Harvest Monday - August 17, 2015

Summer harvests are starting to hit their stride now. I had a hard time keeping up with the bean harvests again, this time because it was too hot to spend any more time than necessary in the garden. Hiking took precedence for the cool morning hours so some of the beans got fat while I tried to keep the fat off.

Stortino di Trento beans

Rattlesnake and Purple pole beans

Purple and Rattlesnake beans

I gave the best of this lot of Stortino di Trento beans to a friend along with a bunch of cucumbers and a few tomatoes.

Something is finding the Purple beans to be very tasty. I was blaming the sowbugs but now I'm suspecting the birds, I think they're attracted to the color thinking that it may be fruit. It's really making me PO'd, they're ruining a lot of the beans.

These are the cucumbers that went to a friend. That batch of Mareko Fanas are set aside to be fried up on their own, I'm curious to see if the recent heat wave has made them spicier than the ones I harvested earlier.

Tasty Treat cucumbers, Mareko Fana peppers, Rattlesnake beans

Plenty of cucumbers last week...

Camp Joy cherry tomatoes, Tasty Treat and Green Fingers cucumbers

Tasty Treat and Green Fingers cucumbers, Tromba D'Albenga squash

Fortunately the Tromba D'Albenga squash isn't nearly as prolific as the Romanesco zucchini was so I'm not inundated with squash. The heads on the two Batavia broccoli plants started to loosen up in a hurry so I had to harvest both of those.

Batavia broccoli

Batavia broccoli

The Padron and Mareko Fana peppers keep coming in. I'm so happy I only planted 3 Padron plants this year, they are producing just enough peppers to keep us happy. The Mareko Fana plants are more modest producers, it takes about a week to gather enough for a good fry up.

Padron peppers and another look at the Batavia broccoli

Padron (left) and Mareko Fana peppers

Padrons

Mareko Fanas

I harvested a few green Odessa Market peppers to use in a batch of refreshing Tomato Gazpacho.

Odessa Market peppers

I hate green bell peppers, but the Odessa Markets don't have that nasty "green" flavor of green bells. I've found that most non-bell type peppers are good when green. I'm not sure what it is about green bell peppers that makes them so disagreeable, when I eat them I taste them for hours afterwards - they're nasty "repeaters". Ripe bells don't do that to me.

The tomato harvests are picking up. There's lots of cherry tomatoes ripening and a couple of the first larger tomato varieties were ready to harvest.

Jaune Flamme, Spike, Camp Joy, Sweet Gold tomatoes and Mareko Fanas

Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes

Caspian Pink, Pantano, Jaune Flamme, and Spike tomatoes on top of the Sweet Golds

The beleaguered eggplants offered up a couple of decent fruits.

Sicilian (top) and Bonica eggplants

The Thai Tender amaranth offered up another round of greens. They went into a stirfry with one of the heads of broccoli and some tofu.

Thai Tender amaranth

I took one of the big Superstar onions from the curing rack. Part of it went into the gazpacho and the rest I sliced into thick rounds and grilled. I cut up some of the grilled onion to include in a dish of steamed beans in tomato sauce.

I got a nice harvest of Speedy arugula to use in salads.

Speedy arugula

The basil plants needed a trim so I harvested a bunch to use in pesto. I roasted some baby potatoes that I got at the farmer's market and tossed those with some steamed beans in the pesto sauce. The basil isn't included in the tally.

Aurelia basil and some volunteer parsley

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

Thai Tender amaranth - 14 oz.
Speedy arugula - 14 oz.
Purple pole beans - 2 lb., 1.9 oz.
Rattlesnake beans - 2 lb., 5.6 oz.
Strotino di Trento beans - 3 lb., 3.9 oz.
Batavia broccoli - 1 lb., 11.8 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 2 lb., 7.5 oz.
Tasty Treat cucumbers - 3 lb., 9.7 oz.
Bonica eggplant - 15.4 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 15.1 oz.
Superstar onion - 1 lb., 14.2 oz. (one onion!)
Mareko Fana peppers - 5.3 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 9.8 oz.
Padron peppers - 13.4 oz.
Camp Joy cherry tomatoes - 9.1 oz.
Caspian Pink tomato - 9.1 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 1 lb., 14.5 oz.
Pantano tomato - 4.8 oz.
Spike tomatoes - 10.4 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 3 lb., 7.7 oz.
Tromba D'Albenga squash - 1 lb., 9.8 oz.

Total harvests for the week: 31 lb., 13.1 oz. (14.4 kg.)
2015 YTD: 486 lb., 9.1 oz. (220.7 kg.)

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to be inspired by what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.