Harvest Monday - October 20, 2014

I got caught up on the harvests this past week so it looks fairly impressive once again. But I think that from here on out it's going to be slimmer pickings. There's still a few tomatoes and peppers left to ripen but not a lot, the new cucumber vines are in high gear, but most of the other veggies are winding down for the season.

Let's start with something new for the season, amaranth greens. I planted two varieties this fall, Thai Tender and Tender Green, both of which are dwarf varieties but putting out lush big leaves. This harvest was a nice surprise. I set out a bunch of seedlings but most of them were munched by birds or bugs, or they were wilted to death in a heat wave that hit before the seedlings could become well established. But the surviving plants are flourishing and the first harvest was enough for two good servings.

Most of the fall radishes are sizing up well.

Pink Beauty, Helios, and Pink Punch radishes

The struggling bean vines are giving me a decent amount of beans, I got three harvests like this this week.

Emerite Filet and Australian Butter beans

Another parade of peppers came from the garden.

Odessa Market and Piment doux long des Landes

Giallo di Cuneo

Shephard's Ramshorn

Sonora

Lady Bell, NTR, Topepo Rosso, and Stocky Red Roaster

I roasted a lot of the peppers and froze them, but I also experimented with smoking some of them. I'll be writing a post about that sometime soon.

Smoked ripe Sonora peppers

Smoked NTR and Piment doux long des Landes peppers

A few more tomatoes ripened up. The birds discovered the tomatoes and I lost a number of them to their pecking before I figured out what was up.

Chianti Rose tomatoes

But for whatever reason the birds don't seem to like the Jaune Flamme tomatoes. I also harvested more cherry tomatoes but didn't photograph them.

Jaune Flamme tomatoes

The Tromba d'Albenga zucchini vines are keeping ahead of the powdery mildew and keep putting out a few new squash a couple of times a week. I've been slicing and drying most of them lately.

Tromba d'Albenga zucchini

Oh My Gosh. This is what happens when I don't get around to picking cucumbers for a couple of days.

Green Fingers Persian cucumbers

And of course there's more cucumbers a day or two later. Thank goodness the Padrons have slowed down. I only have to harvest them once a week now.

Padron peppers and Green Fingers cucumbers

More Tromba squash and the third harvest of beans for the week. Even the big Tromba squash are good, especially the long neck portion which has no seeds.

The Di Ciccio broccoli plants put out a few more shoots. They are getting smaller as the plants age but they are still tasty. I also salvaged the heart of a head of Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce that was too pitiful to photograph. The romaine lettuce was coming along beautifully and then seemingly overnight it seemed like both powdery mildew and spider mites attacked. (PM and spider mites have both been scourges this year). And I also tallied another sweet red onion. I didn't weigh all the onions at once when they had cured, I've been tallying them as I use them. I'm amazed at how well they have kept. There's only three left, I'll be sad when they are gone, they have been SO good. The tally for the red onions is 23.6 pounds so far, the Candy onions came in at 20.7 pounds and the Superstar onions at 25.9 pounds. I also harvested 15 pounds of "spring" onions.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:

Amaranth greens - 14.2 oz.
Australian Butter beans - 13.5 oz.
Emerite Filet beans - 13.3 oz.
Di Ciccio Broccoli - 9.3 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 5 lb., 13.7 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 6.8 oz.
Red Candy Apple onion - 2 lb., .7 oz. (yup, just one big one!)
Giallo di Cuneo bell peppers - 2 lb., 2.3 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 2 lb., .3 oz.
NTR peppers - 12.9 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 1 lb., 11.7 oz.
Padron peppers - 8.9 oz.
Piment doux long des Landes peppers - 14.2 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 3 lb., 5.1 oz.
Sonora peppers - 5 lb., 14.7 oz.
Stocky Red Roaster peppers - 11.7 oz.
Topepo Rosso peppers - 5.4 oz.
Helios radishes - 5.3 oz.
Pink Beauty radishes - 2.1 oz.
Pink Punch radishes - 8.9 oz.
Selzer Purple radishes - 6.2 oz.
Chianti Rose tomatoes - 7 lb., 10.3 oz.
Isis Candy cherry tomatoes - 36.5 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 3 lb., 11.3 oz.
Potiron Ecarlate tomatoes - 3 lb., 7.8 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 15.6 oz.
Tromba d'Albenga zucchini - 7 lb., 4.8 oz.

The total harvests for the past week were - 58 lb., 11.5 oz. (26.6 kg.)
Which brings the total harvests for 2014 up to - 1,071 lb., 15.5 oz. (486.2 kg.)

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.