Harvest Monday - September 19, 2016

Is the Autumnal Equinox nearly upon us already? But wait, we haven't had SUMMER yet!

I finally started harvesting some peppers that were ready to be harvested because they were ripe or nearly so and not just because they were damaged, although one of those golden Etiuda bells was sunburned on one side.

Violet Sparkle, Odessa Market, Gogosar, Etiuda, Florina, Petite Marseillaise

Violet Sparkle

Violet Sparkle is a very pretty pepper. It has an elongated heart shape and it retains some of its violet streaks when it is ripe, the photo really doesn't do it justice. It has medium thick sweet flesh. I cut it up to include in a tossed salad. Very nice so far.

Rossa Lunga di Firenze

The Rossa Lunga di Firenze onions were ready to clean up and bring inside.

Exhibition

And the rest of the Exhibition onions needed to be brought in as well.

Piccolo Dattero, Reisetomate From Transylvania, Camp Joy, Sweet gold

The cherry tomatoes are coming in at a steady pace. There's finally enough now that Dave can take a good handful or two in his lunch every day.

Jaune Flamme, Lime Green Salad, Reisetomate, Pantano, Chianti Rose

The rest of the tomatoes, especially the larger ones, are still being modest in their production. But that's not really a surprise to me because I pruned them fairly hard as they grew. My goal this year was for a variety of tomatoes without excessive production. So far that's what is happening, but I have to say that it is a bit strange to not have a huge glut of tomatoes.

Rattlesnake, Golden Gate, Brinker Carrier

I inadvertently chose snap bean varieties that have been producing pretty much in succession. First the Golden Gate Beans produced the bulk of their crop (although rather modestly), then the Brinker Carrier beans came on strong, and then as the BC beans slowed down the Rattlesnake beans started to produce. I couldn't have planned it better. I have harvested far more beans than we can eat fresh so I have sliced, blanched, and frozen a few pounds of the Brinker Carrier and Rattlesnake beans in approximately 1/2 pound portions. I don't necessarily like to eat the frozen snap beans as a veggie side dish but they are perfect to use in soup or in a frittata. The Rattlesnake beans aren't as colorful as they could be because the plants are quite overshadowed by the corn plants that are towering above the bean trellis, but they are still surprisingly quite productive in spite of the competition for light.

Rattlesnake

I hope that the vines have enough vigor and time to produce a second round of beans. We'll see. So far the weather and powdery mildew just haven't been conducive to good production from the summer veggies so I won't be surprised if they poop out pretty soon.

Calabrese Broccoli, Tromba d'Albenga, Romanesco, Tasty Treat Cukes,
Mostly Rattlesnake Beans

The first Tasty Treat Japanese cucumbers were ready to harvest, although they were rather sad misshapen specimens and the vines aren't very vigorous so I don't know what is in store for the coming weeks. I guess they don't like cool and smoky "summer" weather. And my second Tromba d'Albenga squash plant finally produced a couple of squash. The squashes from this vine are atypical, being a fairly solid dark green rather than the usual light green with lighter streaks. I haven't cooked either of them yet so I don't know if they differ in their culinary qualities. The Tromba vines just aren't as vigorous as usual either and I can only attribute that to cooler than normal weather as well.

Romanesco Zucchini and Tromba d'Albenga Squash

Pink Plume Celery

Maybe it's the cooler than normal weather that keeps the celery going and prevents all of it from bolting. I took out one plant that was bolting and then decided that I don't need all SIX remaining plants so I cut down three more.

Cured Capers Fresh From Brine

I thought it might be interesting to show some of the capers that I harvested a couple of months ago. They have been sitting in a brine solution at room temperature on my kitchen counter. It was time to see if they were still good and it turns out that they are just fine. I have experimented with curing the capers by just tossing them with coarse salt or immersing them in a brine solution. Perhaps I just haven't worked out the proper amount of salt to use for the simply tossing them with salt cure, but they always seem too salty to my taste when I've prepared them that way. My preference is for the brined version. After I drain the brine I set them on towels on a tray to dry at room temperatuere for 24 to 48 hours. Then I pack them in jars and put them in the fridge where they will keep for at least a couple of years.

My reports on the Soberanes fire aren't finished yet because the fire continues on. Today is day 60. Yes a full 2 months. Over 117,000 acres burned. The local paper reported that this is the "costliest blaze to suppress in US history", the cost standing at over $200 million now and it will certainly be much more than that even if they can contain the fire by the (optimistically) projected date of September 30. The daily cost is about $2 million, down from a high of $8 million. The latest Incident Management Team (they seem to change about every two weeks now) has taken an aggressive stand with the fire, possibly because they have more resources available, and conducted a massive burnout operation of something like 5,000 acres on the east side of the fire to strengthen the containment line in hopes of keeping the fire from burning east of the Carmel River. That area (Chews Ridge) happens to be not far from here. OMG the smoke. The last couple of mornings the Air Quality Index has been between 190 and 199, the high end of the Unhealthy rating (151 to 200), meaning "Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.". A rating of 201 to 250 means "Health alert: everyone may experience more serious health effects.". It only took about 15 minutes outside for my eyes, throat, and sinuses to feel uncomfortable. So regardless of whether I wanted to garden or not, I could not. Ah well, time off from gardening California Fire Season style. Smoke break anyone?

Smoky "View" of the Park Sunday AM

Can you see the tiny orange moon in the photo above? It's there! Click on the photo to enlarge, maybe you'll see it.

Normal Foggy Morning View of the Park

For those of you interested in the fate of Tassajara Zen Center - it still stands. They are under an Evacuation Order now, meaning no one is allowed into the area, those who stay do so at their own risk and if they leave they can't return. Twenty-nine people stayed to protect the center from the fire. Thankfully, at the moment the fire seems to have slowed its progression toward the center, but that situation could easily change. I hope they have stockpiled plenty of food.

Back to the harvest report. There's a few items that didn't get photographed. I weighed all the dried Black Coco beans. A couple more small heads of Calabrese broccoli were ready. A few more eggplant hit the harvest basket.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past 2 weeks:

Brinker Carrier beans - 5 lb.
Golden Gate beans - 11.9 oz.
Rattlesnake beans - 3.3 lb.
Black Coco dry beans - 3.2 lb.
Calabrese broccoli - 1.3 lb.
Pink Plume celery - 4.5 lb.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 14.4 oz.
Mouse Melons - 1.6 oz.
Tasty Treat cucumbers - 5 oz.
Bonica eggplant - 11.7 oz.
Sicilian eggplant - 1.3 lb.
Exhibition onions - 6.7 lb.
Ramata di Milano onions - 3.1 lb.
Rossa Lunga di Firenze onions - 12.8 lb.
Etiuda peppers - 2.1 lb.
Florina pepper - 3.7 oz.
Gogosar pepper - 6 oz.
Odessa Market pepper - 5.6 oz.
Petite Marseillais peppers - 5 oz.
Violet Sparkle pepper - 4.3 oz.
Camp Joy cherry tomatoes - 14.5 oz.
Chianti Rose tomatoes - 1.6 lb.
Jaune Flamme tomatoes - 2.1 lb.
Lime Green Salad tomatoes - 1.2 lb.
Mavritanskite tomatoes - 14.9 oz.
Pantano tomatoes - 2.9 lb.
Piccolo Dattero cherry tomatoes - 1.2 lb.
Reisetomate From Transylvania tomatoes - 1.1 lb.
Sweet Gold cherry tomatoes - 2.3 lb.
Romanesco zucchini - 9.8 lb.
Tromba d'Albenga squash - 1.8 lb.

Total harvests for the past 2 weeks - 73.4 lb. (33.3 kg.)
2016 YTD - 576.5 lb. (261.5 kg.)

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