Harvest Monday - 26 September 2022

Hello again from Eight Gate Farm. This week was mostly cool, damp, and dreary. Not at all like our normal early fall weather. The harvests are slowing way down, yet a few new crops were brought in.

My first picture is of a heatless habanero pepper called "Habanada." The seedling was given to me by a friend. I never really saw the point of growing heatless hot peppers, but I was happy to give this a try. Cutting them open, they released the same aromatic fragrance of real habaneros. Tasting them (something I wouldn't dare try with a habanero), they are very sweet, fruity, and rich. I can see how they would be good aromatic peppers to flavor things like beans. I might save some seeds. But the plant itself is a shy producer.

Habanada

The summer-planted "Minuet" Chinese cabbages looked to be ready, and we needed one for a dish. They actually were on the small side, so I took two. 

Minuet (F1) cabbage

This is a volunteer squash that grew up in the compost. I've never grown anything resembling this, so when the fruit formed I was very puzzled as to its origin. Then The Kitchen Goddess remembered we bought some small ornamental pumpkins at the market last year. Well, no need to buy them this year!

Tiny white ornamental pumpkins

I cut the first two "Lilly" hybrid crenshaw-type melons. These are another creation from Johnny's Selected Seeds. They are very sweet, yet also hold some of the muskiness of cantaloupes.

'Lilly' hybrid melons

Three years ago I planted 3 bare root vines of the red wine grape "Marquette." This is a product from the University of Minnesota's project to develop cold-hardy, disease-resistant wine grapes for the North. TKG has been carefully pruning and trellising the vines, and she picked the entire crop this week. Right now they are undergoing fermentation. We have high hopes, as the grapes measured an outstanding brix level of 25.

'Marquette' wine grapes

For "general harvests," Tuesday's was small enough to fit in one picture.

Tuesday general harvest

TKG did some amazing pickings of fall raspberries. Here's one at over 2 pounds. She decided to start a batch of raspberry liqueur with them. I know I'll enjoy sipping it in winter.

Raspberries

It wasn't until Sunday that I ventured out again into the gardens to harvest. The cool weather had really slowed things down. But I got a good cutting of greens (collards and kale). These were immediately chopped and frozen.

Sunday harvest of greens

I also got celery, carrots, paprika peppers, pole beans, shishitos, and a couple of eggplants.

Sunday general harvest

I also got quite a few hot peppers. The top row consists of Sugar Rush Peach, cayennes, and Hot Lemon. The bottom row is guajillo, serrano, and habanero.

Sunday hot pepper harvest

On Saturday TKG and her mum went to their community garden plot, and made off with quite a colorful haul. All proceeds go to Mom.

Since the cold and dampness kept us indoors, it was a good time to do some preserving. I made three simple varietal hot sauces. I ordered more of those cute 5-ounce bottles, but they are twice delayed in shipping, so I had to put the sauce in jars temporarily. From left, fiery-hot habanero, medium-hot cayenne, and very hot Hot Lemon.

Hot sauces

Whatever cayenne peppers did not go into sauce were dehydrated and ground to make a robust chile powder.

Pure cayenne chile powder

On Sunday I did something I never thought I would do. I pulled out all the zucchini, shishito pepper, broccoli, and pole bean plants, even though they were still productive. We've just had enough of them, and friends are pleading with us to give them no more. I may do the same with most of the hot peppers; again, we are at our limit of things to do with them. What a year!

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 19 September 2022

Hello again from Eight Gate Farm! This week we felt a noticeable transition to fall conditions, with cool nights. Harvests are slowing down, but still strong. As if to prove it, we cut most of the winter squash, 211 pounds worth. How do I know this? Because The Kitchen Goddess somewhat obsessively weighed each one and added them up!

211 lbs of winter squash

Allow me to unload the cart. These are "Neck Pumpkins," actually a squash. They don't look too impressive when shot from a distance.

Neck pumpkins

But up close, a different story.

17.4 pound neck pumpkin

These are Yokohama squash, an heirloom moschata variety. I've grown them before, and found that while they are not productive, what you get is really tasty, and attractive too. They weighed 4 to 5 pounds.

Yokohama squash

"Sugaretti" is a hybrid spaghetti squash that looks like a delicata. It has always been productive for me, and stores forever.

'Sugaretti' spaghetti squash

A first-time-growing moschata squash is this hybrid called "Autumn Frost." I'm impressed with its output and appearance, and look forward to tasting it.

'Autumn Frost' squash

And then there's a mystery squash. My label said "Chirimen," which is another Japanese moschata that looks a lot like Yokohama, but that's certainly not what grew.

Mystery squash

Yes, this is far more squash than we can possibly use, and there's still a few more on the way. But it illustrates the productivity coming from the "lasagna" (no dig, no till) plot I extended last fall, where everything grew in pure compost. Amazing!

Now on to "general harvests"; those crops I have already featured in individual references. Here was Monday's tomato harvest.

Monday tomato harvest

And Monday's "everything else."

Monday harvest

More tomatoes on Wednesday.

Wednesday tomato harvest

And Wednesday's "everything else."

Wednesday harvest

Thursday's harvest was only hot peppers, but a lot of them. Looking north to south in this picture, they range from mildly hot, to moderate, to intense, to fuggetaboudit.

Thursday Parade O' Peppers

Friday's harvest was much lighter. There were also tomatoes, of course, but I didn't photograph them.

Friday harvest

Now on to Preserving the Harvest. I had enough accumulated paprika peppers to dehydrate and grind. They got a little dark in the drying process, but though not bright red, still smelled wonderful.

Paprika

I also had enough guajillo peppers to finally make chile powder. I tasted a few pieces prior to drying, and was surprised to find none of the heat I was expecting. But after grinding, the aroma was intoxicating. We definitely need to grow more of these next year.

Guajillo chile powder

And TKG canned 14 pints of thick tomato sauce. We truly have reached our limit of canned tomato products now. Any more sauce tomatoes we harvest will be given to friends.

Canned tomato sauce

That's all for this week. Thanks for visiting, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 12 September 2022

Here's another Harvest Monday update from Eight Gate Farm. Monday and Tuesday were both days of solid rain. Welcome, but not enough to get us out of the drought conditions. It was Wednesday before I ventured out to the gardens to harvest. Predictably, a lot of the smaller-fruit tomatoes were splitting; even Juliet, which is known for its crack resistance.

For "first harvests," ripe "Hot Lemon" peppers made their appearance. This variety is another that is too hot to eat outright, but makes an excellent, floral hot sauce that's colorful too. They're super attractive, I think.

'Hot Lemon' peppers

 "Rocky Ford" is a green-fleshed cantaloupe. The seeds were a free sample in one of my orders this year. Cutting it open, I was struck by its intense candy-like aroma. It is juicy and super-tasty.

'Rocky Ford' cantaloupe

This is the first year I've had what I would call success in growing celery. Compared to supermarket celery, besides being smaller, it is all green, fibrous, and strong-flavored, with no bitterness. I think it would make an excellent cream soup.

'Ventura' (OP) celery

Now on to the "general harvests." Here is Wednesday's tomato picking.

Wednesday tomato harvest

Wednesday's hot pepper harvest.

Wednesday hot pepper harvest

And Wednesday's "everything else" harvest

The rest of Wednesday's harvests

Friday was similar in a lot of ways.

Friday tomato harvest

Friday hot pepper harvest

Friday "everything else" harvest

The Kitchen Goddess continues to do almost daily picking from the raspberry vines.

Sample raspberry picking

For "preserving the harvests," besides a lot of processing vegetables for the freezer, on Saturday we made several varieties of hot sauce. I made four bottles each of 100% cayenne and 100% habanero (atomic!). I used the simple, non-fermented way of boiling the chopped peppers in vinegar with a little salt, blending them, and straining into bottles. TKG took what I had that wouldn't fit into more bottles, and blended with the fermented Sugar Rush Cream pepper mash that was ready to go. She netted six bottles. After this, I had to order yet more bottles, as there are a lot more peppers on the way.

Cayenne, habanero, and mixed sauces

I'm really wrestling with the concept of scaling back production of many things next year. I want to make sure I have enough of the things we really use, and cut back on the non-essentials. We're giving away so much produce, and that's a feel-good thing, but also kind of strange. I also hate to see bare beds. This has been a super-productive year, but there are no guarantees about next year's conditions.  I haven't made any decisions yet, just thinking.

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday - 5 September 2022

Happy Labor Day (U.S.)! We are supposed to have a full day of rain today, something we haven't had in weeks. Bad news for people with outdoor plans, but for us, we are using the opportunity to do things like can tomato sauce (The Kitchen Goddess) and trim, clean, and place the onions in storage (me). 

The harvests keep rolling in, and as usual I'll start with the first harvests of the season. Here are the first guajillo peppers. The seeds were kindly provided to me by none other than our awesome Harvest Monday host, Dave. He uses them for chile powder, and that's what I'm going to do too. I love the dark red color. I had some problems with early fruit falling off, but that's resolved itself now and the crop looks to be good.

Guajillo ("Dustbowl") hot peppers

Habanero peppers are a favorite of mine. They're way too hot to eat, but make an excellent simple hot sauce. This year I'm growing the open-pollinated version on the left (one plant), and the hybrid "Helios" on the right (two plants). Helios, bred by Johnny's Selected Seeds, is supposed to be earlier and more productive. For me, so far, it's a tie, and the fruits look identical. We'll see how it plays out as the season progresses.

Habaneros: original (OP) and Helios (hyb)

Here we have two sweet "bullhorn" style peppers, stablemates from the Johnny's breeding program. On the left is Cornito Rosso; on the right, Escamillo.

Cornito Rosso, Escamillo

Most I chopped and froze, but I took one of each and made stuffed peppers, giving us each half a red and half a yellow. I made mine the good old traditional, Ozzie and Harriet style, with ground beef, rice and tomato sauce. But TKG wanted a low-carb version, so instead of rice and sauce she asked for...kimchi (what??). She liked it, but I did not dare try it. Why mess with tradition?

Another new one are these hybrid bell peppers called "Ace." I chopped and froze these as well.

Ace (hyb)

I dug the last row of potatoes. These are "Kennebec," a white potato I've been growing for years, that is very tasty and stores well. This year's crop was productive.

Kennebec

Nothing says "summer" like harvesting the first winter squash. This week I picked the first hybrid butternuts called "Butterscotch," yet another creation from Johnny's. They're billed as "personal-size," and at 1.5 pounds each, that is true.

Butterscotch (hyb)

Definitely not personal-size are these hybrid pumpkins, "Blue Prince." In fact, the largest weighed 13 pounds. I love the frosty blue-gray color, and the catalog picture showed them as bright orange on the inside. I won't be able to confirm that for a few weeks, after they've had a chance to cure.

Blue Prince (hyb) pumpkins

Now on to "continuing harvests." But first, on Monday, TKG did a marathon session using up all the accumulated tomatoes to make 14 quarts of stewed tomatoes. It was the hottest day of the week, and she was exhausted, but was glad to once again be able to see the top of her dining room table, and to have her precious sheet pans back.

Canned stewed tomatoes

And then, naturally, this happened the next day.

Tuesday tomato harvest

Tuesday also had a big harvest of hot red peppers, mostly cayennes with a few serranos.

Tuesday hot pepper harvest

And this was Tuesday's "everything else" harvest.

Tuesday general harvest

Thursday had another basket of tomatoes.

Thursday tomato harvest

And everything else.

Thursday general harvest

Sunday had more tomatoes (see a pattern?).

Sunday tomato harvest

So now you can tell why TKG has to can today.

I also did a heavy picking of collards, and took the remaining crop of sweet corn. Yes, 23 ears is a lot when usually I take 2 or 3 a day, but even the newest hybrid sweet corn does not hold more than two weeks in the field before it gets starchy, so I ate a few ears that night and cut the kernels off the rest for the freezer, i.e. "niblets" (not sure if that's a trademark from one of the frozen vegetable companies. If it is, sue me!).

Top Bunch 2.0 (hyb) collards, and Honey Select (hyb) corn

Here's Sunday's everything else harvest.

Sunday general harvest

My last picture is an example of the almost daily picking of raspberries done by TKG. The freezer is being replenished. 

Raspberries

I was thinking yesterday that if an early frost took down the gardens this week, it would still be a year to remember. Not that I want that, of course. Thanks for reading, and please join me in acknowledging our host, Dave, at HappyAcres.blog for all the efforts he does to maintain Harvest Monday, which gives me so much enjoyment