Harvest Monday - 9 September 2024

Many gardeners, in my climate anyway, are familiar with this sad equation: cooler weather + diminishing daylight = smaller harvests. In my case, it is amplified by my reduced plantings this year. But I did manage to get two "first harvests" this week.

We like super-hot peppers, but we typically only use them for hot sauces. Habanero is a favorite, with a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of +/- 300,000. I'm not growing any of them this year. However, a guy I know asked if I like hot peppers, and when I replied in the affirmative, he gave me two "special" plants: Carolina Reaper and Scorpion. The heat level? Over one million SHUs. I was not sure they would do anything in our climate, but I was wrong. I picked the first Scorpions this week.

Danger! Scorpions!

What are we going to do with them? Well, I was afraid to even touch them! We're thinking we'd make a small batch of hot sauce, outside on the porch with a camping stove, wearing full hazmat gear, and using a cheap pot we won't use for anything else. Not by themselves, but adding something like pineapple or mango. What do you think?

Guajillo is a lovely, mildly hot pepper, which I've been growing for several years, using seeds provided by our Harvest Monday host, Dave. They take a long time to ripen here, but make a wonderful chile powder. I got the first ripe one this week.

Guajillo pepper

Now for general harvests. Here was Wednesday's, dominated by beets both red and golden.

Wednesday harvest

 Here was Friday's. Pole beans, at least, are coming in strong.

Friday harvest

Sunday's was equally small, but colorful at least.

Sunday harvest

Another thing coming in strong is the fall raspberries. The Kitchen Goddess is picking them every couple of days. This was the biggest, at 718 grams.

Fall raspberries

Even if the harvests are smaller, you can still have fun. Last week I wrote that I'd sampled hopped gin from a craft distiller at the garlic festival. Having plenty of hops, I wanted to make it. But TKG invalidated me by beating me to it! She just tossed a handful of hops into a quart jar filled with gin, and let it sit for 24 hours before straining. The result is quite good, with an interesting green color. It's hard to describe what it tastes like.

Hopped gin

And I made pickled jalapeno pepper rings, using a simple recipe. I like to toss a few into a glass of lager beer. I know, I'm strange.

Pickled jalapenos

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

Harvest Monday - 2 September 2024

Happy Labor Day (US) from Eight Gate Farm! This holiday weekend we spent two nights in southwestern Vermont, about 2.5 hours from us, to attend the garlic festival now called "Garlic Town USA." It seems lately that there are as many "craft distillery" booths as the garlic growers have, but we were still able to procure all the seed garlic we need for fall planting. The festival is quite fun: people watching, sampling food truck food (all the rage lately), and listening to live music. The seed garlic is a bonus. Plus the tiny town, Wilmington, where we stayed at an historic hotel, has some amazing restaurants.

We were able to get a few "first harvests" this late in the season. Leading off, here is the sweet pepper called "Hungarian Cheese." It's described as a stuffing pepper, but we prefer the thinner-walled, larger, red bell peppers for that. Instead, we use it for drying and grinding into paprika.

Hungarian Cheese (OP) peppers

I also had fun digging our entire crop of potatoes. In keeping with the theme of less production but also less work, this year I only planted one 12-foot row instead of two. We should be well-supplied nonetheless.

Kennebec potatoes

A crop I've ignored in recent years is hops. But at the garlic festival, I sampled a hopped gin from one of the distillers, and liked it. So when we got home I harvested a small bit of our hops, and plan to infuse a quart of gin with them. I'll let you know how it goes.

Mount Hood hops

It was also time to pick our entire pear "crop". This year the animals were unkind to us, taking all our peaches before we got any, and leaving us with only one pear!

First and only pear

Two "general harvests" were also taken this week. Here was Wednesday's:

Last general harvest of August

And here was Sunday's. A couple of things to note. There were four more petite artichokes, making our total for the year something like 40 from 4 plants I raised from seed. We've never had such good production before. Also, on the far right, is a large quantity of Anaheim peppers. The two plants had paused for a few weeks, then put on another flush. We have to figure out what to do with them all.

First September general harvest

And fall raspberries are continuing to be taken in small amounts for now.

Fall red raspberries

The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is not exactly rare around here, but is extremely shy and elusive. Most of the time I only catch them at night on my trail cameras. So we were thrilled the other evening to see one trotting toward us while we were on the screened porch out back. It stopped, turned to look at us, then continued on its mission, whatever that was. We will always remember the close encounter with this beautiful creature.

Bobcat

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for continuing to host Harvest Monday.