Harvest Monday - September 25, 2017

Here's what I've been waiting for all summer and of course it's now the first days of fall.

Peppers! All sweet peppers so far.

Shepherd's Ramshorn and Violet Sparkle

Shepherd's Ramshorn has been a regular in my garden since 2012 when I tried a number of short season and/or cool climate adapted sweet peppers. It was an outstanding pepper for it's quality, productivity, and earliness. I tried about a dozen sweet peppers that year and out of all of those there are 3 varieties that have stayed on my must grow list. Shepherd's Ramshorn, Odessa Market, and Lady Bell have been repeat performers for 6 years. Violet Sparkle is back for a second year but only now is it getting a proper evaluation. Last year was a disaster in the pepper patch. Many of the plants were either mowed down by critters or died an early death from powdery mildew. Violet Sparkle yielded a single pepper that ripened in the garden. It was good but one pepper is not enough to base an evaluation upon so I'm trying it again this year. I was waiting for the violet streaks to fade away but it seems that they stay as the background color changes from light green to yellow/orange to red. Those were harvested yesterday and I haven't done anything with them yet so the jury is still out.

Petit Marseillais

Back for a second time is Petit Marseillais. It's a nice sweet frying pepper and also dehydrates well. It's quite productive and early and pretty too. So far I've just chopped them up to use in salads and  I used some in a simple side dish the other night, cored and stuffed with an anchovy and simply pan fried. It was tasty but I scorched them a bit so I need to try again.

Topepo Giallo, Florina, Turkish

New this year is Topepo Giallo. It's a winner so far. The plants are more productive than the red Topepo peppers that I've grown in the past and so far I am impressed with it's sweet flavor and thick crunchy flesh. Back this year are some Florina peppers. I first grew these back in 2015 and I loved the flavor, it was thick fleshed, sweet and spicy but not hot. Last year I tried them again but ended up with very few peppers because of disease and critter problems. This year I used the last of the few seeds that I received and caged the plants to keep them from cross pollinating so that I could save some seeds and to protect them from critters. Those are the peppers with the tags on the stems, I'm comparing the peppers from the 3 different plants because I noticed some variation in flavor in the few peppers I got last year, including one that had some heat. The long skinny ones are a Turkish sweet pepper that I tried last year and what little I got to taste I liked. The problem with them is that my seeds are old and they are not available any longer so again I caged the plants for seed saving purposes. I actually prefer these peppers when they are young and green but I have to let the first ones ripen to get good seeds.

Petit Marseillais, Florina, Gogosar, Turkish

Gogosar is another pepper that is nearly impossible to find seeds for in the US. I got my seeds through Seed Savers Exchange and they no longer offer them so this is another variety that I caged for seed saving. Fortunately, I love these peppers fully ripe. They are very thick fleshed, sweet and flavorful. They are the perfect pepper for stuffing.

That's the start of the pepper harvests, there will be more varieties to come in the next few weeks and hopefully the next couple of months.

Piccolo Dattero and Sweet Gold

Cherry tomatoes galore! This week the Piccolo Dattero and Sweet Gold plants yielded more than 10 pounds of tomatoes. That's one of two similar harvests shown above.

Purple Bumble Bee, Green Bee, Sunrise Bumble Bee

The other cherry tomato varieties still produce nowhere near the yield of Piccolo Dattero and Sweet Gold, but that's ok, there's enough all together to meet my needs. It's fun to have a variety of colors and actually I don't know what I would do with so many tomatoes if all the plants were so productive.

Jaune Flamme and Marzano Fire

The larger fruited tomatoes are picking up the pace also. The harvests shown above and below were also just one of two similar harvests.

Pantano, Mavritanskite, and Chianti Rose

And now on to the green things. 

Shepherd's Ramshorn

I picked some mature but not yet ripe Shepherd's Ramshorn peppers to use in a favorite Turkish stew of Eggplant, Lentils and Tomatoes with Pomegranate molasses. I'm not a fan of green bell peppers but I have found that the non-bell sweet peppers are good when they are green. That pepper on the right looks like a bell pepper but it's just one that didn't develop a pointy end.

Tromba D'Albenga Squash

The Tromba D'Albenga vines have made a quick recovery from a big pruning that I did about 10 days ago.

Manoa Lettuce and Speedy Arugula

The patch of Speedy arugula and Manoa lettuce was suddenly ready for a harvest. Speedy is aptly named, I sowed the first succession a little more than a month ago and harvested a half pound just a couple of days ago. The extremely hot weather we had a couple of weeks ago doesn't seem to have done any harm to either the lettuce or the arugula, the lettuce is still sweet and the arugula isn't too spicy. I think that keeping the top of the cage covered with a single layer of lightweight Agribon fabric has helped to keep them from getting too stressed by sun and heat. The cage provides plenty of ventilation so the heat doesn't build up inside like it would in a tunnel.

Speedy Arugula

Manoa Lettuce

Manoa lettuce is maturing just in time for BLT sandwiches and salads.

Seasoned Tomatoes Ready for Dehydrating

One of my favorite things to do with cherry tomatoes is to dry them with a seasoned salt. I've come up with a combo that I really like and that uses goodies from the garden. The mix is fennel seed, smoked sweet peppers, and a combination of dried smoked onion and dried onion all ground up with sea salt. Both the Sweet Gold and Piccolo Dattero tomatoes are delicious dried this way.

Dried Seasoned Sweet Gold Tomatoes

Tomato and Ricotta Galette

I also made a Tomato and Ricotta Galette inspired by a recipe I found on Food 52. My version used Jaune Flamme tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes and I used my favorite Sonora whole wheat crust.

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.