Harvest Monday - October 19, 2015

My harvest report this week is what I would have shown last week had Dave and I not been hiking in southern Utah and northern Arizona for the past week. I hope I don't bore you, but I'll start with a few highlights of the trip. First we hiked a small portion of Buckskin Gulch, (the longest and deepest slot canyon in the American Southwest) entering via the Wire Pass trail.

Buckskin Gulch

Then we headed south where we accomplished the main objective of the trip, hiking from the south to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in a day (12.5 hours actually). Followed the next day by a hike out to Widforss point for a view of the canyon at sunset.

View of the North Rim from the South Kaibab trai

Then we headed back north to spend a day hiking the Fairyland Loop and Peek-A-Boo Loop trails in Bryce Canyon. We skipped additional hiking in Bryce on Saturday when cold rain settled in for the day.

Views from the Fairyland Loop in Bryce

We got back home late Sunday afternoon to a much anticipated dinner of Brokali with Bacon and Onions with Smoked Paprika.  The one thing I miss the most on these trips is fresh vegetables.

So now I'll show you what you came here to see, the latest veggie harvests.

I spent a lot of time in the week before we were away dealing with the glut of peppers. Many of the sweet peppers that I had harvested the previous week finally got roasted and preserved. The main harvest of Aji Amarillo peppers went into a batch of pepper jam.

Aji Amarillo and Padron peppers

The Sonora Anaheim plants were loaded with green peppers which got roasted, peeled, seeded and frozen.

Sonora Anaheim peppers

Rosso Dolce da Appendere peppers are large sweet peppers similar to Corno di Toro peppers. They are later to ripen than most of the sweet peppers that I'm growing. This lot ended up in the fridge to await my attention this week.

Rosso Dolce da Appendere peppers

My memory is failing me, I can't remember if I've dealt with these peppers yet. These look similar to the Rosso Dolce peppers but are quite different. These are some of my Mutt peppers that I grew from  the NTR (Not Topepo Rosso) seeds I saved last year. I think they may have crossed with the mild Sonora Anaheims, the skins are thick and shiny and the stems are long and hooked like the Anaheims, but they are more sweet.

These are the other Mutt NTR peppers that I grew this year. These are more similar to the parent pepper from last year, but one plant is producing an entirely sweet pepper about the size of its parent and the other produces one a little larger than its parent but with a touch of heat. This batch got smoked.

The eggplants have recovered enough from their bout with verticillium to produce a nice crop. I saved seeds from one Sicilian plant that I grew a couple of years ago and the plants that I'm growing from those seeds are producing different fruits. One is elongated and has fairly dull skin. The others are globe shaped and shiny, one with the expected lavender skin and the other a darker purple. They have all been good eating. These all got roasted, skinned, and frozen.

Sicilian eggplant

Bonica is a hybrid Italian variety that has been a reliable producer for me for the past few years. These also got roasted and frozen.

Bonica eggplant

Egads, all of the fall/winter planting of broccoli and brokali is in full production and the summer planting is still producing side shoots too. Brokali is a name used for broccoli/gai lan crosses that are similar to the trademarked variety named "Broccolini". It can be harvested when it has a compact head like broccoli but is usually left to produce long stemmed loose heads that are nearly flowering. All three of my brokali plants produced main heads in the week before I left for vacation. We had this one for dinner one night.

Apollo brokali

The Friday before we left I harvested two more heads, one of which I gave to a friend and the other went into the fridge to await our dinner last night.

All the rest of the goodies in that basket went to my friend as well. The Tromba D'Albenga squash is still producing, in fact it is trying to take over the garden. The summer snap beans are producing a fall harvest, a good thing since the fall planting is a total failure. As I mentioned before the eggplant made a comeback and I harvested some young ones that would have been overgrown by the time I got home. And the peppers, though they have slowed a bit are still producing some lovely ripe fruits. And the cucumbers are still putting out a few decent specimens.

I also harvested all of the Delicata squash. This is the haul from 4 plants, minus one squash that we've already eaten. I'm really happy with the production and the one squash that we've tried is super tasty.

Candystick Dessert Delicata squash

So, here's the harvests for the week before last.

Purple Pole beans - 4.7 oz.
Stortino di Trento beans - 11.2 oz.
Apollo brokali - 3 lb., 11.6 oz.
Batavia broccoli - 13.3 oz.
Di Ciccio broccoli - 13.4 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 16.1 oz.
Bonica eggplant - 3 lb., .6 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 2 lb., 6.8 oz.
Aji Amarillo peppers - 15.2 oz.
Craig's Grande Jalapeño peppers - 7.9 oz.
Florina Greek peppers - 3.1 oz.
Giallo di Cuneo peppers - 4.8 oz.
NTR Mutt peppers - 4 lb., 8.5 oz.
Odessa Market peppers - 5.4 oz.
Padron peppers - 5.4 oz.
Rezha Macedonian peppers - 14.7 oz.
Rosso Dolce da Appendere peppers - 3 lb., 1 oz.
Sonora Anaheim peppers - 4 lb., 5.7 oz.
Syrian Three Sided peppers - 1 lb., 6.3 oz.
Yummy Belle peppers - 8.2 oz.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 7.8 oz.
Candystick Dessert Delicata squash - 26 lb., 14.1 oz.
Tromba D'Albenga squash - 4 lb., 9.4 oz.

Total for the week - 62 lb., 6.7 oz.
2015 YTD - 1042 lb., 3.4 oz.

Harvest Monday is 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.

Now I've got to get out to the garden to harvest a glut of overblown broccoli - as soon as it stops raining (yay for rain!!!).