It's time once again for a Harvest Monday update. We still had a few "first harvests" this week, and as usual I'll lead off with them.
Orange Blaze is a hybrid bell pepper, which was an 2011 AAS winner. I purchased some plants this year to replace other sweet pepper types that got destroyed shortly after transplanting. I really like Orange Blaze for its earliness and taste. I'll try to source seeds for it next year.
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| Orange Blaze |
I mentioned awhile ago that I had a volunteer Yellow Pear tomato plant. While my experience with Yellow Pear last year was decent, I didn't like how many of the abundant fruit cracked. This year is no exception.
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| Yellow Pear tomato |
Fall raspberries are coming on strong. Here's the first picking just back from the garden, soaked in morning dew.
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| Raspberries |
For continuing harvests, Tuesday's tomato picking reflects how things are slowing down. Previously I needed the two-handled trug to bring them in, now they fit in a basket. I pulled out all the rest of the determinate vines this week. The indeterminates should still give us decent amounts.
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| Tuesday tomato harvest |
Here is Tuesday's non-tomato harvest, featuring the last of the sweet corn. It was a little past its prime, but still sweet and tasty.
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| Tuesday everything else harvest |
Friday's harvest was also colorful.
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| Friday harvest |
Now on to preserving the harvest. We had accumulated twelve Hungarian Cheese peppers (the round ones in the above picture), so The Kitchen Goddess dehydrated them for paprika. I really like how this pepper is productive, and I saved some seeds for next year.
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| Paprika |
TKG canned five jars of pickled red onions, and three of Pepperoncini.
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| Pickled onions and peppers |
And an amazing nine quarts of Bloody Mary Mix. All the major ingredients came from our gardens.
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| Bloody Mary Mix |
You may be asking, why in the world do they need nine quarts of Bloody Mary Mix?
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| Gray Treefrog |
Mr. Grumpy Frog does not like your question.
Seriously, though, we've already canned 18 quarts of chopped tomatoes, and we still have over 40 jars of sauce from last year. So we're running out of tomato ideas. Anyway, the Mix can be enjoyed without Vitamin V ("vodka" to some), so it's like super-spicy V8 juice.
That wraps up the week. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.
I used to make my own V8 style juice, so I can relate to the Boody Mary mix! I'm wondering what variety of whitish eggplant you have in your Tuesday harvest. I'm growing Bride this year but it has been a shy yielder for me. The Orange Blaze pepper always did well, though I didn't plant it this year.
ReplyDeleteThe whitish ones are indeed Bride, Dave. They come in an assortment of purple and white coloring. They are producing well, this year, but many have cosmetic defects and strange shapes.
ReplyDeleteSuch a productive week. Hope you have a late frost. And oh those raspberries!
ReplyDeleteLet's hope so, Sue! You never know around here when a frost will hit, and there's still so much to ripen.
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