Harvest Monday - 9 October 2023

Hello again from Eight Gate Farm! This past week had a return to lovely summer-like weather. I'm sure it helped in speeding along the late-harvest crops like hot peppers.

There was one "first harvest" this week, "Flame Star" hybrid cauliflower, which I've enjoyed growing for several years.  It's strange, but I planted it the same time as last year, yet I only harvested it now, as opposed to July like the previous season. Apparently it did not like the conditions. I got another one later in the week.

Flame Star (F1) cauliflower

For "general harvests" (crops already discussed individually), here was Tuesday's.

Tuesday general harvest

I also took what I think is the last of the Anaheim (slender ones at left) and Poblano peppers.

Anaheim and Poblano peppers

The Kitchen Goddess did several respectable raspberry pickings.

Fall raspberries

This was my Friday general harvest. Note the "Habanada" (heatless habanero) orange peppers on the left. A story about them later in this post.

Friday general harvest

TKG and her mother did an outstanding harvest at the community garden plot they share. As always, everything goes home with Mom, except she let TKG have the giant fennel.

Community garden plot harvest

Quite a bit of "preserving the harvest" occurred this week. After Monday's harvest, I had enough peppers to make three kinds of single-varietal hot sauces. Ten bottles of habanero, four of cayenne, and two of Hot Lemon. A small jar was filled with a blend of sauces that would not fit in the bottles, and some of the stuff that would not go through the strainer was retained for cooking purposes in the rightmost jar.

Hot sauces

We smoked, dehydrated and ground all the Anaheim peppers. Unfortunately I let time get away with me during the smoking, so the resulting product is called "Xtra-Smoky Anaheim powder." It will still be very useful in moderation.

Smoked Anaheim pepper powder

We retained some of the larger Poblano peppers for stuffing, and smoked the rest with the Anaheims. They did not get overdone as they are thicker-walled.

Smoked Poblano pepper powder

I took all the paprika peppers in the fridge and dehydrated them (not smoked). The result has a very pleasing fragrance and color. Okay, I hear you, no more pepper powder pictures.

Paprika

TKG made liqueur from our raspberries. The jar on the right was full, but has been reduced due to quality-assurance sampling. So far so good!

Raspberry liqueur

Now about the Habanada peppers. These are basically identical to normal fiery-hot habaneros, but with no heat at all.  I used seeds I saved from the plant I grew last year. I've been picking modest amounts all along, and it is winding down, so I took all the accumulated ones and began to chop them up for freezing as "seasoning peppers." As I went through, my eyes began to water. Something was up! I was not using gloves, and touched my finger to my lips, which promptly fell off (fortunately they grew back). So I made a quick decision to just lump them with the real habaneros and make more hot sauce. I guess my plant cross-pollinated with something spicy last year?

Habanero sauce

In closing, I'll show a picture I took of a Monarch butterfly and a bee sharing a Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia). See? We can all get along if we try.

Monarch butterfly and bee on Tithonia

That's all for this week. The weather has now cooled considerably, but there are no frosts in the extended forecast, so hopefully we keep motoring along! Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.