Monday, August 29, 2016

Harvest Monday - 29 August 2016

Hello again from Eight Gate Farm. Here is this week's Harvest Monday update.

First-of-the-season harvests:

"Aruba" (Cubanelle-type) peppers. I thought having a kitchen knife would give them scale, but how big is the knife? Better to say they were hand-sized. They would eventually turn red, but I got tired of waiting, and worried they'd get damaged.


Perfect size for chiles rellenos. Yum!


We pulled all our onions (Stuttgarter). We only got 85, though I started with many more seedlings. And few were big. I think next year I'll go back to planting from sets--the tiny, weak seedlings are fragile and hard to handle, and sets are much easier to plant.


We judged it was time to pick our hops. Here you can see how daunting the task was.


Here's the result. Two window screens' worth. We had to spread the picking out over two days, especially since the first day was in the hot sun. Better to finish in the cool morning.


All this from a small vine planted four years ago. It just keeps coming back stronger and stronger, from the ground up. The variety is Mt. Hood, which is an aroma hop, as compared to a bittering hop. We added some to a sub-batch of our hard cider last year, and the result is very different and enjoyable. Of course, this is far more than we can possibly use ourselves. I'm going to see if I can trade the majority with one or the other of the local micro-breweries, for (what else?) beer!

Now, a last harvest. We bid so-long to Espresso corn, taking all the remaining small ears.


Some were starchy, but others were surprisingly good. Of course we couldn't eat them all in one sitting. The rest went into the freezer for the makings of corn chowder. I'm still hunting for an early (~70 day), cool-soil tolerant sweet corn.

Continuing harvests: Honey Select corn, Diva cucumbers, an artichoke, yellow wax beans, and zucchini.


I just had to show a picture of the Honey Select to compare with the Espresso above. I know I go on and on about how good it is, but it really is the best.


Tomatoes, eggplant, and more zucchini and Divas.


A colorful assortment of solanacea:


We had another batch of broiled shishito peppers. Again, no hot ones in the lot. And The Kitchen Goddess made Cowboy Candy with all our accumulated hot peppers.


She thought she had enough for three jars, but it was only two. What to do with the other jar of sauce? juice? whatever the heck you call the stuff the peppers were cooked in? We used some for a delicious sweet/spicy glaze for charcoal-grilled pork tenderloin.

And end-of week harvest. It's really nice that we still have lettuce this late in the season.


That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please visit all the lovely Harvest Monday posts at Our Happy Acres, hosted by Dave. Thanks, Dave!

13 comments:

  1. Really nice harvest. Your Honey Select corn looks great, as good as what I can buy from the farm stands. Seems like your left over juice would be good in a Bloody Mary.

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    1. Thanks, Dave. I think the juice might be too sweet for a Bloody Mary, but I might try it!

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  2. Really nice harvest. Your Honey Select corn looks great, as good as what I can buy from the farm stands. Seems like your left over juice would be good in a Bloody Mary.

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  3. What great harvests! And I agree - that Honey Select looks pretty awesome.

    I actually thought that cubanelle peppers were supposed to be picked while still green. The chiles rellenos looks yummy!

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    1. Thanks Margaret. Yes, I can't recall ever seeing a red chile relleno, but the seed catalog showed them as red.

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  4. Ooh, chiles rellenos - yum! And the hops for beer trade sounds great if you can do it. That does look like a lot of hops, if it filled two window screens. I've never grown them but I have seen them growing. A local garden group was giving away cuttings, and I managed to kill mine!

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    1. Oh, sorry about your hops vine. Try try again! They require very little care.

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  5. You know, pal, if you have too much of that cowboy candy, I know this guy...

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    1. You know the way here, pal. Always some Cowboy Candy for you.

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  6. Homemade chile rellenos, very impressive. And you are getting so many good things from your garden. It's pretty amazing that one hop vine produces so much, a great investment.

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    1. Thanks, Phuong. Yes, I'm glad I didn't plant more hops vines like I was originally considering.

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  7. Seems to me that you might have to add brewing beer to your skill set. Those are some very impressive harvests. And you've got me craving some Chile Rellenos!

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  8. Very cool that you grow hops! Our neighbors have said that if I grow the hops, they'll make the beer. I was a bit overwhelmed reading about them and the size that they get and how to harvest from the tall vines. All your harvests look delicious, especially that Honey Select corn. Mine didn't do well this year and I'm still sad about it.

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