Harvest Monday - December 31, 2018

It's the last day of the year and the weather has turned seasonably cool during the day and nippy at night, but unfortunately the rain has stopped for now. The clear night skies brought the threat of the first frosty last week so I decided to harvest most of the ripe or ripening peppers that were left in the garden. I found more than I expected, about 10 pounds which put my total pepper harvests for the year at about 222 pounds. That's a huge chunk of my total harvests for the year of 533 pounds which is about half of the total harvests for 2017.

I only harvested the ripest Joe's Giant Aji Amarillos and left quite a few green and ripening peppers on the plants. The predicted frost didn't actually materialize so the remaining peppers in the garden are still good.

Joe's Giant Aji Amarillo

The Habanadas plants were in better shape than I expected, they usually decline rapidly when cold and wet weather settles in. Most of the peppers were only about half ripe though, they should be more of a bright orange color.

Habanada and Sugar Rush Red

There's actually one new very late ripening variety in the harvest basket. Aji Banana looks almost identical to Joe's Giant Aji except that it isn't quite as giant as Joe's. I haven't tasted it yet so I don't know how the flavor or heat level compares to Joe's.

Aji Cacho de Cabra, Aji Banana, Aji Amarillo Grande,
Craig's Grande Jalapeno, Ethiopian Brown

The last couple of heads of Three Heart butterhead lettuce held up pretty well, the rain had spoiled some of the outer leaves but the hearts were sound. The Rishad cress is loving the colder weather. This mildly spicy green grows very quickly and is easiest to harvest as whole plants. There's enough left in the garden for a few more harvests like this but I suspect that it may start to bolt pretty soon so I'm going to scatter more seeds about somewhere.

Rishad Cress and Three Heart Butterhead Lettuce

I pulled a couple more Short Stuff carrots and cut more stalks of Pink Plume celery. The photo is deceptive, the big carrot weighs about 1/2 pound. 

Short Stuff Carrots
Pink Plume Celery
Polyvit Chives

That's the latest from my garden. 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. 

Next week I'll be giving Dave a break from the duties of hosting Harvest Monday so if you are looking to link up or find links to other Harvest Monday posts please stop by. Dave will resume his duties as host on February 4.

Happy New Year! Wishing you all success in you 2019 gardening endeavors.