This weekend we had the first true frost of autumn. It was predicted, so we had time to harvest the sensitive crops.
Out came the remaining peppers and eggplants.
Clockwise from bottom left, there are "Big Jim," a New Mexico chile, perfect for chiles rellenos (yum), the yellowish Cubanelle pepper "Aruba," for frying, "Rosita" and "Amadeo" eggplants, "Mellow Star" shishito-type peppers, "Maule's Red Hot cayenne peppers, and in the middle, "Big Bomb" hot cherry peppers. If I'm lucky, the spicy peppers might go into a pepper jelly called "Cowboy Candy" which I love.
Any tomato which had any shade beyond deep green was taken. I'm sure some of these will rot before they ripen, as they have blemishes or other grossness.
It was such a frustrating year for tomatoes! With all the different blights, I almost feel like giving up on them. How did this happen? You used to be able to rely on tomatoes. I rotate the beds religiously, and this year all tomatoes were grown in brand new soil, but the blight was worse than ever. If you've managed to escape it, consider yourself lucky. OK, moaning over...
Also the rest of the
The rest of the "Orinoco" tobacco crop was also taken out in several stages this week. Here it is curing in the barn. We'll have to find another location for finishing the curing process, as it won't be long before the barn gets too cold.
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| Orinoco tobacco curing. |
Other crops were taken, even though they don't mind light frosts. Here are a few leeks, the remaining carrots, and some watermelon radishes.
And this is all remaining Long Island Cheese pumpkins.
The larger one was too heavy for the kitchen scale, but for comparison, the one to its left is 1 3/4 lbs. I doubt the small all-green one will amount to anything, but maybe the others will finish ripening indoors.
Also, I planted garlic this weekend--24 cloves in a 12-foot row. I tilled in compost and a sprinkling of bone meal. Why? I always heard bulb-y things like bone meal, so why not garlic?
That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, and for leaving comments, which I greatly look forward to.[Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition.] Did you escape a frost this week? I know I will check out every post on the host site for Harvest Monday, Our Happy Acres. See you there!
Well there's a first for everything - first time I see tobacco being picked and cured so thank you for new introduction :) Love the harvest and jealous of your melons - it's one thing I was looking forward to having and didn't get any at all :(
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jenny. I really am surprised anybody would be jealous of those tiny melons. But thank you! The tobacco was a fun crop to grow, and a pretty plant too.
DeleteIt is too bad about the tomatoes. The blights have not yet made their way here, who knows if they will. And after living in Kentucky for 25 years, the sight of tobacco hanging to cure is a familiar one! The Cowboy Candy sounds interesting, though the pepper jam I just made is sort of wimpy (on purpose).
ReplyDeleteGlad I could remind you of olden days in the Bluegrass State. I love pepper jam paired with cream cheese and seedy crackers.
DeleteIt amazes me how so many people who are hundreds of miles apart had their first frost this past weekend. I hear you on the blight - worst year ever for me as well (not that I have that many years under my belt yet). But from what I hear, these things go in cycles, so hopefully our tomato patches will do much better next year...in the meantime - misery loves company, so I'll join you in the big tomato groan fest.
ReplyDeleteAt least you are ahead on the garlic front - I'll have to get to that this week while we still have a few warm days left.
Yes, that frost sure seems to be widespread. I know I won't really give up on tomatoes; hopefully you are right about the cycles. Dress warm and go plant your garlic!
DeleteNo frost here, but it's actually raining, not a gully washer but any amount is welcome. I'm going to have to look up Cowboy Candy to see how it compares to the pepper jam recipe I use. Cream cheese seems to be the classic pairing with pepper jam but we love it with just about any cheese, from soft goat cheese to aged parmesan, had it with a young sheepmilk cheese last night. My tomato plants were a mess this year too, I'm ready to rip most of them out this week and get an early start on the favas. Some years I harvest tomatoes through the end of November but not this year.
ReplyDeleteThe rain must be lovely. Do you have eucalyptus trees nearby? I always associate rain in California with their smell. I guess Cowboy Candy is most frequently made with jalapenos, but we use whatever spicy peppers we have. Yum.
DeleteI'm hoping that the blight on tomatoes is an abnormality. Tomatoes for me were a disaster this year. Nice end of year harvest of peppers. I may grow some cherry bomb peppers next year and pickle them. They have a fine flavor.
ReplyDeleteI totally hope it's an anomaly too. I grew "regular" cherry bombs for a few years, then got seduced by the hybrid "Big Bomb," but have been disappointed with them--they are larger, but fewer and slower to mature. I'm going to go back to the regulars.
DeleteYour peppers and eggplant look good for end of season. My last ones were all deformed. Tomatoes can be hit or miss for me. I try to grow a lot of plants so they produce as many as they can before disease takes them down. I have early blight in my soil and eventually it works its way up the plants. I was lucky this year, the plants remained disease free until very late in the season. It made up for last year when I lost all the plants early on to late blight.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rachel. From your amazing results you would never know your plants were blighted.
DeleteAs a New Mexican, I'm glad to see you grew some Big Jim and wonder how it tastes :-) And seeing your tobacco is a first for me, too...super cool! Sorry about your tomatoes, though...it was a bummer of year here, too, in the tomato department.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Melissa. I did feel I may alienate some people by writing about growing "organic" tobacco, but so far the comments have been positive.
DeleteYour leek shanks are amazingly long and those are some good looking carrots and radishes. I see lots of people with a vegetable garden growing a little stand of tobacco here in Kentucky. Where I grew up in Idaho people picked wild Coyote tobacco.
ReplyDeleteIt's truly been a disappointing year for tomatoes. I should probably plant a few hybrids along with the heirlooms, like Dave does from OurHappyAcres.
Thanks, Phuong. I feel the leeks are OK, but not the baseball bats you see in the farmstands. Interesting about the tobacco growing in Kentucky--self-sufficient people I guess. My hybrid tomatoes were taken down just as fast as the heirlooms this year.
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