Harvest Monday October 1, 2018

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s October, and I’m so ready to start a new month. September was rainy and hot, and we got over 8 inches of rain combined with above average temperatures. We had 13 days with temps above 90°F, which is a lot warmer than average. The beans and peppers seemed to love it though, and I am getting ample supplies of both. I didn’t photograph all the beans, but I got over 5 pounds of them last week. We have been eating them often and putting the rest in the freezer. The NT Half Runner has been amazingly productive, and I got 2 pounds of them alone last week. The pods are big and fat and stay tender even when the seeds inside start to get big.

I’m getting both sweet and hot peppers, and I’m dehydrating many of them. Minero is a hybrid Guajillo type that I’ve grown for several years now, and it makes a tasty and mildly hot chile powder.

I’m also growing several o/p Guajillo peppers, and my favorite of the lot is one I got from Dustbowl Seed a couple of years ago. They have apparently ceased operations, so this year I was anxious to save seeds from this strain so I could keep growing them. I isolated one of the plants and covered it with netting, and I have saved seeds from it. Hopefully I can keep this one going next year and it will be true to type..

Dulce Rojo is an o/p paprika peppers I’ve been growing for several years, and it is one of my most productive paprika peppers, along with Hungarian Magyar. It dries to a deep red color and has a sweet taste.

I have quite a few paprika peppers dried already, so I decided to smoke this batch. I almost burned my last batch of smoked peppers, so this time I watched them carefully and they did much better. I build the charcoal fire on one side of the grill, and put the peppers on the other side to help keep them away from the heat. I use the smoked paprika often as a table condiment, where it adds a lot of flavor and aroma. After smoking the peppers were off to the dehydrator, which I have out on the front porch.

I’ve also been busy drying hot peppers for gochugaru flakes, which I use to make kimchi. I’m trialing several types of Korean peppers this year, and growing them all in containers. One is aptly named Kimchi (from Sherwood’s Seeds), and while it was a bit later to produce than the others the plant is absolutely loaded with fruit.

The peppers themselves are hot but not too hot, and have a deep red color when dried. They should do quite well for making kimchi.

I’m getting all the bull’s horn type peppers we can eat. This year the Cornito Rosso and Cornito Giallo have been more productive than their larger cousins Carmen and Escamillo. They’re all good though, and one of our staples for using fresh.

The Astia zucchini I planted in a grow bag back in August has paid off with at least one squash so far. In the below photo it’s hanging out with Orange Blaze and Sweetie Pie peppers. Some of the zucchini and peppers wound up in a frittata I cooked up yesterday for lunch.

And speaking of squash, I cut two more giant Turkeyneck neck pumpkins. They each weighed eight pounds, and there are at least five more on the vines that look like they have time to mature before first frost. These were sweet and tasty last year, and I am looking forward to getting another taste of them when they have cured a bit.

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 of any size or shape you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. There are no rules or regulations, and wonky veggies are always as welcome as the prize winners. And please be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting, or wishing they were harvesting!