Harvest Monday October 14, 2019

Once again it’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Last week we had our first frost, largely unpredicted until the last minute. That had me scurrying around Friday harvesting all the peppers and squash I could find. The temperature got down to the freezing mark briefly Saturday morning, with frost in the garden for sure. Time will tell how much damage it did to the tender plants. I managed to find a decent amount of the Malawi Piquante peppers. These are the ones used to make the pricey Peppadew peppers you see in stores on the salad bars. I will pickle these in a sweet brine much like the Peppadews.

Malawi Piquante peppers

Malawi Piquante peppers

The Turkeyneck winter squash are finally maturing, and I brought in several of them. The ones in the below photo weighed a bit over 8 pounds each. The neck is solid flesh, and these have become my favorite squash to puree for use in pies, muffins and my morning smoothies. I also found several of the Mashed Potatoes acorn squash. I am anxious to see how the taste compares to the Cream of the Crop squash which was much more prolific for us. And I found another Centercut squash, which has also been a great producer for us this year.

Turkeyneck squash

Mashed Potatoes and Centercut squash

In the greens department, I cut more collard greens for fresh eating. This time it was an heirloom called Georgia Cabbage collards, another one that sometimes tries to form a small head. And I cut two heads of Soloist napa cabbage to make a batch of kimchi. I had enough from these two to make three quarts of kimchi, which should last me for a bit. The outer leaves were a little wonky but still quite edible and I didn’t find any slugs while cleaning it up. Along with the cabbage I used our garlic and gochugaru powder for the kimchi, and store-bought green onions and daikon radish. I made the gochugaru powder mostly from the Kimchi and Amazing 2 peppers.

Georgia Cabbage collards

Soloist cabbage

cutting up the cabbage for kimchi

jars of kimchi fermenting

I also made the first cutting of the fall kale. This is a variety I’m growing for the first time called Purple Russian, and the big leaves were tender and tasty. I got the seed for it from Restoration Seeds.

Purple Russian kale

And I found what will likely be the last eggplant of the year as well as more of the fall planted Happy Rich broccoli. The fall brassicas are looking good if I do say so myself, and we got a little bit of rain last week that I’m sure they appreciated.

eggplant and brpoccolini

I also got what could be the last of the pole beans. It’s a little bit of everything in this batch which weighed a little over a pound. There were lots of shell out beans in this bunch, and I cooked them all up for dinner one night.

pole beans

I’ll close with a greenhouse update. I have most of the inside work done, and I’ve planted kale, parsley and purple sprouting broccoli in the beds. It’s starting to look like a working greenhouse, and just in time for the colder months when we rely on it to give us fresh greens.

inside look of the new greenhouse

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!