Monday, September 10, 2018

Harvest Monday - September 10, 2018

What a difference a year makes. Last year on September 11 my harvest post featured a parade of tomatoes, a trickle of peppers, plenty of squash, and a few cucumbers. And this year? Well, take a look.

Thank goodness rats don't dig for potatoes. I could have dug these back at the beginning of August but didn't have time to deal with them so I turned off the drip lines to that part of the bed and left them in the ground. Upstate Abundance certainly lived up to its name, that basket was part of the 30+ pounds that I dug up on Saturday. With the addition of the early potatoes that I harvested my investment in 1 pound of seed potatoes gave me 34 pounds in return.

Upstate Abundance Potatoes
French Blue Belle potatoes weren't quite as generous, in total I harvested about 28 pounds from 1 pound of seed potatoes. This variety seemed to be more prone to disease and a few of the plants were hit pretty hard by nematodes. Some of the Upstate Abundance potatoes were infected by nematodes but overall they were healthier than the French Blue Belles. It's a lot of potatoes to deal with and I don't have an optimal place to store them so I'm experimenting with dehydrating some of them.

French Blue Belle Potatoes
The Baciccia bush beans were just starting to produce when it was time for me to leave for vacation so I harvested everything of reasonable size and got about 2.5 pounds of fresh beans, some of which we enjoyed and the rest went into the freezer. Upon my return the plants were loaded with beans that were swollen with mature and maturing beans. I harvested everything that was on the plants and used most of them as shelling beans. They were better than expected, actually quite tasty, especially since these beans are not intended to be harvested as shelling beans. I've since removed the plants and will try some snap and snow peas in their place.
 
Baciccia Beans
The Pink Plume celery had a growth spurt in my absence so now I'm able to start harvesting it stalk by stalk. I also sowed some cilantro seeds just before I left and it has grown to harvestable size.

Pink Plume Celery
Cilantro
I think the peppers are starting to ripen just on schedule or just a bit late, the first ones are just trickling in. Both varieties of long thin Turkish sweet peppers are excellent eating when green and we've enjoyed the first ones pan fried and roasted or raw in salads. The roasted peppers make a tasty accompaniment to smashed potatoes. Oh, and I didn't photograph the 2 pounds of green JalapeƱos that I rescued from the rats. I decided to ferment those to make a green hot sauce.
 
Turkish Pimentos
Sweet Turkish and Mehmet's Sweet Turkish

The spring sown beets held well in the garden but it's time to clear them out. I remembered to photograph this harvest just before I popped them in the oven.

Renee's Golden and Sweetheart Beets

It's not exactly a bounty of summer veggies but I'll take what I can get.

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.

7 comments:

  1. Despite those pesky rodents you sure are putting out a pretty good haul! Don't give up hope! It's still looking good! Can you share a picture of what a potato hit by nematodes looks like? I guess I could google it...

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  2. Wow on those potatoes! I stopped growing them a few years back because they just weren't doing well for me here. It will be interesting to see how they do when dehydrated. I never thought about preserving them that way, not that I ever had that many of them anyway!

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  3. So glad you're posting again. We missed you! Your potato harvest is lovely and far exceeded mine.

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  4. That's an incredible return just for a couple pounds of seed potatoes. Potatoes must love your climate. And it sounds like the beans did well, also. I have a few beets ready to harvest, but I'm waiting for soup weather.

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  5. Hello again! Glad to see you are still able to harvest, despite the rodents. Love the look of those beetroots, orange ones are usually really sweet tasting

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  6. Wow - that's an incredible yield on your potatoes - colour me envious! I still haven't dug mine up, other than a couple of pots, and am not expecting good yields at all if the lackluster foliage this year is any indication. I'm going away for a couple of weeks so I won't find out what the "damage" is until the beginning of October - I'm just hoping all the rain we've been having won't rot them before I get to them.

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