It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We haven’t had any rain here in over three weeks, but so far the garden doesn’t seem to be suffering too much. I’m getting ample harvests of tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplant and beans. It’s keeping me busy harvesting and preserving, which is typical for this time of year. That’s not a bad thing, and it’s always a fun time for me here in the summer garden when we can reap the bounty of what we have planted earlier in the year.
late August harvest
Last week I accumulated enough hot peppers to start four batches of hot sauce. I am fermenting one each of: Aji Rico, Sugar Rush Peach, Jalapeno and a batch of mixed peppers that includes a couple of the large and mild Wildcat cayenne peppers. I am using pint jars to ferment the peppers, which usually give me plenty of sauce to fill a five ounce bottle.
assorted hot peppers
more hot peppers
peppers fermenting for hot sauce
The Sugar Rush Peach peppers are sometimes late to ripen for me here, but these are coming from a plant I started last year and grew in a container. I overwintered it indoors, then set it out in the ground this spring. I do several of the C. baccatum peppers this way, and they usually reward me with large and early yields of peppers.
Sugar Rush Peach peppers
The tomatoes are still coming in hot and heavy. I got all different kinds last week, including slicers like Chef’s Choice Orange, Better Boy, Damsel, Hot Streak and Harvest Moon. I also got a big haul of the Granadero paste tomatoes – almost five pounds of them! And the cherry tomatoes are still producing loads of fruit as well.
slicing tomatoes
Granadero tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
Not all the tomatoes are perfect though! I got a pic of this one just for Will (Eight Gate Farm). When I get one like this, I try and cut out the bad part and use the rest, but I think the one in my hand was too far gone and wound up on the compost pile.
less than perfect tomato
Of course, more tomato tasting went on last week while we had plenty of candidates to choose from. We sampled Hot Streak, Harvest Moon and Chef’s Choice Orange one day for lunch. All were tasty, and there was no clear favorite between me and my wife.
tomato tasting
In other news, my wife and I volunteer in a local program (Nourish) that buys food in bulk and makes it available to families at discounted prices. They have contracted with several local farmers to use their produce, and sometimes they have extras that go home with the volunteers like us. Last week they got a huge load of Delicata squashes, and they truly had more than they needed to distribute. We came home with several of them, and they were a real treat since I’m not growing them this year.
Delicata squashes
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!
Now as well as envying your tomatoes I can add peppers to the lost. Our pepper plants just didn;t grow.
That’s a shame Sue. It has been a great year for tomatoes here, and decent enough for peppers.
Aw Dave, thanks for cheering me up with a pic of a flawed tomato! Of course, all your other ones are flawless. The Sugar Rush Peach peppers make an excellent sauce, as you know, and that’s the only way I can consume them, as they are just so hot!
They are too hot for me also Will!
Don’t we love tomato season? Oh and pepper season too. The delicatas look nice. What a great program for farmers and Nourish participants.
It is a great program. They also run a weekly farmer’s market, and do various community teaching events.
My tomatoes were great earlier in the summer but almost none now due to the high heat in June & July. Hopefully there will be a fall crop. We’ll see if I can keep up with everything! Your produce as usualy is beautiful!
Thanks Mary – good to see you back blogging! Fingers crossed your tomatoes will recover for fall.
Thanks Dave, now just to see if I can keep up, hours in a day you know. Lots of stuff going on around here!