It’s time for Harvest Monday, where gardeners from all over celebrate all things harvest related. Once again I’ve decided to take a break from the Harvest Monday posts for the winter months, until next February. Harvests are skimpy for many – including me, and I always enjoy taking a bit of downtime from gardening this time of year as do many other gardeners. I’ll be back with Harvest Monday on February 5th, 2024. Until then, I will post here about other garden news as it happens, and you can always follow my Facebook page and Instagram feed for harvests and other garden news. Thanks to all for reading and participating in this celebration of the harvest that has been going since 2009. Now, on to the harvests!
Early last week I brought in a few more hot peppers, plus three sweet cornito peppers and an eggplant. It’s been a good year for the hot peppers and for eggplant, but not so much for the sweet peppers which suffered from weed issues when I was sick from pneumonia this summer. At the same time, my wife was dealing with the passing of her sister in Alabama, so things were on autopilot here for much of the summer. Weeds in the garden are no big deal in the larger scheme of things, and we still have had plenty to eat and process for later use.
late October harvest
Also last week I found a few more of the Andiamo tomatoes still on the vine. This tomato has done well here this year, and it has been a great addition to our paste tomato lineup.
Andiamo tomatoes
I made another harvest over the weekend to bring in as much as possible before tonight’s predicted freezing weather. I left a few persimmons on the tree to see how they do, but I cleaned out the peppers of all the fruits I wanted to use. I also found a few eggplants, Icicle and Annina, both of which have done well here this year.
last harvest of warm season crops
I have grown Aji Lemon Drop pepper before and it has done reasonably well. This year it has been late to ripen, though the plant is loaded with green peppers. I got a mix of both ripe and green ones, and I plan to make a hot sauce with them. I’m not sure if I will mix the green ones with the ripe ones, but I am hopeful some of the green ones will color up inside. We will see!
Aji Lemon Drop peppers
I’ve plucked 15 pounds of persimmons from our little tree so far. I say ‘plucked’ because they are fairly firmly attached, at least until they are dead ripe. These I harvested recently will need to sit and ripen until they are soft before eating them. I am hoping to use the pulp in bread or cookies once I have enough accumulated.
persimmons ripening indoors
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!
Gorgeous, the main thing I notice when comparing our harvests is just how colourful yours still are Dave!
Good stuff to wind down the season with. I hope you enjoy some well-deserved time off.
We will be doing the same, Dave. My blog post this week has no gardening mentioned at all! The Andiamo tomatoes are an interesting shape,
I will miss you!
Thanks Marie! I will still be posting, just not every Monday.
What kind of persimmon tree do you have there is Indiana? I have a Fuyu here in No. California. They look a lot like yours, but can be eaten when crisp. Is your a native tree?
Hi Suzanne, ours is called Nikita’s Gift, which is a cross between the native persimmon and an Asian variety. It is astringent until soft, unlike Fuyu which I have tried to grow here but isn’t reliably hardy. We have to rely on Costco to get our Fuyus!
Suzanne asked the question I had. My neighbor’s Hachiya persimmon tree is about ready to harvest. She uses very few of them and gives many to me. It’s a nod to my grandmother’s use of them in baked goods. How do you use them? The Hachiya persimmons freeze nicely and I let them thaw partially and eat like a frozen dessert. Thank you for continuing to host Harvest Monday. It’s such a delightful platform to see edible gardens around the country and the world. I hope we can get some Australian and New Zealand gardeners again or other Southern Hemisphere participants.
I harvested some Dutch Redhead radishes today.