Harvest Monday - 26 August 2024

Just a quick Harvest Monday post for today. We were away for the whole week at the lakeside preserve we love to go to...second time this year. 

Only one first harvest was recorded: fall raspberries!

Fall raspberries

 On Monday, the day we left, we did a general harvest. We took a lot of this for our meals for the week.

Monday general harvest

And on Sunday, the day we returned, we had catching up to do!

Sunday general harvest

Even though it's high gardening season, it's nice to get away from the chores and just paddle around a lake, in a canoe, kayak, paddleboard, or (my favorite), a plain old floatee. We love listening to the haunting cries of the loons.

That's all for this week. On Friday, the start of the Labor Day weekend here in the US, we will once again be travelling to Vermont for the Garlic Festival, where I like to buy my seed garlic directly from the growers. It will be fun! Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 19 August 2024

Here's another Harvest Monday update from Eight Gate Farm. This week, the "first harvests" were all about peppers and onions, which are two of my favorite crops to grow.

I took the first red-ripe "Ace" sweet bell peppers. The plants are not large, but they have a good number of fruit in various stages of ripening.

Ace (F1) bell peppers

I also took the first ripe "Lunchbox Red" sweet peppers, described as a "snacking pepper."

Lunchbox Red (F1) sweet peppers

Snacking pepper? I picture this:

• Kid: "Can I have a snack?"
• Mom: "Have a tiny pepper."
• Kid: "No, I said a SNACK."

Now for the alliums, which are all very early this year. These are first and entire harvests. I intentionally grew much fewer compared to prior years.

Here's the yellow onion "Talon," which I've grown for many years with good success. It stores well.

Talon (F1) onions

Here's the red onion "Barolo," another I've had previous success with. They store extremely well; we still have a few from last year.

Barolo (F1) onions

Here's the white, large variety called "Alicia Craig." They are flavorful but don't store well, so they're the first ones we'll be using.

Alicia Craig (OP) onions

Finally, here's "Ambition," a shallot. They also store well.

Ambition (F1) shallots

Turning to general harvests, here was Monday's.

Monday general harvest

Here was Wednesday's.

Wednesday's general harvest

And here was Friday's. You may notice that I am picking some very green tomatoes. This is intentional. They are Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, one of our favorites. But it also seems to be the favorite of some small animal, which samples them just as they are starting to vine-ripen. Even though they are green, they are still maturing well indoors.

Friday general harvest

The Kitchen Goddess was busy this week, making many wonderful things. She made tomato sauce and chopped tomatoes, not for canning but for immediate use. She made stuffed bell peppers, and chiles rellenos (which is a much different stuffed pepper). She also took three pounds of jalapenos and cayenne peppers....

3 lbs. hot peppers

...and made and canned eight jelly jars of "Cowboy Candy," an old favorite around here. It's a hot pepper relish whose sweetness perfectly compliments the heat of the peppers. 

Cowboy Candy

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

 

Harvest Monday - 12 August 2024

Greetings from Eight Gate Farm! We got some much-needed rain this week, capped off on Friday by the remnants of Hurricane Debby (now tropical depression), which skirted us to the west while heading to the Canadian Maritimes. It brought rain and some wind gusts, but nothing damaging. Between the showers over the week I was able to go out a few times and bring back heavy harvest baskets, including a number of firsts.

I lead off with the second batch of sweet corn. This is another Supersweet (sh2) called Eden RMN. No, I don't know what the initials stand for. This is an all-white variety, so you can see from the picture that a bit of cross-pollination occurred with my first batch of bicolor corn. I thought I had timed the maturities appropriately, but I was wrong. Regardless, the taste is not affected, and it was delicious.

Eden RMN Supersweet corn

Well, that was Friday. Saturday morning we discovered this:

Corn crop destruction

Something quite large, a raccoon or a porcupine, scaled the fence and destroyed the crop of this second batch of corn. I was able to find only two undamaged ears on the 30+ stalks. 

While I am saddened, it is not the tragedy you'd think it would be. For I had truly reached my limit for eating corn, and my "system" told me so. But I hope the villain is suffering worse indigestion than I did. I thought it was prudent to cut down and remove all the stalks, in case it decided to return and finish off the half-eaten cobs.

A number of first harvests were recorded for the nightshade family. This is BlushingStar, a true pink tomato that I first tried last year. It has a bold, balanced flavor.

BlushingStar (F1) tomato

I cut the first "Black King" eggplant. It looks a lot like the Midnight Queen I harvested previously, and is a bit later, but may turn out to be more productive.

Black King (F1) eggplant

I also cut a couple of "Bride" eggplants. I think it is the prettiest eggplant I grow.

Bride (F1) eggplant

On the pepper side, I took the first slightly-hot Anaheim peppers. Actually quite a few before this looked promising, but rotted, perhaps from sunscald.

Anaheim (OP) hot peppers

I also picked most of the first crops of dry (soup) beans. This is Jacob's Cattle. I got a lot more than I did last year, where I barely filled a jelly jar with beans.

Jacob's Cattle beans

Later I picked Black Coco (a new variety to me).

Black Coco beans

Both varieties are spread out and further drying in the sun room. I'll show the results when they are ready.

Turning to continuing harvests, here was Tuesday's. Note the two grotesquely large kohlrabi.

Tuesday general harvest

Wednesday's harvest had the last of the Solstice corn. Most of that went into a spicy corn dip The Kitchen Goddess made for a garden party. I confined myself only to a taste of it, and it was delicious.

Wednesday general harvest

Friday's harvest was more varied. That's the last of the artichokes. I can't believe we harvested 40 of these little gems this year.

Friday general harvest

Now for "using the harvest." I had accumulated 20 of the large Red Ember cayennes, so I made cayenne powder, an all-day, sneeze-inducing process.

Cayenne powder

And TKG salvaged what she could from the aforesaid kohlrabi, and started fermenting it for kimchi.

Kimchi science project

Sorry, went a bit long this week. Thanks for sticking with it. Thanks also to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 5 August 2024

Our weather changed once again to oppressive humidity. I've said, "we don't have to move to Florida, Florida's moving to us." As if to prove my point, and I don't think I've mentioned this before, like a lot of places in the US, our USDA Climate Zone jumped a half-step. Ours went from 5B to 6A. But I think most gardeners here already knew that before it was made official late last year. 

The harvests haven't really slowed, and almost everything seems to be ahead of years past. I'll lead off with the "first harvests."

Top of the crop was the first sweet corn! This year I set out to grow the type I've never done before, the Supersweets (sh2). They are known to be finicky about soil temp for germination, but I solved that by starting them indoors and transplanting out at 10 days or so. It worked! I got the first ears before the end of July. The flavor and texture is just wow!

Solstice (a Supersweet)

Another first harvest is this good-sized, Italian-style eggplant, called Midnight Queen.

Midnight Queen (F1) eggplant

The "last first," coming in a few days ahead of Midnight Queen, is this Ping Tung eggplant.

Ping Tung eggplant

Now for the continuing harvests. Here was Monday's.

Late July general harvest

Here was Thursday's. The fennel bulb was really too large, at over a kilo, and the woody parts had to be shaved off

Early August general harvest.

And here's Sunday's. We took another overlarge, slightly woody fennel bulb. Fortunately, that's the last. As for the corn, I've eaten two ears every night this week. Could I be approaching my limit? Not quite yet.

Early August harvest (2).

I cleaned all the garlic harvested a couple of weeks ago. I like to see them all clean and lined up. Clockwise from right is German White, Music, Russian Red, and the Elephant "garlics" (more closely related to leeks). The latter did not truly get elephant size, but it was a fun experiment to try them.

2024 garlic harvest

I haven't said much about the "42 Day" tomato that I first harvested several weeks ago. I must say I'm completely impressed with it. In true determinate fashion, it has set all the fruit it's going to for the season, but look how loaded the plant is. And the 1.5 - 2 oz "saladette" fruits are quite tasty. I think this would be an excellent choice if you are looking for a container variety.

"42 Day" tomato plant

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and continuing appreciation for the work Dave does at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.