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.