The weather has been very strange. We had a few seasonally cool days and even had a bit of frost a few nights but other than that it has been unusually warm. Yesterday it got up to 80ºF. It's hard to believe it's December other than the short days. So the tomato and pepper plants linger in the garden and continue to produce a trickle of harvests.
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| Jaune Flamme, Mavritanskite, Mixed Cherry Tomatoes |
I really should be taking the plants out to make room for favas and cover crops, but there's still more tomatoes on the vines. The pepper plants will be easier to take out because most of them don't have any green peppers, although I noticed that some of them are blooming again. Weird.
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| Aji Amarillo Grande |
The sweet peppers are pretty much done but there's still Aji's, Jalapeños, and a few other seasoning peppers. That handful of Aji Amarillo Grandes rounded out the bunch I picked the previous week to fill a quart jar. I'm on a big
pepper fermenting kick. I've got one jar of Aji Amarillo Grandes that is ready to be processed into hot sauce and the latest harvest is going to be dehydrated for pepper flakes after about a week of fermenting. There's 2 jars of fermenting Jalapeños, one for a Harissa paste and the other for another batch of Lo Burn Rooster Sauce. And there's also a jar of Mareko Fana peppers fermenting away that I'll dehydrate and turn into pepper flakes. I'm very interested to see how fermented Mareko Fana flakes compare to straight dehydrated Mareko Fana flakes.
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| Broccolini and Batavia Broccoli |
The Broccolini and Batavia Broccoli plants keep producing enough shoots to provide a few servings every week.
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| Braised Tromba Squash Vines |
And I thought I should show what I did with the Tromba D'Albenga vine shoots that I harvested the week before. I braised them with some garlic and chopped Caribbean Seasoning peppers (very very mild) until they were very tender then piled them on top of toasted homemade levain bread mounded with mashed Petaluma Gold Rush Beans and all of it moistened by good homemade poultry broth and extra virgin olive oil. It was very tasty. The vine shoots have a mild squash flavor but they do retain a bit of fuzziness. I didn't find the fuzzy texture to be objectionable but it is noticeable.
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.
Hey, squash vines is a new one to me. It sounds good. Are they stringy?
ReplyDelete85F here, but it's the low humidity that gets me. I itch, especially my eyes. Big blobs of ashes on the plants. I blast it off with a jet stream from the hose. It adds a bit of moisture to their air as well.
The shoots aren't stringy if you trim them short enough and I also removed the largest tendrils.
DeleteLow humidity here too and yes, it's my eyes that are bothered the most. The smoke has made its way north so the skies are murky brown and it's a bit stinky but not so bad that I have to get the air purifiers out. I hate to run those things because they dry the air out even more.
Eating the squash vines is a new one to me too. I have to admit I could barely keep up with the squashes themselves on the Tromba vines. It's always hard for me to pull up any plants that are producing, though frost usually gets my tomatoes and peppers before they are truly done making fruit.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that trimming off the tender tips of the vines next year might help to keep them under control. Or perhaps it will make them grow even more vigorously.... At least they won't all just go into the compost.
DeleteIt is hard to pull out productive plants! But I can wait until the end of the year before I absolutely have to plant the favas so I'm going to wait and harvest whatever the plants have to offer. Either that or a freeze will finally bring it all to an end.
One of our plot neighbours from the Caribbean harvests squash plant tips to eat, and she says they are delicious: she steams them. I like the sound of the way you prepared them Michelle, although I am not convinced by the fuzziness. Can't believe the temperatures you are having in December!!
ReplyDeleteYour weather is incredible. Each day must be a different season,
ReplyDeleteOh, I know that conundrum - you "should" pull a plant to get something else in the ground, but at the same time you want to squeeze out those few remaining harvests. And the squash vine dish does look lovely, although I have a feeling that the texture would put me off.
ReplyDeleteNo 80's here - we are finally into winter weather (12F last night!)...I'm enjoying it but no doubt by February I will have had enough.
I love the photos of your harvests! Always so colorful :)
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