Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The harvests here are a mix of both summer and fall veggies. I harvested two heads of Napa cabbage last week to make another batch of kimchi. The Soloist weighed in at just over two pounds, about like the one last week. The Minuet was smaller and weighed 15 ounces, though it might have gotten bigger had I left it to grow longer. It’s the first time I have grown Napa cabbage in a few years, and I am pleased by my results, although now I remember how much bugs like to eat on it! Mine this year have been a haven for sowbugs, slugs and snails. The two heads combined gave me enough to make a quart and a pint jar of kimchi. I used a little different recipe for this batch and I will share the results once I get a taste of it.
Minuet cabbage
I cut the first of the heading broccoli last week. This was Goliath, though it didn’t live up to its name, weighing only seven ounces. I was happy to have it though, and the other broccoli plants are showing signs of heading up now.
Goliath broccoli
I got a decent late season harvest of pole snap beans. It’s a mix of Fortex, Musica, Trionfo Violetto and Rattlesnake, with perhaps a few Lazy Wife Greasy beans thrown in too. Some were getting stringy, but for the most part they were a welcome treat here in October. There’s also a lone Fairy Tale eggplant in there.
pole snap beans
For whatever reason, poblano/ancho peppers aren’t usually great performers for me here, at least not compared to other pepper categories. I’ve given up growing the o/p types, and this year I planted three hybrids: Ancho 211, Bastan and Mosquetero. I’ve grown Ancho 211 for a number of years, and I tried out Mosquetero last year when it did reasonably well. This year Bastan has really been a standout. The big peppers are relatively smooth and easy to peel, which is a plus for roasting and peeling. I harvested most of them green, and roasted part of them and smoked others.
harvest of Bastan peppers
Bastan peppers
Dulce Rojo is probably my favorite paprika pepper, and one I’ve grown for several years now. It makes a sweet tasting, dark red paprika, and it also makes a tasty smoked paprika. The thin-walled peppers are a plus when it comes to drying, and this o/p pepper usually makes a lot of peppers for me. I don’t generally use them for fresh eating, because I think there are peppers with a better flavor available – like Jimmy Nardello for instance. But for paprika they are my favorite.
Dulce Rojo paprika pepper
I always plant several NuMex type peppers here every year. Anaheim and the hybrid Biggie Chile are two that I have grown for many years now. It’s a mix of those two in the below photo, and right at four pounds of them. I don’t use a lot of them fresh, and most wind up getting processed for use throughout the year.
Anaheim and Biggie Chile peppers
I roasted most of these on the grill, along with a few of the poblanos. After roasting I peel off the skins, remove the seeds, then chop the peppers and freeze for use later. I smoked one batch of the green ones.
roasting NuMex peppers
Last year I grew a baccatum pepper called Malawi Piccante, which I used for pickling. It is similar to the peppers used for making the sweet Peppadew peppers you see on salad bars and such. This year I got seeds from Secret Seed Cartel of a pepper they call Secret South African. It’s done quite well here, and that’s it in the below photo. All those peppers came from one container grown plant, and I have another in-ground plant that is loaded with fruit.
Secret South African peppers
I made the first cutting of the Gulag Stars kale last week. This is a mix of kale types I got from Adaptive Seeds, and the plants have a diverse variety of leaf sizes and shapes. My wife braised this for a side dish, and it had a great flavor.
Gulag Stars kale
I’ll close with a late season Chef’s Choice Orange tomato I found on the vine last week. It was destined to meet up with some lettuce, bacon and homemade whole wheat bread.
Chef’s Choice Orange tomato
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
What a lovely harvest, very impressed with Goliath!
Slugs like to hide in our cauliflowers, I had ti Google sowbugs and found that they are what we call woodlice.
That tomato really looks like an orange.
I am having many more critters taking shelter in my napa this year compared to previous years and I believe it is due to the hot dry weather we are having. Beautiful head of broccoli and great pepper harvest, lovely, just lovely.
I tried growing that Napa Cabbage once (we call it “Chinese Leaves”), but the slugs demolished it – they seemed to like it better than anything else I have ever grown! I’m admiring your peppers as always. The Dulce Rojo looks a real stunner. I’ve been making Harissa today, which I will write about soon.
That’s a superb selection again this week, Dave. I’m loving the look of those peppers, and that calabrese / broccoli looks great – mine all bolted earlier in the year, alas.
Those are nice ancho poblanos. I usually grow an OP no-name variety and they do OK for me. My problem is they take a long time to come until full production, so it’s a race against first frost (which is any day now). Maybe I will look for a hybrid that produces a little quicker.
I’ve been growing the Mosquitero ancho for the last two years and like it a lot especially roasted, except that the ends of the stems get top heavy with peppers and have to be staked up. The Rastan looks like a very nice pepper and I’ve got to try the Dulce Rojo paprika. Very nice autumn harvest.
That’s a lovely head of broccoli! It seems any brassica I attempt to plant in late summer for a fall harvest is destroyed by something. I imagine Napa cabbage would meet the same fate here. It looks like you are having a great fall pepper harvest.
Two pounds for one cabbage sounds like a really good size to me, well done. Gorgeous peppers too, and I’d be well-pleased win that tomato, yum.
Such vibrant colours with that beautiful orange tomato and the peppers! A nice harvest for sure.
Well, just as I was about to submit this comment, we had a bit of a computer crisis and no internet for the rest of the day. We are finally back up…good thing there was plenty of yard work to keep me occupied 🙂
All those peppers still! Like you, I prefer different peppers used in different ways and have created a cheat sheet as a reminder for next year. Oh, the bugs on the napa – wow were they bad here too! I think I peeled back half of the leaves on most every head I harvested. I seem to have worse bug issues with certain Chinese greens near the end of the season, so I may try to grow napa earlier in the spring and see how that goes.
I don’t know why it is, but napa cabbage is a huge bug magnet here too, mostly earwigs, one of the few bugs that really creeps me out. They can do a lot of damage, they seem to like to tunnel right into the heads. Those Anchos look great! I’m surprised that they aren’t happier with your pepper friendly climate.