It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Tomato season is still going strong here, and last week I hauled in 16 pounds of them one day alone! We’re getting lots of slicing tomatoes for fresh use, and Chef’s Choice Red is a tasty one that always does well for me here. Purple Zebra is keeping us well-supplied too, and it is still one of my favorite tasting tomatoes.
big haul of tomatoes
Chef’s Choice Red tomato
It’s still eggplant season too, and I got several big ones from the garden last week.
morning harvest
I also got a few hot peppers last week from the container grown plants. It’s a mix of Aji Rico, Sugar Rush Peach and Thai peppers. Not quite enough for making hot sauce, but more than enough for fresh use. I generally dry the super hot Thai peppers for later use.
assorted hot peppers
The paste tomatoes were planted a bit later than the rest, and are now starting to ripen too. I got a modest harvest of Juliet, Verona, Garden Ruby and the 2023 AAS Winner Zenzei. So far Zenzei is living up to its promise of being early-maturing, coming in before Granadero, which is a long time favorite here. Overall we’ve gotten over 60 pounds of tomatoes already, and that has me making sauces for the freezer to preserve them for later use. I cooked down these paste tomatoes into an extra thick sauce we use for pizzas. There’s only one ingredient, and that’s lots of ripe tomatoes!
paste tomatoes and yellow squash
Zenzei tomato
pizza sauce ready for freezer
It’s my second year growing Verona, which one seed company claims is an “exciting improvement on the Juliet tomato”. It is supposed to be tastier than Juliet, though so far I have to say I can’t see a lot of difference. Last year Verona wasn’t quite as productive as the high-yielding and dependable Juliet, so I am anxious to see if it does any better this year.
Juliet(L) and Verona(R) tomatoes
I used our cucumber and cherry tomatoes to make a batch of a Mediterranean-style tuna salad last week. Served with some of last year’s fermented curtido and crispy pita bread, it made for a light and cool lunch.
Mediterranean Tuna Salad
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 please check out what everyone is harvesting!
I hope you’re feeling better now Dave! I’ve a bit of a chest infections myself, so I’ taking it easy in the garden, helped by the continued rain here. I’ve not had to water the outside beds since the end of June. After a slow start our cooking tomatoes have finally started to ripen and our first few batches of various sauces and chili jams are in the pantry
Our tomatoes are starting to ripen now so should provide our next bumper harvest. It’s more hearty stew weather here.
Great harvests! The Chef’s Choice Red is big and flawless. I looked up Zenzai on the AAS website, and it states that it is perfect for the Midwest. I’m not really sure if that means it won’t do as well in the Northeast. I guess I’ll wait to see if Johnny’s or Fedco starts offering it.
So many tomatoes! I’ve yet to harvest any yet, though all my plants went in late and it’s been a cool summer. Glad you have such variety for different purposes.