Harvest Monday November 7, 2016

Dave @ HappyAcres

9 years ago

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We finally got our first frost on Saturday morning, though it was a light one. There was frost on the grass in the yard, but not on any of the garden plants, so it looks like the warm weather veggies will keep on going for a bit longer. I found a few more slicing tomatoes and eggplants last week, which we put to good use in the kitchen. The slicers include Garden Treasure and Better Boy, and the eggplants are Nadia and Dancer.

slicing tomatoes and eggplant

I got my first taste of the 2015 AAS winner Sandy lettuce. It’s an oak leaf type, and the first AAS winning lettuce since 1985. These leaves wound up on some bean tacos, and I look forward to growing this lettuce again next year.

Sandy lettuce

And what would that 1985 AAS winning lettuce be? That would be Red Sails, and I have been growing it ever since it was released. There may be lettuces with redder leaves, but Red Sails has been one of my favorites for a long time. I did a Variety Spotlight on it last year, and it is joined by Simpson Elite in the below photo. Together those lettuces made for a nice wilted lettuce salad.

Red Sails and Simpson Elite lettuce

I also made a cutting of Speedy Arugula I had growing in a salad box in the greenhouse. I have more arugula planted and it was time to replant the box, so I harvested all of the Speedy. It is destined to have a starring role on a pizza this week.

Speedy arugula

And speaking of winners, the Cornito Giallo peppers have certainly proven to be a winner in our garden this year. And don’t they look good in the natural indigo-dyed bowl my wife made? I’ve gotten over two pounds of peppers from my one plant this year, and the ripe yellow peppers are as flavorful as their larger cousin Escamillo, which has given us even more peppers.

Cornito Giallo peppers

I cut the last head of flathead cabbage last week. It’s a variety called Tendersweet, and the one in the below photo weighed a bit over three pounds. Some of it was cooked for a side dish, and some got fermented.

Tendersweet cabbage

The cabbage went in something new I tried, a Latin American style fermented salad called Curtido (or Cortido). In addition to the cabbage, it has shredded carrots, sliced onions, garlic, jalapeno pepper, and fresh oregano. All ingredients but the carrots came from our garden. I let this one ferment on the kitchen counter for about five days, and the flavor is much like a tangy slaw. This recipe is a keeper, and I will be making it again for sure. Some recipes call for using red cabbage, or adding ground cumin, but this combo turned out very tasty. I need to start another jar, because this one won’t last very long.

jar of curtido

I got another harvest of Minero peppers for drying to make into chile powder. This a hydrid Guajillo type pepper with mild heat, and has been very productive for me this year.

Minero peppers

I don’t normally weigh the herbs I harvest, but I wanted to mention this cutting of the Georgian Flatleaf parsley. It came from a plant I dug up and replanted in the greenhouse bed to replace a plant I lost. I actually moved two large plants into there, and both survived the move just fine. Conventional wisdom says you can’t transplant parsley, but apparently these plants didn’t get that memo! It’s a great tasting parsley too, and this batch went into a bean salad.

Georgian Flatleaf parsley

Some of my 2016 pumpkins got their 15 seconds of fame last Friday when I took them for a TV appearance on the WEHT Local Lifestyles show. Since Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, I thought pumpkins would be a good topic. You can watch the segment here: Homemade Pumpkin Pie from Our Happy Acres. Don’t worry, no pumpkins were harmed in the process! I did bake up a butternut squash I got from the grocery, to show how it makes a tasty pie. My wife turned the butternut puree into a pie, and though we left the pie for folks at the station to eat, she made one for us a few days earlier.

before the show

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!

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