It’s time for Harvest Monday, where gardeners from all over celebrate all things harvest related. The weather has cooled off to more seasonable temperatures, but we arestill lacking any rain. It has been over a month now since we’ve had more than a few drops, and I have started irrigating the vegetable garden with soaker hoses. The harvests look about the same, except the cucumbers are done for. I got tomatoes, eggplant, and hot peppers galore though, and we are surely enjoying them.
August Harvest
The Honey Bee and Queen Bee tomato plants are still producing, and have done quite well for me in their first outing this year.
morning harvest
I’m getting a mix of hot peppers, and fermenting them to go in hot sauce. Made like this, every batch has a different flavor and heat level, but all are tasty to me. I’ve bottled up two bottles and a partial one, and plan to start another batch fermenting today.
hot pepper mix
fermented hot sauces
It has been a good year for eggplant so far, and they are often on the menu here. I also got a few of the yellow Pick-N-Pop sweet peppers, which is a 2025 AAS Winner.
eggplant, sweet peppers and herbs
I bring in fresh herbs as needed, and we use lots of parsley and basil when we have them. I used a bit of both last week in a white bean salad I made for lunch, which also featured cherry tomatoes and some of the last cucumber. I served it up with some fermented kohlrabi and crispy pita bread.
white bean salad
And in non-harvest news, I baked up some Ligurian Focaccia bread last week. It’s my favorite focaccia, and I freeze leftovers so we always have a supply of it on hand.
Ligurian Focaccia bread
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 looked up Pick-N-Pop on the AAS website, and it looks interesting. They say it’s in a group like Lunchbox, which I grow, but only the red variety. Since the seeds are not yet available, I’m guessing you are one of the trial growers.
I did get the seeds early to try. So far it has produced early here in a challenging year. It is frustrating that they name a lot of Winners, and the breeders don’t have seed available! One time I contacted the breeder, and they sent me some seed to try.
Your hatvests are always so colourful
Would love to know more about how you make your hot sauce! Love reading and seeing how your garden grows.
I did a tutorial on how I ferment the peppers, and make the sauces: https://happyacres.blog/2016/09/14/fermented-pepper-mash/
These days I cut the peppers on half, remove the seeds, add 5% salt (by weight) and ferment for 7-10 days before making the hot sauce.