Harvest Monday October 28, 2019

It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The fall veggies are the main focus of my harvests now. I cut a few collard greens to make a test batch of the leaves fermented. If I like the taste, I plan to make a bigger batch of collard kraut. This is a popular dish in North Carolina, and I first heard about it on an episode of A Chef’s Life. This is the hybrid Flash, which had some big leaves that were easy to roll up and fit in a quart jar.

Flash collards for fermenting

I also made a cutting of the Topper turnip greens I cooked up for a side dish one night. This variety is grown primarily for the leaves, though it will eventually make edible roots. There was a little bit of insect damage on the leaves but they were mostly free of problems.

Topper turnip greens

And I got a good sized cutting of Artwork broccoli last week. This is a stem type broccoli, which has tender and edible stems. The side shoots are the main attraction, although these made fairly large main heads. I set out a dozen plants of the broccolini types and six purple sprouting broccoli plants for the fall garden. The Burgundy PSB is starting to head up now too.

Artwork broccoli

I began cleaning up the pepper plants I have growing in containers, harvesting the peppers as I go. I plan to overwinter about a half dozen plants indoors, and then set them out in the ground next year. I’ve been doing this for several years now, and the second year plants get off to a quick start and usually make earlier peppers than the seed grown transplants I set out. This was a mix of hot peppers, including almost two pounds of the Kimchi variety which I will dry and grind up into gochugaru powder for seasoning kimchi. Others in the below photo include the baccatum peppers Malawi Piquante and Aji Rico. I still have a few containers of peppers to work on, so there should be more hot peppers on them as well.

hot peppers from container plants

In the wonky vegetables department, I cut a huge tromboncino squash that had escaped my attention when it was smaller. It was too mature to use like I usually do, so I let it grow on to use as a winter squash. This plant was trained up a trellis, and it appears the fruit got caught between the ground and the trellis. That kept it from forming the usual long and mostly straight fruit. It didn’t stop it from growing altogether though, so it curled and twisted and turned into Monster Squash! I don’t think the tromboncinos are the best tasting winter squash I grow, but this one weighed 13 pounds and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. I will have to bake it up in batches though because I doubt it will all go in the oven at once.

mature tromboncino squash

I’ll close by introducing you to the newest resident here at Happy Acres. The local shelter was full to overflowing with cats, so we decided to add another set of paws to our household. Molly is almost 5 months old, and joins 2 year old Ally and the 13yo Puddin. We are hoping Molly and Ally can keep each other occupied, since most days Puddin just wants to be left alone – not that I can blame her.

Molly

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!