Harvest Monday - 25 August 2025

 Hello again from Eight Gate Farm. We've had a stretch of mostly pleasant weather, but the lack of rainfall is disconcerting. We are officially in a Moderate Drought condition, but it feels worse than that.

Harvests this week were on the light side, reflecting my way-scaled-down growing this year. Some new pepper varieties were picked this week.

This is "Trepadeira Werner." Looking for a hot cherry type, I found this at the Baker Creek store in Petaluma, California last November. It's in the C. baccatum group, and is supposed to have a heat level of 5 - 15k Scoville Units, making them mildly hot. The small plant has produced a huge number of fruits, but they take a long time to go from cream-colored to ripe-red. I haven't tasted them yet, hoping to accumulate enough to pickle whole.

Trepadeira Werner (OP)

I lost one of my cayenne plants when it snapped in a wind gust in late June. Not enough time to start seeds, but outside a grocery store they were offering a BOGO deal on all their plants. Can't pass that up! I chose a Serrano pepper (yet to produce), and a Tabasco pepper plant, which started coming in this week. It's one of the few in the C. frutescens group. I've never grown them before, and the plant, though very small, has an amazing amount of fruit. Maybe I'll make a sauce to compete with the well-known brand of the same name!

Tabasco (OP)

"Arroz Con Pollo" is described as a "seasoning" pepper, meaning it's added to other dishes to add a unique flavor. I grew it some time ago, and was very impressed with its aroma. But my seeds lost their viability. I bought it again at the Baker Creek store. Having had more experience since my first time with it, I've discovered that Habanero peppers have that same aroma, and thus ACP is really a heatless Habanero like others (e.g. Habanada). Although, one source places it in C. annuum, not C. chinense.

Arroz Con Pollo (OP)

After two years of no peaches, this year looked very promising. In fact, the branches of the wispy tree were so loaded they were in danger of breaking. We culled fruit several times, trying to keep 4 inches between what was left. I noticed some were disappearing, which suggested squirrel foul play. So I picked the tree clean. The peaches were hard, but softened up in a few days inside, suggesting that enough ethylene had been produced in the fruit to fully ripen them. They are small, but so delicious and juicy!

Entire crop of Reliance peaches

Other than what I've showed above, I'm continuing to cut zucchini every other day, and there were two general harvests this week. This was Tuesday's:

General Harvest #1

And this was Thursday's:

General Harvest #2

This coming weekend we are off to Vermont for the garlic festival, where we buy seed garlic right from the growers, and in general have fun at the fair. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.