Harvest Monday September 9, 2024

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Our drought conditions persist here, and we’ve gotten no significant rain in over a month. The summer vegetables are withering in the heat, and I’m concentrating on keeping the fall crops alive until it cools down and we finally get some rain. Meanwhile, I am still getting a good amount of veggies in the harvest basket – including beans, hot peppers and eggplant last week.

early September harvest

I also got a good harvest of tomatoes, including one variety I’m trialing called Strawberry Fields. The jury is still out on this one, but since 2024 has been a challenging year here for tomatoes I might give it another shot next year. I’m just not sure it is an improvement over the other red slicing tomatoes I grow, including Better Boy, Damsel and Garden Treasure. Juliet, on the other hand, is a long time favorite and is still pumping out loads of fruit. I dehydrated most of this batch.

Strawberry Fields tomatoes

Juliet tomatoes

I got almost a pound of the Lazy Wife Greasy beans. One catalog description explains the name: “One of the largest of all the greasy varieties, it’s called Lazy Wife because the gardeners (who were traditionally the women of the family) could wait longer to harvest and get more food per harvest as these beans are just that big. ” It’s definitely one of the biggest of the heirloom beans I grow, and also has great flavor.

Lazy Wife Greasy beans

I also found a couple more of the mature Centercut squashes. We use these “neck” pumpkins mostly in pies and other sweet treats, although they can also stand in for butternut squash in savory dishes.

mature Centercut squashes

The hot peppers are still coming in, well, HOT and heavy! I got a good haul of jalapenos last week, including a lot of green ones. I’m hoping to turn those into a fresh green hot sauce. And I got a big harvest of the no-heat Aji Delight pepper, along with a few guajillos for drying and turning into chile powder.

jalapeno peppers

assorted Aji peppers

And last but not least, our hardy hibiscus plants are still giving us a few blooms. Midnight Marvel is lighting up the sunny perennial border, and the reddish purple foliage is pretty even when it’s not blooming. And of course the blooms are huge!

Holy Grail hibiscus

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!


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Harvest Monday September 2, 2024

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The garden is still suffering from our hot and dry conditions, though we did get a brief shower Saturday that cooled things off a bit even if we didn’t get a lot of rain. The pole beans have not done as well as usual this year, but I did pick several pounds of them last week. I saved some out to cook for dinner one night and froze the rest, where they often wind up in winter soups.

pole bean harvest

The tomatoes are slowing down too, which is not unusual for late summer here. I got a nice haul of Raspberry Drops and a few slicers last week. Benevento is a tasty striped tomato, and the red Better Boy is one of my long-time standards here I can always depend on.

Raspberry Drop tomatoes

Benevento and Better Boy tomatoes

We are enjoying the tomatoes while they do last, since the season is never long enough for me. I sliced up a Benevento and a Chef’s Choice Orange to go with a wrap I had for lunch one day. That made for a cool meal on a very hot day, and with temps reaching between 90-100°F most every day lately, cool meals are often on the menu.

tomato tasting

I’ve been busy turning the hot peppers into hot sauce and pickled peppers.  I’ve bottled one each of: Aji Rico, Sugar Rush Peach, Jalapeno hot sauce plus a batch of mixed peppers that includes a couple of the large and mild Wildcat cayenne peppers. And I got enough of the Aji Delight and Aji Rico peppers to make one jar each of them pickled in a sweet brine. I started a few more jars fermenting for hot sauce, pretty much more of the same varieties as before.

hot sauces and pickled peppers

I am still getting plenty of eggplant to keep us supplied, and last week we had Icicle, Fairy Tail and Gretel for our eating enjoyment. I’ve harvested over 20 pounds of eggplant this year, and much of it has come from these three container grown varieties – all AAS Winners.

Icicle, Fairy Tale and Gretel eggplant

I also found time to bake another loaf of my Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread last week. It makes a great bread for BLT’s and other sandwiches, since it is both sturdy and has a soft, tender crumb thanks to the oil and honey it has in it.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

And last but not least, our hardy hibiscus plants are still giving us a few blooms. Midnight Marvel is lighting up the sunny perennial border, and the reddish purple foliage is pretty even when it’s not blooming. And of course the blooms are huge!

Midnight Marvel hibiscus

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!


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Harvest Monday August 26, 2024

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

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!


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Harvest Monday August 19, 2024

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I finally got a decent harvest of the sweet Cornito peppers Cornito Arancia and Cornito Rosso last week. The plants don’t look like they will be super productive this year, no doubt due to lack of enough fertilzer at planting time (my mistake). That said, these we got were nice and we have enjoyed using them in various dishes. I also got some Better Boy tomatoes that day, which is a classic hybrid red tomato I’ve been growing for many years now.

pepper and tomato harvest

But it’s still pretty much all about the tomatoes here. Garden Treasure is a variety developed by the University of Florida tomato breeding program that always does well for me here, and makes lots of big tasty tomatoes. Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes are my favorite orange-fruited variety and a 2014 AAS Winner. It has heirloom tomato flavor with hybrid vigor and disease resistance, and I think the fruits have a good mix of sweet and acid tastes. The tromboncino squash vines are producing lots of long, tender fruits, and we have been using them in the kitchen much like we would zucchini.

tomatoes and tromboncino squashes

Garden Treasure tomatoes

Chef’s Choice Orange tomato

I got more tomatoes from the trial varieties I planted this year, including Hot Streak, Harvest Moon, and Celebrity Plus. I also got more of the 2022 AAS Winner Purple Zebra which is small but has a big flavor. The Celebrity Plus has not been very productive, and I’m not sure it is an improvement over the original Celebrity variety – at least in our garden.

trial tomatoes

Purple Zebra tomatoes

I got several of the Benevento tomatoes last week, just in time for a tasting. I wanted to compare them with Hot Streak, and my wife and I both agreed Hot Streak was as good as if not better than the Benevento. It was just one each of both tomatoes, along with a Purple Zebra, so I look forward to more tasting with the Hot Streak compared to other varieties.

Benevento tomatoes

left to right: Hot Streak, Purple Zebra and Benevento tomatoes

In other harvest news, I got a selection of hot peppers from the garden last week. I use most of these for making hot sauce, and they included Sugar Rush Peach, Pot-a-Peno and Aji Rico.  I got a few of the Aji Colorado peppers too, and I dry these for making into a sweet and mildly hot chile powder.

hot peppers

Aji Colorado peppers

And lastly I got more beans from the Turkey Craw Variant. We cooked these up last night for dinner, along with some potatoes.

Turkey Craw Variant beans

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!


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Harvest Monday August 12, 2024

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Just as our cucumbers are about done for, the pole beans are setting on and last week I got enough for our first taste of them this year. These first ones are an heirloom variety from Tennessee I’m growing for the first time called Turkey Craw Variant. They are a bit earlier than the Turkey Craw beans I’ve been growing for a few years now, and we certainly enjoyed eating them. Like all the heirloom beans I’m growing these have strings, but they are easily removed before cooking. They also have a flavor advantage that too often got bred out of the string-less beans, plus they don’t get tough like the modern varieties do if left to grow too long before harvesting.

August Harvest

Turkey Craw Variant

And I hauled in lots more tomatoes last week as well. The small cherry varieties are very productive this year, and we’re getting plenty of the slicing types too.

tomato harvest

Harvest Moon tomato

Hot Streak tomato

I did a tomato tasting last week of my trial varieties Hot Streak and Harvest Moon. I thought Hot Streak was okay but not an improvement over other red varieties I’m growing. The Harvest Moon, however, was outstanding! It had a rich, full flavor that pretty much stole the show for that meal. I look forward to tasting more of these beauties.

Hot Streak and Harvest Moon tasting

The eggplants are still producing well too, and I got lots of them last week in all sizes and shapes. I also found a mature Centercut squash hiding in the abundant foliage of those vines, and brought it in.

eggplant harvest plus Centercut squash

I got a big batch of paste tomatoes one day along with more of the larger eggplant. The paste tomatoes were Zenzei, Juliet and Health Kick. Juliet is a baby Roma type, and always does well for me here. Zenzei was a 2023 AAS Winner and a standout last year in our garden. I made one batch of Freezer Tomato Sauce with most of these, though not all.

paste tomatoes and eggplant

Zenzei tomato

Dehydrating tomatoes is one of my favorite ways to preserve them and concentrate the flavor. And Juliet is one of my favorite varieties for drying! I did one tray of them last week, with more to come I am sure as more tomatoes set on.

before dehydrating

after dehydrating

With all the eggplant coming in, eggplant sandwiches were on the menu last week. I had one for lunch, along with what I am calling Cheesy Baked Tomatoes. I sliced up a tomato and roasted it on the sheet pan along with the eggplant, but only for about 5 minutes. Then I topped with mozzarella cheese and some fresh basil and put it back in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt. Other cheeses should work well too, and I am looking forward to making this side dish again soon.

eggplant sandwich and cheesy tomatoes

In non-harvest news, I found a swallowtail caterpillar feeding on one of my potted parsley plants. I moved it over to a plant I set out in the pollinator garden just for the caterpillars. We love seeing the big swallowtails flying around, and I have both fennel and parsley as host plants for them.

swallowtail caterpillar on parsley

And lastly, the hardy hibiscus are still putting a show with daily blooms showing up on our plants. Fireball has big red blooms, and has been a standout since we planted it a few years back. I just set out Luna White this spring, and already it has had quite a few blooms on what is still a small  plant. You can see a bee on one of the blooms, and they do visit them for pollen.

Fireball hibiscus

Luna White hibiscus

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!


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