame is a record of the local weather. I know that 2010 was a more normal weather year, this year and 2011 were cooler than our usual cool summers which slowed the development of the solanaceous crops. But regardless of a cool or normal summer, the majority of the "summer" crops ripen in September and October around here. This is why I told my husband last year (while we were on vacation the first two weeks of October) that I won't go away for more than a few days at this time of year any more, there's just too much coming out of my garden and I don't want it to go to waste or have to give away the fruits of my labor. It also happens to be the very best time of year around here, with the warmest and sunniest days and fewer tourists crowds around town. So why leave?

So, the weather in the past week did it's pendulum trick again, swinging from warm to hot past warm again to cold, the high high was 93ºF last Thursday and the low low was 41ºF on Sunday morning.

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.

Harvest Monday - October 15, 2012

Things returned to the typical fall (our real summer) pattern early last week. Warm and sunny days, cool nights, and summer harvests. There was a fair amount of eggplant ready to harvest. I pretty much cleaned out the Diamond eggplant, there are a few flowers on the plants and a couple of baby fruits, but I think Diamond's days are pretty much over. Kamo has slowed down a lot also but there are more baby fruits on the plants. Salangana is still producing, the plants are twice as tall as the other two varieties and that seems to be giving them the edge in productivity, although the fruits are not as big as they were earlier in the season. I harvested a few green peppers from the Shephard's Ramshorn plants. I usually like my sweet peppers ripe but I have a favorite recipe for an eggplant and lentil stew that includes green peppers and these green ones are excellent in that preparation.

Eggplant, zucchini, a cucumber, sunburned pimentos,
and green Shephard's Ramshorn sweet peppers

The three days of HOT weather last week helped to push a lot of the sweet peppers to turn fully ripe.

Liebesapfel and Wisconsin Lakes

I was truly happy that I have been keeping the plants under the protection of a lightweight remay fabric.

Flamingo Bell and Odessa Market

The small leaves on the plants means that many of the peppers are exposed to full sunlight and a few of fruits that were peeking out from under cover got sunburned last week but most of them came through the blast of heat just fine.

I must say that I've been really thrilled at how productive my sweet peppers have been. They have far exceeded my expectations this year. The virus that has stunted the leaves doesn't not seem to have affected the productivity or the quality of the fruits.

Sunnybrook Pimento and Lady Bell

Shephard's Ramshorn and Morocco

And then we had a bit of a taste of winter for a couple of days, gray skies, cold days, the first real rain in months (accompanied by lightening and thunder). We don't generally count on getting rain in October, but it isn't unusual either. It was so refreshing, the air was incredibly perfumed, clean and spice scented. And the dust was tamped down. I always forget how dusty it gets after a few months with no rain.

Rain! And lightening and thunder!

And then, back to our regularly scheduled Indian Summer... The sun came back out, it's warm again, and the harvests continue.

Aji Angelo, some sunburned from the heat wave the week before

My potted Aji Angelo pepper plants up next to the house received a full blast of sun and heat last week and a number of the ripening chiles were damaged.

More Aji Angelos from a more shaded plant

Zucchini and Tasty Green cucumbers

The zucchini, cucumbers and broccoli didn't stop growing just because it was raining. They didn't wait for me to get back out to the garden.

Apollo Broccoli

And the Padrons kept on growing also.

Pimento de Padrons

Sunday is tomato day, I've fallen into a routine of harvesting the tomatoes once a week. First the cherry tomatoes, they are the most work to harvest and I like to get that chore out of the way. The Sunshine cherry production has fallen off a lot (thank goodness), but there's still enough to keep my husband happy, he loves to take a small bagful in his lunch most days. Wheatly's Frost Resistant cherries are hitting their peak, not too prolific (another thank goodness). These are not the tastiest for eating out of hand but I found that they taste better dried so I'll dry most of the rest of the crop.

Sunshine Cherry and Wheatly's Frost Resistant Cherry tomatoes

Then I usually harvest the Fiaschetto tomatoes but there aren't many of those left on the vines and somehow I didn't get around to harvesting them yesterday. Next up are the salad  tomatoes. I was worried that the rain would cause a lot of splitting in the tomato patch but found that it wasn't too much of a problem except for the Jaune Flamme. I'll have to use the splits up today, I haven't decided how.

Nyabous, Rosabec, and Jaune Flamme tomatoes

The Amish Paste tomatoes hit full production this week. Twenty pounds! That will fill a few more quart jars.

Amish Paste

And the Martian Giants also - thirteen pounds.

Martian Giant

Following the tomato harvest, a few more Padrons, a couple of Kamo eggplant, more zucchini (starting to get a bit rounded at the ends from incomplete pollination), a few more cucumbers, more small Salangana eggplants, the first BIG Sicilian eggplants, and a few more Melrose sweet peppers.

Padrons, Kamo eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers,
Sicilian and Salangana eggplants,
Melrose peppers

I plucked a few Big Jim NewMex peppers that got sunburned and turned red. I usually like to harvest my NewMex peppers green and roast them. I have three Sigaretta Dolce plants and each plant is producing a different shaped pepper. The second box from the left is the expected long thin smooth "cigarette" shape, the next box to the right has long but not as thin peppers, and the third box has fatter and wrinkled peppers. I haven't tasted them separately yet but will do so soon.

Sunburned and ripe Big Jim peppers
Sigaretta Dolce peppers from three different plants

I've been finding it interesting to watch the temperature charts lately, we've had fairly quick swings all over the place. Last week we started the week with a heat wave that produced highs near or above 100ºF for three days which then dropped back to the more typical highs in the 70ºF range for about 5 days. Then a winter type (for us) system visited for a couple of days this week. Now we are headed into a predicted warm spell with highs expected in the mid to high 80ºF range for a few days.

The only harvest that didn't get photographed this week was a handful of edamame beans that I pulled off of one plants. I haven't tried to cook them yet and am not sure that it will be worth the effort, they are pretty small and perhaps past their prime, but they're in the totals anyway.

One of these days I'll be doing a post about how I've been preserving the harvests lately. I've been taking some photographs but just haven't had time to pull it all together and write up a post.

Here's the harvest totals from the past week:

Edamame beans - 2.5 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 1 lb., 3.5 oz.
Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 5.3 oz.
Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 2 lb., 8.4 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 1 lb., .9 oz.
Kamo eggplant - 1 lb., .7 oz.
Salangana eggplant - 5 lb., 2 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 1 lb., 6.6 oz.
Aji Angelo peppers - 15.1 oz.
Big Jim peppers - 4.7 oz.
Flamingo Bell peppers - 1 lb., 11.2 oz.
King of the North bell peppers - 1 lb., 15.2 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 2 lb., 12.9 oz.
Liebesapfel peppers - 1 lb., 11 oz.
Melrose peppers - 9.8 oz.
Morocco peppers - 1 lb., 6.4 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 1 lb., 1.2 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 1 lb., 6.4 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 1 lb., 7.2 oz.
Sigaretta Dolce peppers - 1 lb., 14.8 oz.
Sunnybrook Pimento peppers - 2 lb., 10.1 oz.
Wisconsin Lakes peppers - 1 lb., 1.9 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 20 lb., 6.4 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2 lb., 15.9 oz.
Martian Giant tomatoes - 13 lb., 4.1 oz.
Nyagous tomatoes - 3 lb., 4.2 oz.
Rosabec tomatoes - 1 lb., 14.9 oz.
Sunshine Cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 4.1 oz.
Wheatly's Frost Resistant cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 13.9 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 5 lb., .2 oz.

The total harvests for the past week came to - 84 lb., 13.5 oz.
Which brings the totals for the year up to - 529 lb., 3.4 oz.

Last week I speculated on whether I would hit the 500 pound mark this year, uh yeah, passed that by, so now I'll be audacious and speculate on the possiblity of hitting the 600 pound mark.

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.

Harvest Monday - October 8, 2012

Sorry Daphne, but the Solanaceae party continued in my garden this week, don't look!

Some tomato varieties are past their peak production and a couple of others are just getting there. Eggplant, none to show this week, but it's there, waiting to be harvested. The sun was setting yesterday as I finished picking tomatoes so the eggplant gets harvested today. And the peppers finally came to the party earlier this week and will be hanging around for a while.

The star performer in the garden this week was Amish Paste. These really started to ripen up in the past two weeks and I think have probably peaked this week. I'm planning on canning most of these, the harvest from the previous week was cooked down to a puree and frozen.

Amish Paste

Martian Giant was not far behind the Amish Paste. The three day heat wave we had early last week finally pushed these to ripen, seemingly all at once. I harvested these last Wednesday

Martian Giant

and these were harvested yesterday. My husband and I enjoyed our first BLT sandwiches yesterday which featured one of the huge Martian Giant tomatoes. I think this is the perfect BLT tomato, it is the perfect size - one huge thick slice per sandwich, the flavor is neither too tangy nor too sweet - just tomatoey, and it is just juicy enough to soak the bread and drip all over the place. Heavenly.

More Martian Giant

The Nyagous harvests peaked last week but are still producing well. There would have been more but some critter has decided that this variety is its favorite and I've lost a pound or two of fruits over the past couple of weeks to the marauder.

Nyagous

I used a few pounds of the previous harvest of Nyagous tomatoes to make a double recipe of Paula Wolfert's Sesame-studded Tomato Jam. This is not a traditional sugary pectin-thickened jam. I love this jam because it gets all its sweetness from the tomatoes and a touch of honey. The tomatoes are first roasted in a hot oven to char the skins and soften the flesh. The skins are removed and the tomatoes are cooked down to a very thick puree and then seasoned with honey, cinnamon, and orange flower water. The seeds that you see in the photo below are the tomato seeds, you sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on the jam when you serve it. It is delicious served with any number of things, from cheese to vegetables to fish or chicken or pork, or just spread on crackers. I think that a few pounds of the Martian Giant tomatoes may be destined for another batch of this "jam". This recipe is a great way to reduce a big pile of tomatoes to an easy to store treat, 4 pounds of tomatoes yielded 4 4-ounce jars of jam. The jam freezes beautifully, I pack it into 4-ounce canning jars, press a bit of plastic wrap onto the surface to help prevent freezer burn and cap it. The jam doesn't freeze rock hard which makes it possible to cut portions of it from the jar without thawing out the entire jar so it is possible to freeze it in larger portions if you prefer.

Moroccan Tomato Jam made from Nyagous tomatoes

I got a nice harvest of Rosabec tomatoes yesterday but there are not a lot of green tomatoes left on the vine. This is my favorite tomato for making Tomato Gazpacho this season, it makes a beautiful rosy colored soup that I like to garnish with the other colored tomatoes. This variety is also delicious as a slicing and salad tomato. It has a nice balance of acid and sweetness, is firm fleshed and juicy, and pretty.

Rosabec

Sunshine Cherry tomatoes, whew, the plant is finally past its peak of production. There are still plenty of them to keep my husband happy, he loves to snack on them and he takes a baggie of them in his lunch every day.

Sunshine Cherry

I think my favorite tomato this year is Jaune Flamme. It's beautiful. It turns a golden yellow as it ripens and then starts to turn orange starting at the stem end. When you slice it the orange color runs into the core but the gel stays green, the effect is striking. And it's delicious, with a tangy fruity sweetness and moderately meaty texture that is never mealy. We've been eating most of them fresh in salads and chopped to use in gazpacho, but they were starting to pile up so I used the last of the harvest from the previous two weeks (did I mention that they keep amazingly well just sitting on the counter?) to cook down to a puree to freeze.

My least favorite tomato this year is Wheatly's Frost Resistant. My husband described them yesterday as tangy but not sweet. They have a soft texture that's not particularly juicy. They are quite pretty and I they are perfectly good used in salads, but are not my first choice for snacking. I won't be growing them again.

The Fiaschetto tomatoes are definitely winding down. I dried a lot of these this year, there's 7 1-pint jars of dried tomatoes that I keep in the refrigerator to preserve the color. It takes at least 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes to fill one jar with dried tomatoes. I love to use dried tomatoes in frittatas and I've been making a lot of frittatas lately so I hope that the 7 jars will get me through the year. I also canned a case of pint jars full of Fiaschettos. And I used four pounds to make a double batch of Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter to stash in the freezer. Oh wow, is this sauce addictive. Perhaps I'll have to make some more...

Jaune Flamme, Wheatly's Frost Resistant, and Fiaschetto

The peppers are producing, the peppers are producing! Well, the Padrons have been producing for weeks now because they are harvested as babies.

Martian Giant tomatoes and Pimento de Padron peppers

But the rest of the peppers are finally ripening.

Peppers, peppers, peppers...

Sorry, I can't remember now all of which are which. I got enough thick fleshed peppers, bells and pimentos, to roast enough to fill 3 1-pint jars with Preserved Sweet Peppers. I dried some of the Sigaretta Dolce peppers (at the top of the photo), some of the Melrose peppers (bottom), and some of the Jimmy Nardellos (right). The Liebesapfel peppers (pimento type shown on the left) went into the gazpacho.

The same peppers

More zucchini, in spite of the quickly spreading powdery mildew. And yet a few more cucumbers and Rolande filet beans. This harvest was from last Wednesday and I harvested but didn't photograph like amounts of the same vegetables yesterday.

Da Fiore zucchini, Tasty Green and Green Fingers cucumbers,
Rolande filet beans

I'm still plucking dried pods of Greek Gigante runner beans off of the vines. I've got enough shelled beans to fill 4 1-quart jars and there's a few remaining pods left on the vines that haven't dried yet. I will weigh the harvest and add them to the harvest tally when all the beans have been shelled and dried.

Greek Gigante beans in the pods

The heat wave last week lasted three days with peak temperatures that hit 98º on Monday, then 101º and 102º the next two days and then cooled down to the more typical highs we experience this time of year. The local weather station didn't record any temperatures after 4:00 pm Friday afternoon so it doesn't show this weekend's highs and lows, but the highs per my gauges hit the mid-70ºs, right about normal. Coming up, it's supposed to cool off a bit more and there's a slight chance of showers.

The heat wave was just enough to push the lettuce over the edge and it is now bolting, dang it. I harvested but didn't photograph one head of Sweetie Baby romaine to use in the BLT. I guess we'll be eating a lot more green salad in the next couple of weeks, I will need to harvest the rest of the lettuce this week but it should keep well in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. The heat also caused some damage in the garden, a number of plants were sunburned, but that's a post for another day.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 11.6 oz.

Green Fingers Persian cucumbers - 10.5 oz.

Tasty Green Japanese cucumbers - 1 lb., 14.3 oz.

Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 6.8 oz.

Jimmy Nardello's peppers - 1 lb., 2.2 0z.

King of the North bell peppers - 9.2 oz.

Large Sweet Antigua peppers - 12.1 oz.

Liebesapfel pimento peppers - 1 lb., 2.8 oz.

Melrose peppers - 11.6 oz.

Moroccan peppers - 6.9 oz.

Odessa Market peppers - 7 oz.

Pimento de Padron peppers - 13 oz.

Sigaretta Dolce peppers - 9.2 oz.

Sunnybrook pimento peppers - 5.7 oz.

Wisconsin Lakes bell peppers - 1 lb., 3.9 oz.

Amish Paste tomatoes - 12 lb., 15.8 oz.

Fiaschetto plum tomatoes - 3 lb., 4 oz.

Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2 lb., 6.7 oz.

Martian Giant tomatoes - 11 lb., 14.4 oz

Nyagous tomatoes - 6 lb., .2 oz.

Rosabec tomatoes - 4 lb., 13.5 oz.

Sunshine cherry tomatoes - 3 lb., 9.2 oz.

Wheatly's Frost Resistant cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 4.9 oz.

Da Fiore zucchini - 4 lb., 1.1 oz.

The total harvests for the past week came to - 63 lb., 4.6 oz.

Which brings the totals for the year up to - 444 lb., 8.4 oz

Wow, maybe I'll hit 500 pounds this year. That would be great considering I had two full months without harvests and another month with only capers to harvest and I've only had three out of four beds up and running. I also didn't grow some of big producers, such as winter squash and fava beans. 

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.