Harvest Monday - October 5, 2015

What, it's October already?! I just went back to see what my harvests looked like on the first Monday of October last year, where I was greeted with the sight of some beautiful Charentais melons. That's not going to happen today or this year. Other than the lack of melons the harvests were pretty similar except that there were more tomatoes last year.

This was my one significant tomato harvest for the past week, one more basketful of Camp Joy cherry tomatoes. There was just a trickle of a few other tomatoes that didn't get photographed.

Camp Joy

I got a few harvests of beans like this, a nice amount, not too little nor too much.

Purple Pole and Stortino di Trento beans

The summer planting of broccolis continue to put out nice side shoots. Like the beans, not too little nor too much.

Batavia and Di Ciccio broccolis

The onions have been hanging around outside for weeks now. We had the promise/threat of rain last week, just a 20% chance which I would normally ignore, except that it felt like it was going to rain so I rounded up all the onions and brought them indoors. Here they are all cleaned up and tallied. They made a significant contribution to the week's total.

Rossa Lunga di Firenze onions

Tonda Musona onions

By the way, it did rain, a nice long gentle pitter patter that delivered about 1/4 inch - better than nothing and it did help to wash a lot of the accumulated dust away and make the morning smell so clean and fresh.

Here's the real work for the week, the pepper harvests. I am again reminded of the international selection that I have going this year.

From the US and Spain...

Craig's Grande Jalapeño and Sonora Anaheim
De La Vera

From Ukraine...

Odessa Market

From Czech...

Yummy Belle

From Nicaragua and Chile...

Cocina de Criolla and IPK CAP 268

 From France...

Long des Landes

From Spain, Macedonia, and Greece...

De La Vera, Rezha Macedonian, Florina

From Italy...

Giallo di Cuneo

From Spain via Italy...

Shephard's Ramshorn

From Czech, USA, and Romania...

Yummy Belle, Craig's Grande Jalapeño, Gogosar

From USA...

Lady Bell

The peppers kept me busy with the Big Green Egg and in the kitchen. I now have 4 types of paprika - a smoked Rezha Macedonian, an unsmoked Rezha Macedonian, smoked De La Vera, and unsmoked IPK CAP 268 (I need to give this pepper an unofficial name) - so that's a mildly spicy smoked, a mildly spicy unsmoked, a sweet smoked, and a sweet unsmoked. Go it?

I also experimented with a couple new preserving techniques. Some of the Long des Landes peppers have been seeded, cut in chunks and salted. They are now packed in a jar in their own salty juices slowing curing in the fridge. It's basically a slow fermentation process.

I'm also trying a Sott'Olio method with some of the Yummy Belles. I seeded them, cut them in strips, and salted them for 24 hours. Then they were drained and immersed in red wine vinegar for 24 hours. Drained again and then tossed with garlic, mint, and olive oil and packed into a jar with olive oil to cover. They're spending some time in the fridge to develop a bit more flavor and so far they look excellent.

Yesterday I roasted up a bunch more peppers which will go into more jars of preserved peppers "a la Hank". I've been working on Hank's method to streamline the process which I'll post about when I get a chance.

There were a few other harvests that I didn't get around to photographing, like cucumbers, eggplant, and squash - they're listed in the details below.

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

Purple Pole beans - 16.9 oz.
Stortino di Trento beans - 13 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 9.7 oz.
Batavia broccoli - 9.2 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 8.3 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 8.2 oz.
Red Candy Apple onion - 15.1 oz.
Rossa Lunga di Firenze onions - 23 lb., 2.8 oz.
Superstar onion - 1 lb., 3 oz.
Tonda Musona onions - 20 lb., 6.8 oz.
Tropea onions - 1 lb., 14.9 oz.
Criolla de Cocina peppers - 1 lb., 9.7 oz.
Craig's Grande Jalapeño peppers - 16.9 oz.
De La Vera peppers - 1 lb., 5.5 oz.
Florina peppers - 1 lb., 14.4 oz.
Giallo di Cuneo peppers - 4 lb., 9.1 oz.
Gogosar peppers - 13.8 oz.
IPK CAP 268 peppers - 11.1 oz.
Lady Bell peppers - 2 lb., 10 oz.
NTR peppers - 2.2 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 5 lb., 11.8 oz.
Padron peppers - 8.8 oz.
Long des Landes peppers - 1 lb., 12.6 oz.
Rezha Macedonian peppers - 1 lb., 1.7 oz.
Shephard's Ramshorn peppers - 3 lb., 9.3 oz.
Sonora Anaheim peppers - 1 lb., 12.4 oz.
Yummy Belle peppers - 2 lb., .7 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 1 lb., 5.6 oz.
Camp Joy cherry tomatoes - 5 lb., 15.1 oz.
Chianti Rose tomato - 5.4 oz.
Penn State Plum tomatoes - 7.5 oz.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 8.2 oz.
Candystick Dessert Delicata squash - 2 lb., .7 oz.
Honey Nut Butternut squash - 11.7 oz.
Tromba D'Albenga squash - 3 lb., 12.5 oz.

Total for the week - 99 lb., 1.6 oz.
2015 YTD - 979 lb., 12.7 oz.

Harvest Monday is now being hosted by Dave on his blog Our Happy Acres, head on over there to be inspired by what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.