Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Much of last week for us was dominated by installation of a new furnace and a/c unit that wound up taking four days. Since the inside unit is in the attic, and the access is through the kitchen, things were a mess to say the least. But we’re back to what passes for normal around here, and it didn’t stop me from bringing things in from the garden. One thing I did was clear out most of the vining squashes, which netted three more Tetsukabuto, and one each of the Sugaretti spaghetti squash and the neck pumpkin Turkeyneck. We also got out first taste of the Tetsukabuto, and it was delish. I cut half of one into slices and roasted it for a side dish one night, then roasted the other half to make into pumpkin cake. The flesh is deep orange, fairly dry, and I thought it was very flavorful. I will try and get a pic when I cook the next one up.
Turkeyneck, Sugaretti and Tetsukabuto squashes
Another thing I did was finish digging the sweet potatoes. Since that was a marathon process I broke it up into two sessions on two different days. It has been a great year for sweet potatoes here, and I think I will do a separate post on them once they have cured and we can start tasting them. This week I dug six different varieties from the unfertilized bed, orange fleshed ones called Redmar, Beauregard and Indiana Gold plus the white fleshed ones called Korean Purple, Grand Asia and Violetta. The 31 plants yielded 109 pounds of tubers, bringing the yearly haul to 170 pounds. That is way more than we can eat ourselves, probably 125 pounds more, so we will be giving away lots of sweet potatoes to friends once they are ready to eat. That’s Korean Purple in the below photo, and the white spots are where the skin rubbed off while I was digging them out. They’ll cure up fine and the skinned spots don’t hurt the storage time any, they just really stand out on the white fleshed ones.
Korean Purple sweet potatoes
In other news, I got enough ripe baccatum peppers to make a quart jar of pickled peppers. These are all ones with mild heat, including the round Malawi Piquante, the red Kaleidoscope and the orange Aji Golden. I soaked them overnight in a 10% salt solution then drained and rinsed before putting them in the jar and adding a sweet brine of vinegar, sugar and water. I also threw in a few cloves of garlic for added flavor. I don’t process these so they will need to be refrigerated.
baccatum peppers Malawi Piquante, Aji Golden and Kaleidoscope.
I also harvested some of the ripe Korean Hot peppers I have growing in a container. They look like a cayenne pepper but are actually quite mild and flavorful. I dehydrated these and will use them in kimchi once I have veggies to ferment. I have a couple other Korean peppers I’m growing this year and they should be ready for harvest soon.
Korean Hot peppers
Another pepper I harvested last week was a sweet one called Doux Des Landes. We grilled a couple of them and were disappointed with the taste, which was pretty blah. I will likely dry the rest of them as they ripen and use them for paprika, which will hopefully intensify the flavor a bit.
Doux Des Landes peppers
One of the most exciting harvests of the week was the first picking of the fall planting of Derby bush beans. I pulled the spring planting and sowed more seeds in the same spot on August 9th. I got right at two pounds from this first batch, with more on the plants. These are great when oven roasted in a cast iron skillet, and the tender beans cook in no time. The beans were nice and clean with minimal insect damage too. I’m happy I took the time to replant these for a fall crop, and it looks like a good strategy to try in years to come. I just have to remember to order enough seeds for double cropping.
Derby snap beans
And last, but certainly not least, was a big haul of Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes. I think any tomatoes we get in October are exciting, and slicers are even more precious this time of year. That harvest called for BLT sandwiches for dinner one night, and we have also been enjoying the tomatoes on salads and sliced and eaten straight up.
Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes
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!
That extra autumn crop of beans look excellent Dave. I shall have to give this a go next year if I can plan space. And what a glorious sweet potato harvest too!
OK, since when did you become a commercial sweet potato farmer? That total is beyond amazing. You are going to qualify for USDA subsidies. Your Korean Hot peppers look so much like the Thai Hot I am growing; it’s odd that they are mild, because the Thai certainly are not.
At first glance the Korean Hots do look like they would be fiery, but they’re not. I’m really looking forward to making kimchi with them.
Loving the beans – mine, which are destined to be dried beans – are plumping up. The weather looks promising for them to mature enough so that I can pick them and dry them indoors before a hard freeze. And I still have tomatoes too – this has got to be the latest that I’ve ever had tomatoes on the vine for. It’s a shocker!!
Those Korean hot peppers look wonderful. I’m all for more flavour and less heat – I love spicy so long as I can still taste the food!
I’m with you on the peppers, the really hot ones just burn out my taste buds. And Happy Thanksgiving!
I didn’t know that you had took cure sweet potatoes. I’ll have to remember that just in case we ever manage to grow any.
They are not particularly tasty when they are freshly dug. I try to keep them warm for a couple of weeks before we start eating them.
Wow, your sweet potato harvest is amazing. I tried to get a fall planting of green beans going and it was a total dud. It was a really dud year for green beans all around here. Ah well, at least I can find good ones at the farmer’s market. I tried the Doux des Landes peppers a few times and found them to be ok but the Turkish pepper that I’m growing now is better. I can share some seeds if you would like to try them. Perhaps the Korean peppers should be renamed Korean Not So Hot peppers. 🙂
Amazing yield of sweet potatoes. Glad you like the Teks. I find them very compatible with curry.
That’s great your later sowing of beans paid off. I’m not sure a sowing that late would work here. I tried a late sowing of beetroot – the seeds germinated quickly but didn’t really put on any growth after I planted out the plugs.
A shame those Doux Des Landes are blah, they sure do look interesting – much more like hot peppers than sweet. And what a fantastic sweet potato harvest. Not sure I will try those again (only tried once before) so no point in getting envious if I can’t make the effort – but still, I am envious. 🙂
Oh how I envy those peppers Dave. I may have to try growing some in the greenhouse next year. and I have never seen Korean sweet potatoes before, so thanks for sharing too.