Harvest Monday - October 6, 2014

The harvests look a lot like the previous week, but no, these are all new photos and new pickings. At the moment I've got bags of peppers sitting around waiting to be roasted because I don't want to be roasted at the same time. It's been far too hot to heat up the kitchen (no a/c here) or even to go outside to fire up the grill. So let's start with something more refreshing, the near to the last harvest of Alvaro Charentais melons. The Alvaro plants have been prolific, they produced 26 pounds of melons from 2 or maybe 4 plants (I can't remember if I let 2 seedlings grow in each pot), either way it's remarkable. These melons are pretty typical of the size produced weighing about an average of 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg.) apiece.

Alvaro Charentais melons

I managed to get some radishes started and here's the first harvest. These were good thinly sliced into a salad.

Pink Beauty and Helios radishes

The Petaluma Gold Rush beans are drying extremely quickly on the vines but I was able to harvest a few as fresh shelling beans last week. These were delicious in a warm salad with roasted sweet peppers, sauteed calamari, and sweet red onions.

I like to harvest the fresh shelling beans when the pods are still leathery but on the verge of drying out. The beans inside are fully sized up and show their colors but are not hard yet. They don't need any soaking, cook in a flash, and are creamy textured but hold their shape and they are delicious.

Fresh Petaluma Gold Rush beans

The shoots on the Di Ciccio broccoli shoots are getting smaller but they are still prolific and tasty. I've really not been in the mood to eat broccoli lately so all of the last few harvests have been blanched and frozen.

So the pepper parade continues...

Giallo di Cuneo

There's some variation in the Giallo di Cuneo peppers. A couple of plants produce big bright yellow peppers and a couple of plants produce smaller peppers with a bit more of an orange tint. Both types are sweet and thick fleshed, good fresh or roasted. I used some of these to make a "golden" gazpacho with the Jaune Flamme tomatoes.

Giallo di Cuneo

The Tarahumara chiles are going into the dehydrator. Most of the Odessa Market peppers are being roasted.

Odessa Market and Tarahumara Chile Colorado

Lady Bells are being dried, roasted, and eaten fresh.

Lady Bell

I set out three Topepo Rosso plants and one of them is producing a completely off type pepper. The NTR (Not Topepo Rosso) is larger, thinner fleshed, and pointed with a hint of heat. The other two plants are producing a proper "cheese" type pepper. I haven't tasted the proper TR's , this was my first harvest this weekend, so I don't know yet if they are completely sweet (as they should be) or have a sneaky hit of heat.

NTR and Topepo Rosso

I've been preserving most of the roasting (roasted) peppers either by freezing or using a method that I adapted from here by which the cleaned roasted peppers are packed in jars with vinegar and salt and topped with olive oil and kept in the fridge. I first used that method last year and the peppers kept very well for months.

Stocky Red Roaster

Both Stock Red Roaster and Shephard's Ramshorn are excellent roasting peppers.

Shephard's Ramshorn

The sweet frying peppers are ripening and the Padrons are still prolific. I suspect that the Padrons have picked up some heat this week. They always seem to get quite spicy when we have a heat wave and it's been HOT here the past few days (mid 90ºF to 100ºF). We're still working through the Padrons harvested the previous week so I may forget about the possibility of spiciness when we get to the latest harvests...

Piment doux long des Landes and Pimento de Padron

The tomato harvests are slowing down as the plants continue to decline from whatever ails them. The Potiron Ecarlates aren't as big as they might be and not as pretty either. They still taste good though.

Potiron Ecarlate

Still plenty of cherry tomatoes for Dave's lunches and my salads.

Sweet Gold and Isis Candy

Chianti Rose is just about done producing, but the vines have a few small green ones coming along so perhaps I'll get to enjoy a few more. Jaune Flamme is slowing down also but the tomatoes that remain are as good as ever.

Chianti Rose and Jaune Flamme

There's a few things that didn't get photographed last week, a trickle of beans, cucumbers from the new plants, the last of the butterhead lettuce that has been suffering through the heat, another onion from the quickly dwindling stash (they have kept surprisingly well), and more Tromba squash. It's the first week in a long time that I don't have any Romanesco zucchini in the tally! Oh, and neither photographed nor tallied were the eggplants that I cleaned out of the spider mite infested plants - I still have to see what's usable. Shown last week but tallied this week are the Honey Nut Butternut squashes.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Australian Butter beans - .8 oz.
Emerite Filet beans - 1.4 oz.
Musica beans - 11.5 oz.
Petaluma Gold Rush shelly beans - 12.8 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 3 lb., 4.5 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 12.3 oz.
Kagraner Sommer butterhead - 1 lb., 4.4 oz.
Alvaro Charentais melons - 10 lb., 6.3 oz.
Red Candy Apple onions - 2 lb., 12.1 oz.
Giallo di Cuneo bell peppers - 3 lb., 15.5 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 4 lb., 4.7 oz.
NTR peppers - 12.5 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 2 lb., 6.1 oz.
Padron peppers - 15.6 oz.
Piment doux long des Landes peppers - 6.7 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 2 lb., 6.6 oz.
Stocky Red Roaster peppers - 1 lb., 11.6 oz.
Tarahumara Chile Colorado peppers - 13.3 oz.
Topepo Rosso peppers - 1 lb., 2 oz.
Helios radishes - 1.9 oz.
Pink Beauty radishes - 1.6 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 4.8 oz.
Chianti Rose tomatoes - 1 lb., 6.9 oz.
Isis Candy cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 6.1 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2 lb., 13.8 oz.
Potiron Ecarlate tomatoes - 6 lb., 3.6 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 11 oz.
Honey Nut Butternut squashes - 7 lb., 2.2 oz.
Tromba d'Albenga zucchini - 4 lb.

The total harvests for the past week were - 65 lb., 4.7 oz. (29.6 kg.)
Which brings the total harvests for 2014 up to - 993 lb., 4 oz. (450.5 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.