Harvest Monday - 22 September 2025

 No post last Monday, as we were enjoying another three-night getaway to a cabin at the nearby lakeside nature preserve. So here's what's come in over the past two weeks.

I cut all the butternut squash available. This is Waltham Butternut, smaller than expected, with the biggest one just about 3 pounds.

Waltham Butternut (OP)

And this is Butterbush. As the name implies, it's a bush or short vine hybrid, producing what they call "single-serving" fruits. The largest is just over 2 pounds.

Butterbush (F1)

Dry shelling bush beans were picked and shelled. On the left is Monos Negros, a black bean that I've grown for a couple of years. It seems to have a fair number that are more purple than black. On the right is Jacob's Cattle, which is very attractive to me.

Monos Negros and Jacob's Cattle

I cut the last of the Autumn Frost squash. This brings our total to 17 squashes of all types. This should be plenty to get us through the winter. The fact that they are on the small side is not a problem for us. Those 18 pounder crooknecks I grew last year were a lot of fun, but it's way too much for us to use at one time. We actually still have one in storage, looking fine.

Autumn Frost (F1)

The Kitchen Goddess picked the first large quantity of raspberries.

Fall raspberries

And there was only one "general harvest."

Mid-September harvest

I had accumulated two dozen paprika peppers.

Leutschauer paprika (OP)

I smoked them for an hour and a half, dehydrated them, and ground into smoked paprika, a spice I'm very fond of. I discovered this variety of paprika pepper has actually a bit of a kick to it, which is fine.

Smoked paprika

A couple of wildlife notes: the Northern Walkingstick is not rare, but you never see them unless they're out of their element and their camouflage has become a liability. I found this one on Saturday.

Northern (Common) Walkingstick

We had an outdoor fire one evening, and an immature Red-tailed hawk landed on a post very nearby.

It looked at us for awhile, then flew off.

So we had a great time at the lake. The nights and especially the early mornings were quite cool, and we were glad we brought jackets. But the days were warm and sunny. I even went swimming a couple of times. Sitting around a fire in the evening was very pleasant.

And here's a picture from a very calm morning.

Serenity on a chilly morning

That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 8 September 2025

 Hello again from Eight Gate Farm! We received a solid inch of rain Saturday into Sunday, which is welcome, but not enough to get us out of the summer-long drought. Quite a few first-of-the-season harvests were made this week, along with two general harvests.

The Serrano pepper plant I bought gave us two ripe fruits. As these come in, they will supplement the cayennes I am growing, probably for chile powder.

Serrano (OP)

I grew a "Mountain Spirit" tomato plant for the first time this year. The staff at Fedco Seeds raved about it, and they aren't usually given to hype. Well, I was disappointed. Not only is it tardy (98 days as opposed to the predicted 77), but it is not productive nor very resistant to disease. So somehow I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the taste.

Mountain Spirit (OP)

Boy, was I wrong. I loved it. We both did. The flavor is very sweet and fruity (like apricot says The Kitchen Goddess). So now the question for next year is if the flavor is enough to justify its flaws.

Every year one or more volunteer tomato plants pop up in summer around the compost area. Often they give us fruit. It's always amusing to me, and rarely am I able to identify what type of tomato it is. Here is this year's Mystery Tomato.

Volunteer mystery tomato

The taste is pretty good! Much more on the acidic side, which we like.

It was time to dig the main crop of potatoes. Overall, a good crop from a 12-foot row. No prizewinners, but decent enough size.

Kennebec potatoes

It was also time to cut the first winter squash. This is "Autumn Frost," a hybrid butternut-type. We've grown it for years and love its deep orange flesh and rich flavor. Again, no prizewinners in this lot, but useful nonetheless.

Autumn Frost squash (F1)

For general harvests, Monday's needed two photos.

Peppers: spicy on the top, sweet on the bottom!

Everything else in the first harvest of September

Saturday's general harvest needs only one photo.

Saturday harvest

As I'm growing only four tomato plants, we did not expect to have to do any canning this year. But they were starting to accumulate, so TKG made thick sauce, and had enough to can three quarts.

Thick tomato sauce

We were running low on garlic powder. TKG took some of last year's chopped garlic out of the freezer, thawed it, dehydrated, and ground it into a small mountain of powder. I wasn't sure frozen garlic would dry easily, but it did. Even though she did the dehydrating and grinding out on the screened porch, the kitchen still was "fragrant." She took some of it and added ground rosemary and thyme, to follow something someone was selling at the garlic festival. It makes a very aromatic seasoning. That vendor also had smoked pepper garlic powder, and I'd like to smoke some of my poblano peppers and try to make that.

Plain garlic powder

Not a bad week for the time of the season. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday. 

Harvest Monday - 1 September 2025

 Today is Labor Day in the US, a holiday that traditionally marks the end of summer here, even though the true calendar start to Autumn is still three weeks away. As if to prove it, the weather has been thoroughly fall-like, with pleasant days and chilly mornings. A little rain, but only enough to "settle the dust" as they say. We got back from the garlic festival yesterday (more on that below).

I got only one "first of the season" harvest this past week, and that is Chinese cabbage. I planted six in early summer, three for us and three for The Kitchen Goddess's mother. I grew them completely under fleece to deter the caterpillars, and it worked well, producing very dense heads.

Minuet Chinese cabbage (F1)

Besides continuously cutting zucchini, I got just one "general harvest," but it was large enough to require two photos.

General harvest (sweet and hot peppers)

General harvest (tomatoes and zucchini)

I don't think I've talked about it before, but TKG's mom is using the in-ground portion of our fenced garden, and is growing lots of things she is pleased with. Here's a harvest she went home with. Note the Tromboncino squash she wanted to grow.

Mom's harvest

For "using the harvest," I pickled all the Trapadeira Werner hot cherry peppers I had harvested so far. I sampled one the next day and "pow!" It was much hotter than I was expecting.

Pickled hot cherry peppers

I also dehydrated all the other hot peppers I had accumulated. When I was done, they looked like this.

Dehydrated hot peppers

TKG took that and put it through a sieve. This resulted in two useful things, chile powder and red pepper flakes.

In non-harvest notes, I've always been fond of hollyhocks but never grew them for some reason. This year I bought a packet of seeds from the Botanical Interests company. They call it the "Outhouse Flower." This intrigued me, so I looked it up. According to the legend, hollyhocks were planted both to screen and identify the privy, so shy, genteel people wouldn't have to ask where it was. 

"Outhouse Flower" (hollyhock)

The garlic festival, now called "Garlic Town USA," is held in the town of Bennington, Vermont (2.5 hours west of us) on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. We spent two lovely nights in the area. The festival sadly seems to be shrinking in size, why I don't know. But one nice thing they did this year was to put the garlic growers' booths in one area, instead of scattering among all the other types of vendors at the fair. This made comparison shopping much easier.

Mountains of garlic

We ended up not buying from this vendor, but instead found one who was selling cloves by the pound in addition to whole bulbs. We now have all our seed garlic, for our own garden and the two education gardens we volunteer at.

So, we feel like we are already in Autumn. I've noticed that the pepper plants, while still loaded with ripening fruit, don't seem to be setting any new ones. That's sad.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.

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.

Harvest Monday - 18 August 2025

 A fairly quiet week here, but full-size sweet peppers made their first appearance, which is always a cause for celebration for us. 

For years I struggled to grow big blocky bells, until I tried "Ace," a hybrid bred for cooler climates. This year, only one plant came up and I was out of seeds, so I ran to the garden center and looked for a replacement. The only one I found was "California Wonder," a very old variety. Both gave me their first ripe fruits this week. Cal Wonder is doing very well, and the seeds are much cheaper!

California Wonder (OP) and Ace (F1)

I'm a big fan of the yellow bullhorn-style sweet pepper called "Escamillo," bred by Johnny's Selected Seeds in nearby Maine. It is very sweet and juicy. These were the first this year, and are somewhat smaller than usual.

Escamillo (F1)

Just like with Ace, only one Escamillo seed germinated and I was out. Wanting another bullhorn-style, I bought the old variety "Marconi," and I am pleased with it so far.

Marconi (OP)

 

I guess the upshot is while I prefer modern hybrids in most cases, the tried-and-true varieties can be equally good.

I had only two "general harvests" this week.

Monday harvest

Friday harvest

In [unwelcome] Wildlife Notes, I found the first hornworm of the season on one of my tomato plants. Though commonly called Tomato Hornworm, the vast majority found here are the closely related Tobacco Hornworm, which is odd in itself since this is not a tobacco-growing region. If you don't have them in your area, this caterpillar of a moth grows scarily big, and will decimate a tomato plant, fruit and all. Yet they can be very hard to detect; you just can see the damage done and the droppings left. Luckily, gardeners have a tiny friend...a parasitic wasp whose larvae stop the hornworm from eating and growing. In this picture, the one I found had already been parasitized, and the white egg-like things are the cocoons made by the larvae.

Parasitized Tobacco Hornworm

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

Harvest Monday - 11 August 2025

 Hello again from Eight Gate Farm! After a stretch of very pleasant (if dry) weather, the Heat Dome which has affected much of the US is starting to roll over us. Forecasts are for near 100 for 3 or more days. Oddly, it is supposed to cool off each night, which should make it more bearable, and gardening chores can be done in the early morning without too much discomfort. Any rain is a long way off.

We are very happy that it is now tomato time! Three of my four slicing-size tomatoes came in this week. Leading off is "Genuwine," a cross between the heirlooms Costoluto Genovese and Brandywine, with advantages over both parents. The taste is only slightly less excellent than Brandywine, our favorite, but which doesn't produce much here.

Genuwine (F1)

The Chef's Choice series of hybrid tomatoes now numbers more than six, and most are AAS winners, but I've only grown the "Orange" version. In taste, it's a little more sweet than acidic, but very delicious.

Chef's Choice Orange (F1)

And then there's Large Barred Boar. This is one of the open-pollinated tomatoes bred by Wild Boar Farms. I've grown their "Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye" for a number of years, but decided to try this one instead. 

Large Barred Boar (OP)

All I can say is "wow!" This one knocked it out of the park in the flavor department. It is giving Brandywine a run for its money, and that's saying a lot.

This was our first tomato dinner...The Kitchen Goddess made crostini, which is simple but super-delicious. I like the fresh oregano leaves she put on it.

Crostini

In other "first harvests" of the season, I pulled all the onions. This is much earlier than in seasons past, but the tops had all flopped over and were browning. I'm disappointed with the sizes this year. No Deerfield Fair prizes lurking in this lot.

Here's the white onion "Alisa Craig Exhibition" and the yellow onion "Talon."

Alisa Craig (OP) and Talon (F1)

And here's the red onion "Barolo" and the shallot "Ambition."

Barolo (F1) and Ambition (F1)

I planted a long row of potatoes in the field garden, but had some seed tubers left over, so I planted two short rows in the raised bed garden. They showed signs of being ready (dying back) well before the field crop for some reason. I dug them up this week. They are mostly Red Bliss with a few Kennebec. Sizes are small.

First potato harvest

General harvests were light. Here was Monday's.

General harvest #1

Here was Wednesday's.

General harvest #2

That's the last fennel; like its siblings it had its roots gnawed by voles.

And here was Saturday's. You can see that the "Sophy" zucchini are producing well, and I'm trying to keep picking them before they get too large.

General harvest #3

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