Harvest Monday - August 1, 2016

This past week two veg dominated the harvests - beans and peppers.

Provider Snap Beans

It's my first year growing Provider snap beans and I love them - they are tender, stringless and delicious.  I served a big batch when we had some company over and everyone, including the kids, had 2nd helpings.

Also at full production now are the Golden of Bacau.

Golden of Bacau with a few off-type beans

Those green beans in the above photo are an off-type that one of the vines is producing - it looks exactly like Golden of Bacau (GB) except that it's green.

There is some exciting news in the bean patch this year - absolutely NO sign of the bacterial brown spot that plagued this variety in the past.  Looks like the new seeds I purchased are clean and I will definitely be saving a big batch of them to sow in the future.  Hurray!  This is one of my favourite varieties and I was so sad when I thought I would have to give it up.

A new Romano variety that has just started to produce as well is the Garden of Eden.

Golden of Bacau with a few Garden of Eden

These guys seem to be much smaller than the GB and the vines are nowhere near as prolific.  What you see in the basket was the entire harvest from last week and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of immature beans hanging from the vines.  Some beans do slow down during hot weather and I also haven't tasted them so that may be a deciding factor one way or another.

Then we have the peppers - they are going crazy!

Hungarian Hot Wax

Well, crazy for me, that is...I think they would have to pick up the pace even more if they were to compare with what Michelle typically harvests :)

Jimmy Nardello

The first harvest this week was a basket of sweet Melrose peppers, together with some Padrons & Anaheims.

From left to right:  Melrose, Padron, Anaheim

Our first harvest of non-green peppers was, not surprisingly, Hungarian Hot Wax:

Hungarian Hot Wax

That's the harvest from two plants, and there are at least that many left on the plant that will be ready to pick in another week or so.  These are seeded, cut into rings and canned; they are my husbands go-to hot pepper throughout the year.

And then there were jalapenos and Pepperoncinos, together with a few more Melrose peppers.

Top - Tam Jalapeno

Bottom - Left - Melrose; Right - Pepperoncino

A few summer squash were harvested - always a BIG deal around here as I have always had issues growing them:

Romanesco, Scallop & Tromboncino

Last year I forgot all about sowing the Tromboncino, so it was sown late and I only ended up with one lowly squash.  Looks like this year will be a lot better as I already have 2 more sizing up on the vines.  This is my first time growing scallop squash and it's such a cutie!  Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with it - I'm thinking stir-fry on the bbq.

The cucumbers are coming along steadily - just enough to include in our meals, but not so much that I have to think about preserving them yet.

Garden Sweet & Lemon cucumbers

I've been growing Suyo Long cucumbers for a few years now and quite like this variety - when it gets pollinated properly.  Unfortunately, that rarely seems to happen:

Suyo Long

Most of the Suyo Longs end up like the one above - with one fatter end and one skinnier end - a sign of incomplete pollination.  I think I've given it enough of a shot, so this will likely be it's last year in the garden.

I've been harvesting more broccoli - we are now down to side shoots and all of the varieties seem to be coming through on that front.

Broccoli side shoots and baby potato

We had some company over the weekend and they were fascinated by the potato bed.  To show them that there were indeed potatoes under the plants and straw, I dug around and pulled one out.  It made me smile when our guest, holding up the spud, called out to his wife who was examining the next bed and said - "Hey look - it's a potato!"  :)

And last, but certainly not least, this past week I pulled all of the garlic:

7 varieties & 150+ bulbs of garlic

I was a bit late in pulling it up, but none of the bulbs seemed to be any worse for wear - all the wrappers were still nice and tight.

Music

Even though I don't tally up the harvest until after the bulbs are cured, I can already tell that this will be one of my best years so far with some bulbs being larger than any I have harvested in the past.  I'm so looking forward to digging into the numbers in a few weeks - and yes, I do know how geeky that sounds :)

Also harvested this week but not photographed were a few favas - the plants are on their last legs and I'll likely harvest what is left and pull them this week - and a few Sungold tomatoes.  A Bloody Butcher tomato was also harvested but as it went into a salad when we had people over, I didn't have time for a photo shoot.

My harvest totals this week were:

Fava Beans – 72 grams (0.16 lbs)
Snap & Romano Beans – 2,545 grams (5.61 lbs)
Broccoli – 828 grams (1.83 lbs)
Cucumbers – 793 grams (1.75 lbs)
Sweet Peppers – 434 grams (0.96 lbs)
Hot Peppers – 1,214 grams (2.68 lbs)
Potatoes – 70 grams (0.15 lbs)
Summer Squash – 1,022 grams (2.25 lbs)
Tomatoes – 248 grams (0.55 lbs)

Total for Week – 7,226 grams (15.93 lbs)

Total to Date – 52.32 kg (115.35 lbs)

To see what everyone else has been harvesting over the past week, head on over to Our Happy Acres where Dave is our host for Harvest Mondays.