Monday September 2

Happy Labor Day!  The last week provided the best harvest of the season.  Not only was it a large harvest but very diverse.  It seems like just about every variety of plant provided something.  I didn't take pictures of everything.  I think there's at least one picking of beans and some okra that are not included. 

Here's the first harvest.  Kentucky Wonder beans, Roma II beans, one of those big blocky Cabernet sweet peppers, a Lipstick pepper, Silver Queen okra, Millionaire okra, Genovese squash and a Diva cucumber.  The Lipstick pepper is not very productive but it is the sweetest Red Pepper I've ever tasted.  I think you could probably make pie or cobbler out of these peppers. 

Another harvest I pulled up some Nantes carrots to thin them.  I broke two of them trying to pull them up.

The tomatoes have been producing in batches and there were none to pick for almost two weeks.  The Supersonic plant produced two nice ones, nearly a pound apiece.  The eggplant has been suffering the flea beetles as they always do and has slowed down a bit.  There's also a few San Marzano tomatoes which went into an Italian stir fry with the eggplant and summer squash. 

Then there were the chili peppers, discussed in the previous post.  The chili peppers are very nice this year, a beautiful chocolate brown.  There's the heart-shaped anchos and the long pasillas.  The bright red peppers are bullhorn peppers.  I tasted the ancho peppers while they were drying and can say that the flavor is sublime - sweet, tart, some heat, raisins, smokiness, a complex mix.  I can see why there are so many food preparations that use ancho chilies.

I grilled the sweet peppers and deskinned and deseeded them.  The pulp will go on top of hummus.

Finally Sunday's harvest.  More beans.  I'm going to give them away from now on.

And beets.  I wasn't sure about beets.  Maybe I had forgotten what they taste like.  I tried growing more but the rabbits really like beet seedlings.  I cut a slice off one of them and it was very good - earthy and sweet.  They will go into a beef stew.

For the week: 

Beans 4 lb 14 oz, cucumber 23 oz, carrot 12 oz, okra 22 oz, summer squash 3 lb 7 oz, peppers 2 lb 4 oz, tomatoes 2 lb 1 oz, eggplant 8 oz, beets 1 lb 11 oz.  Total for the week 19.5 lbs.  For the year 209.4 lbs.