Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Last week was a busy one here. My wife and I volunteered a couple of days for a local organization, flipping burgers to help with their fundraising efforts at the Evansville Fall Festival. I am guessing we cooked well over 1000 burgers between us, and none were consumed by us during the process either! In between all that, I spent much of my time digging sweet potatoes. It looks like it wasn’t quite as good a year as 2017, but I am still pleased with the results. I’ve dug 43 hills so far, and brought in 101 pounds of sweet potatoes. I have a few hills remaining I hope to dig this week. I plan to do a full review of them when they’re all in.
freshly dug sweet potatoes
Before I dug the roots, I harvested a tubtrug full of the leaves. There’s almost two pounds of them before I cleaned them up and got them ready for cooking.
sweet potato leaves
I stripped them from the vines, and did a quick stir fry on them with a little added garlic and ginger. They have a mild taste and great texture, sweeter than spinach and with less of the ‘bite’. They were tender but not mushy, and I like how they hold their shape. They cook in just a few minutes too.
sweet potato leaves stripped from vines
I also pulled a few radishes to go in a stir fry. This is a mini daikon called Mini Mak I’m growing for the first time. It’s a handy size, and these two were perfect. I have the bigger Alpine sizing up now too, and I plan to use some of them in kimchi.
Mini Mak radishes
Speaking of kimchi, the Korean peppers are still coming on. In the below photo we have Korean Hot on the left and Winner on the right, with a lone Ethiopian Brown Berbere pepper in the middle.
Korean peppers
There’s still quite a few sweet peppers ripening, including the bull’s horn types Carmen and Escamillo. I also got a few of their cousins Cornito Rosso and Cornito Giallo. I roasted them a couple of times in a cast iron skillet, and that is my new favorite way to cook them. They have much the same flavor as when I grill them, but with less chance to burn them up like can happen on the grill. They’ve also been starring in salads and frittatas.
Escamillo and Carmen peppers
I got enough of the NuMex types Anaheim and Biggie Chile to roast them on the grill. After they cool I chop them up and freeze for use later. They are so much more flavorful than the canned green chiles, which I haven’t bought in years since I started making my own.
Anaheim and Biggie Chile peppers
I got a big bucket of Kaleidoscope peppers too. They are supposed to be mildly hot, but this year they have almost no heat to them. These baccatum peppers have a sweet fruity taste, and I am going to pickle this batch. The pickled peppers find their way onto pizza and salads, and I also use them to make a red pepper aioli.
Kaleidoscope peppers
And I got about a pound of ripe Aji Angelo peppers. I have them fermenting, and I plan to turn them into a mild Sriracha sauce. I added a few of the Kaleidoscope to make it even milder. Aji Angelo is one of my favorite hot peppers, and the mild heat and fruity taste make it a versatile choice in the kitchen. I got my seeds originally from Michelle (From Seed To Table), and it is hard to find commercially. I’m saving fresh seed this year, and should have some available later in the year for sharing.
Aji Angelo peppers
I’m growing two baccatum peppers for the first time this year, Bert the Chilli and Aji Pena. After getting a taste of both, I have to say they are a bit too hot for my tastes. I am pretty happy with the four mild baccatums I grow already, Aji Angelo, Aji Golden, Kaleidoscope and Malawi Piquante.
Bert the Chilli and Aji Pena
I cut two more winter squash from the two varieties that are left growing. It’s the first one from Rancho Marques, a landrace type from Mexico, and it weighed 14 pounds. This variety makes fruit of all different sizes and shapes, and a second vine has a squash that is long and thick in shape. Behind it is another Turkeyneck squash, which weighed 12 pounds.
Rancho Marques and Turkeyneck squash
The pole beans gave us another pound of NT Half Runners. This small planting has given us over 10 pounds of beans so far, and my wife and I have truly been enjoying them as often as possible. I’ve also put up quite a few in the freezer, where we can enjoy them this winter. It’s been a great year for beans, after a slow start with germination issues due to waterlogged soil.
NT Half Runner beans
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!
I didn’t know that you could eat sweet potato leaves. From our potato harvest I think we would have been better growing sweet potatoes this year.
I don’t even know what to say about 100+ pounds of sweet potatoes, except WOW! It’s nice to see the peppers and beans are still treating you well. Haven’t you heard of “autumn?” It’s interesting that Rancho Marques produces differently-shaped fruits…is that even on the same plant?
I believe the different fruits are on two vines. But they way they are growing, it’s hard to tell which vine is which!
I fear we will not have autumn this year. The leaves are still green! Normally we would see some color by now, but we’ve had no cold nights. It’s been like July – in September and October.
Cast iron skillet roasting is such a wonderful method of cooking so many different vegetables. I’m with Will, WOW to 100+ pounds of sweet potatoes and with more to come. And you get to enjoy the greens too.
Our cast iron skillets get a workout here!
Wouldn’t I love to have 100+ pounds of sweet potatoes in storage! Who knew about eating the leaves? I often think about what is recycled into compost but might be eaten. If I had the room to grow sweet potatoes I’d definitely try the leaves. The turkey neck squash is quite something. Twelve pounds and that substantive neck is admirable. Is the squash similar to another I’d be familiar with?
The neck pumpkins are the ancestors of the modern butternut. I guess they were too large for the average consumer, so they bred them smaller. I think the flavor is much the same. We’ll use it for savory and sweet dishes. It makes a good pasta sauce or soup.
That NSS squash looks so good! Really good looking harvests.
Every year I look at your sweet potato harvest with envy! Although this year we may have had a chance of a crop, tbh it would be a bit ambitious, probably too ambitious most years, so I shall look on with envy once again!!
Your sweet potato haul always makes me green…with envy! Mine were a total bust this year – not exactly sure why, although neglect may have played more than a small part. I ordered the slips from out east and they cost a pretty penny so I’m thinking of trying to overwinter a few of the plants. I’m not the best at coddling houseplants so this is a long shot at best!
I wondered if you had dug up your sweet potatoes. Such a great harvest, they’re very handsome potatoes. My husband wants me to wait till November to harvest ours, but I was thinking of getting them out of the ground by next weekend. We’ve been getting quite a bit of rain so it’ll depend on when the soil dries out some.
Your winter squash and peppers look amazing. We had temperatures in the 90’s in September/October, but it’s finally cooled off and the fall vegetables seem to be growing faster now.