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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Autumn Frost squash (F1) |
For general harvests, Monday's needed two photos.
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| Peppers: spicy on the top, sweet on the bottom! |
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| Everything else in the first harvest of September |
Saturday's general harvest needs only one photo.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
Sounds like that Mountain Spirit tomato was a pleasant surprise indeed! And it does look like a good haul of potatoes from a 12 foot row.
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