It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where gardeners from all over celebrate all things harvest related. It’s been a great year here for tomatoes, and I have harvested almost 150 pounds of them. They have been dehydrated, roasted, turned into sauce and paste as well as eaten fresh at every opportunity. Juliet and Health Kick have been especially prolific, and so far I have gotten 40 pounds of Juliet along with 25 pounds of the short vine Health Kick. I have four plants of Juliet in two remesh cages, and three plants of the Health Kick.
harvest of paste tomatoes
Juliet tomatoes
The slicing tomatoes have not disappointed either, and last week I picked a couple of big Chef’s Choice Yellow tomatoes that weighed over a pound each. While impressive, I have to say I prefer the slightly smaller sized fruits like the red Garden Treasure ones in the below photo. It’s hard to get a decent slice out of the ones with the big shoulders.
Chef’s Choice Yellow and Garden Treasure tomatoes
It’s been a so-so harvest for the winter squashes so far. I got a mix of Thelma Sanders, Gill’s Golden Pippin and a couple of delicata along with two more of the yellow acorn Goldilocks. Goldilocks has been the star squash so far as well as the earliest, though I am looking forward to getting a taste of the others soon. The neck pumpkins are setting on quite a few fruit so we should have plenty of them for winter storage.
winter squashes
We have had a bumper crop of eggplant this year, and have been well supplied for a couple of months now. The ones planted in-ground are now producing, and I’m harvesting a mix of Italian and Asian type varieties that are quite useful in the kitchen.
eggplant harvest
One thing we did with the eggplant last week was to make a cheesy casserole. For this dish I cooked Carnaroli rice in the rice cooker until it was done but still had a bit of “crunch” to it. That way it could continue to soak up moisture from the other ingredients, which included tomatoes, mushrooms and mozzarella cheese. I topped the casserole with fresh basil and more mozzarella and Pecorino Romano cheeses. It had a great flavor and mouth feel, and made for a comforting side dish at dinner time. The leftovers were pretty tasty too! I can see this casserole using other garden goodies like squash or perhaps even cabbage.
cheesy eggplant and rice casserole
The pole beans are just now really starting to produce, and I got enough last week for another cooking plus a few for the freezer. We use a lot of beans in soups as well as for cooking up on their own, and we have used up pretty much all I froze last year.
bean harvest
In other news, I baked up a batch of Everyday Sourdough Bread last week for sandwich use. This King Arthur Flour recipe is easy to make, and baked in a Pullman loaf pan which makes for a loaf with a dense consistency that can be sliced thin and yet still hold up to wet toppings like tuna salad and such. I’m still experimenting with this recipe, and for this loaf I used 20% sprouted whole wheat flour along with 80% bread flour. It took about 16 hours from start to finished loaf, but only around 15 minutes of that was hands-on time.
Everyday Sourdough bread
We still have lots of things blooming in our flower beds. The hardy hibiscus plants are really putting on a show, and even though the blooms only last a day there are usually several news ones to open up each day. The Ligularia (aka ragwort) is also looking good in the shade garden now.
Scarlet Hibiscus
Ligularia blooms
Rainbow Marcella Echinacea
My wife is especially fond of this Fluffy Shasta Daisy that is blooming now. She has several different daisies in the Sun Garden area, including Becky and the 2021 AAS Winner Sweet Daisy Birdy. Fluffy has quite a few blooms given that it was just planted a couple of months ago.
Fluffy Shasta Daisy
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!
Impressive tomato yield there Dave! some regions in the UK have yet to harvest a single red tomato or pepper, hard to believe!
My peppers are lagging this year Steve, but not the tomatoes!
I am envious of your tomatoes.ours are a bit of a disappointment this year. The casserole and bread look delicious
Our tomatoes did not do well last year, so it seems to be sort of a boom or bust situation with us.
I continue to be impressed with your tomato bounty. So you have 4 Juliets in 2 cages? That sure is different from how I grow indeterminates. But it sounds like a lot less work than staking, tying, pruning like I’m constantly doing. I would like to try your eggplant/rice dish.
I don’t prune unless the vines escape their cages and get unruly. It might not work as well in areas with disease pressure though, since air circulation is usually better with staked tomatoes. Thankfully diseases are not really a problem here – yet.
I just discovered your blog, searching for Indiana gardening blogs. I am also in S.IN. Love your content and I have added you to my feed reader. My counter looks much the same with lots of tomatoes, but that is a wonderful problem to have!!! I also put a mess of beans in the crockpot for dinner. Looking forward to seeing your content, so glad to have found you.
Yes indeed, lots of tomatoes is a ‘good’ problem! I do beans in the slow cooker also. They can cook away while I do other things, and don’t require much attention that way.
I envy your tomato harvest! Mine were a bust this year, but I have more green beans than I have ever had. Win some, lose some.
That is so true with gardening Lou!