Harvest Monday - 15 August 2022

Welcome to another Harvest Monday update from Eight Gate Farm. We had welcome relief from the heat and humidity this week, and some spotty rain, but not enough. We did have happy harvests though.

For "first harvests," I cut two good-sized Nadia hybrid eggplants.

Nadia

"Midnight Queen" is another hybrid Italian-style eggplant, that is supposed to be earlier than Nadia. In my case, it was later by a few days. There's nothing wrong with it, but I think I'll just grow Nadia in the future.

Midnight Queen

I picked the first Brandywine Pink heirloom tomato, weighing over a pound and a half. It's our favorite variety. It's not much to look at on the outside.

Brandywine Pink

But on the inside, pure bliss!

Brandywine Pink, get in my belly!

In fact, I was so excited to make a BLT with it that I forgot the L.

I picked the first Pink Berkeley Tie-Die, which is another super-flavorful selection.

Pink Berkeley Tie-Die

And the first Burpee's Early Pick, a hybrid indeterminate that is supposed to be what its name implies, but it was no earlier this year than a lot of the big slicers. 

Burpee's Early Pick

For a smaller indeterminate tomato with great flavor, we like Gardener's Delight. They're about golf ball size, or a "two-biter" as I like to call them.

Gardener's Delight

Dark Star is an interesting tomato I'm growing for the first time. It has late blight resistance, and is described as having a smoky taste like Cherokee Purple or Carbon. Well, I tried it, and while it is very good, I didn't get the smokiness. It looks very productive, so maybe others will.

Dark Star (hybrid)

Another first-timer is Marzito, a hybrid San Marzano type for saucemaking. I was attracted to it because while much smaller than true San Marzanos, it was supposed to mature in 50 - 55 days. Not for me. More like 75 days. Unless it redeems itself by being super-productive I don't see the need to grow it again.

Marzito

Turning to determinates, I picked the first Rutgers. This is another of our canning workhorses.

Rutgers (OP)

And a first-time-growing paste variety called "Bellatrix." It too is supposed to have strong resistance to late blight. I'm trialing it as a replacement for Roma, which is another workhorse, but has no disease resistance. Bellatrix has nicely-shaped 4 oz. fruits.

Bellatrix (hybrid)

Another first harvest (and first time growing) is the dry bean called Calypso or Yin-yang. This was the entire crop, pretty good since only about half of the seeds I planted made it. Bean seedlings are very attractive to chipmunks and squirrels.

Calypso beans finishing drying.

If I had named this bean, I would have called it "Orca."

Calypso

For general harvests, by which I mean crops that have already been featured by themselves in this or other posts, Tuesday's required two baskets to bring in.

Tuesday general harvest

That's the last yellow zucchini. Vine borers finally killed all four plants. Also the last of this planting of sweet corn. Thankfully another is on its way.

Friday's harvest also required two baskets, one for tomatoes.

Friday tomato harvest

And another for everything else.

Friday harvest

The Kitchen Goddess continues to pick blueberries.

Blueberries

Underneath all the new vegetables in the fridge were three kohlrabi we'd forgotten about. Even though they were picked in early July, they were still as fresh as can be. TKG tried her hand at making a spicy kimchi with them, now fermenting.

Kohlrabi kimchi science project

And to reduce the glut of cucumbers, TKG canned six pints of dill pickles.

Dill pickles

All in all a busy week! But it's that time of year. I hope your harvests were good too, and I look forward to reading about them on Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at HappyAcres.blog.