It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where gardeners from all over celebrate all things harvest related. I harvested only a few times last week, as we had a busy week full of other activities. We got our Covid-19 booster shots on Friday, and I had a little muscle soreness at the injection site for about 24 hours. Other than that it wasn’t any worse than the flu shots we got a week before that. On to the garden news! I am continuing to bring in the winter squashes, which are all neck pumpkins at this point. We should be well supplied in this staple for the winter months.
October harvest
The Korean avocado squash (Early Bulam) is still blooming though, and made another good-sized squash for us last week. This is a moschata type winter squash that is used at the green stage, and it has a rich, full flavor when cooked.
Early Bulam squash
I’m still getting quite a few of the sweet ripe cornito (little bulls) peppers. Cornito Arancia has orange flesh when ripe, while Cornito Giallo (a 2016 AAS Winner) has crisp yellow flesh. Both have done well for me this year, though they were a bit slow to start ripening.
Cornito Arancia and Cornito Giallo peppers
The hot peppers are going gangbusters now, and I started another batch of fermented peppers last week for making hot sauce.
hot pepper harvest
Senorita is a hybrid jalapeno I grow with large peppers and a ‘mild’ jalapeno heat level.
Senorita jalapeno peppers
The climbing beans are still going strong here, and I made a harvest of the Pink Tip Greasy beans last week that weighed over three pounds. I cooked up a pound of them, and they were very tasty and tender. Even the mature ones like I’m holding have tender pods, though at this stage they fall apart and the almost-mature seeds inside fall out into the pot. I usually slow-cook them in the Instant Pot, as well as use them in soups. That brought our bean harvest up to 46 pounds for the year, which might be more than last year’s total if they give us a few more harvests. They are still setting pods, so it is likely indeed!
Pink Tip Greasy beans
Since it was a somewhat stressful week here, I made a blackberry cobbler for a sweet treat. I’ve been using the monkfruit sweetener instead of sugar, which cuts calories and makes fruit desserts like this less of a guilty pleasure.
blackberry cobbler
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!
I’m a touch jealous, we are finishing our summer crops quickly now, it’s well below 10c/50f at night, so I pulled my beans. 50% of my peppers have gone now, another 25% later this week. Full speed ahead now, trying to get everything planted in time for an abundant winter.
No climbing beans left here but plenty tucked into the freezer. The cobbler looks delicious.
I got the Pfizer booster on Thursday and, like you, only experienced a bit of soreness at the site. I’m more and more intrigued with the Early Bulam squash. That’s a really nice haul of hot peppers, and the Senoritas are quite large for a jalapeno. I bet the cobbler would also taste good with our raspberries.
It is pepper time everywhere that hasn’t had a frost. I think my bean season would go longer if fog and mildew didn’t take the vines. Nonetheless, we had plenty. Glad you received the third dose. Waiting for word on Moderna, but hopeful.
The senorita jalapenos look amazing. I must see if I can find any seeds over here, as they would be perfect for pickling at that size! What is monkfruit sweetener please? I’ve not heard of this and it sounds very useful!
Monk Fruit is a small round tropical fruit in the gourd family that is very sweet – 200X sweeter than sugar. It is sometimes mixed with stevia or erythritol to make zero-calorie sweeteners like I use. Unlike stevia though, I don’t think the monkfruit leaves and aftertaste.