We had July in September this past week, with temps over 90f (32+c), and high humidity. Very uncomfortable, but good for the crops. A number of "firsts" came in, starting with hot peppers.
I'm a big fan of cayennes, and we use them for a varietal hot sauce as well as dehydrating. Of course, we'll need a lot more than this. Last year at this time I was already bottling sauce.
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| Cayenne (OP) |
Guajillo is a beautiful pepper, large and with deep color. We make an aromatic chile powder with them. The seeds were provided by none other than our Harvest Monday host, Dave.
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| Guajillo (OP) |
Anaheim is another versatile pepper, typically with a little bit of kick. We use them for chile rellenos, and dry them for powder too.
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| Anaheim (OP) |
The Kitchen Goddess made me some rellenos, which were amazing, but I didn't detect any heat from the peppers.
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| Chile rellenos |
The hybrid sweet bell pepper "Ace" made its first appearance this season.
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| Ace (F1) |
I finally got the first ripe Pink Brandywine tomato. Independent taste tests, including our own, frequently rank Brandywine at the top. In my area, they are slow, prone to disease, and not productive, but I have to grow it for the taste.
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| Pink Brandywine (heirloom) |
It was also time to dig the entire crop of Kennebec potatoes. I love them for their creamy taste and long storage. We got a nice crop this year.
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| Kennebec |
But that's not all! I was apparently not diligent in harvesting all our potatoes last year, and the overlooked ones grew and multiplied. These are both Kennebec and Yukon Gold.
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| Volunteer potatoes |
The last "first harvest" was this entire crop of Alicia Craig onions. They have a nice flavor, but don't store for very long, so we have to use these first.
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| Alicia Craig onions (OP) |
Some of these get quite large. As I've said before, it amazes me that something this big can grow from a little wispy seedling.
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| Alicia Craig |
Now on to the general harvests. On Tuesday I picked a good amount of eggplant at the request of a friend.
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| Italian and Asian-style eggplant |
Here was Wednesday's general harvest.
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| Wednesday general harvest |
And here was Friday's.
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| Friday general harvest |
Can't forget to show the amazing harvest TKG and her mom got from their community garden plot.
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| Community garden plot harvest |
One day this week TKG turned this...
...into this. Five quarts of chopped tomatoes.
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| Canned chopped tomatoes. |
So my prediction that we would not have enough tomatoes this year to do any canning was wrong, but not by much I still believe.
This coming week the temperature is supposed to moderate and be more seasonal. "Most" of me wants that to come true, but the heat really does help in ripening. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.
That's a good looking haul of potatoes you have! And your guajillo and Anaheim peppers are ahead of mine. It has been a challenging year for peppers here, though I really can't figure out why.
ReplyDeleteYou and your wife must be busy! So much to put by for the months ahead.
ReplyDelete