Harvest Monday - August 22, 2016

The big news lately is that our drought seems to have finally ended.  We have had quite a bit of rain over the past week - so much so that I’ve actually turned off all of the drip timers for now.  The grass and ornamental beds (and weeds, unfortunately) are loving it.

This past week, the harvest story begins with the corn:


Dorinny Sweet

These were the only cobs left after a few rainfalls.  Prior to the rain, there were easily 10 or so cobs on the plants.  I’m actually thinking that my pepper spray worked at keeping the mystery muncher away from the corn.  However, once the rains washed it away, the cobs quickly disappeared.

And this is the truly sad part of the story.  I didn't do my homework on when to harvest the corn.  I should have harvested the corn before the rains.  Because it was ready.  But I didn’t realize it was ready.  Until it was too late.

The cobs that I did end up harvesting looked pretty good – although they were quite small once the husks were peeled back:

Small, but they filled out not too badly

But when we ate them, they were a bit starchy – a telling sign that they were over-mature :(  Oh well, another year, another lesson learned.

And now for the tomatoes:

In this basket:  Brandywine, Taxi, Sungold, Costoluto Genovese
and the mystery cherry tomato

A nice bowlful of sugar snap peas joined the tomatoes in this basket:

From top left:  Taxi, Super Sweet 100, Sungold, Sugar Snaps

And then the annual graduation from harvest basket to harvest box, which is when you know that you have hit the tomato peak:

From top left:  A single Mountain Magic, Sungold, Juliet,
Taxi, Cherokee Purple, Bloody Butcher

Top row:  Mystery cherry, Speckled Roman, Juliet
Middle Row:  Cherokee Purple, Costoluto Genovese, Brandywine
Bottom Row:  Opalka, Amos Coli, Orange Blossom, Sungold 

From the top left:  Juliet, Sungold, Mountain Magic, Taxi, Bloody Butcher

Now this is something you don't see everyday:

Don't think I've ever seen a growth quite like this before

This was, in fact, a record tomato week with over 33 kilos /72 lbs of tomatoes harvested.  And it wasn't only a stellar week in terms of quantity, but it was also the earliest that I have ever hit the tomato peak.  Up until now, my best week had been back in 2014 when I harvested 67 lbs of tomatoes in early September.

The peppers are also doing really well, with a lot more colour showing up in the harvest basket:

From the top:  Pepperoncino, Melrose, Odessa, Jimmy Nardello,
Stocky Red Roaster, Jalapeno & Corne de Chevre in the middle

One of the Stocky Red Roaster plants had leaned over into the Melrose plant so I ended up picking a couple of green ones by mistake.  We don't mind green peppers around here, so we will still make good use of them.

A Tromboncino squash joins a basket of peppers:

Tromboncino together with a pepper medley

One of the Tromboncino's got stuck between the two trellises and had to be surgically removed:

Stuck Tromb

And here he is with a few cucumbers friends:

From left to right - Tromboncino, Garden Sweet, Lemon,
Summer Dance, Suyo Long

Several eggplant were harvested, including the first Long Green eggplant, together with another cucumber:

Ping Tung, Long Green and Chelsea Prize cucumber

And speaking of firsts, I also harvested two napa cabbages.  These guys are pretty big when you harvest them:

Mini Napa

Once trimmed of all the coarse and chewed up leaves, however, they are less than 1/2 their original size:

Mini Napa - trimmed

I have a few more napas in the bed, but their heads are not quite firm enough to harvest yet.  Hopefully they don't bolt before then.

A couple of Romanescos and a scallop squash were harvested:

Still having issues with pollination on the Romanesco's obviously....

The Speckled Cranberry beans are colouring up and they are simply gorgeous:

Speckled Cranberry

These are being harvested for dried beans and I’m not exactly sure when they are fully mature (i.e. just before they start to dry out), so I’ve not harvested any yet.  But they're just so pretty I had to share.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears, however, I have grown before, so I’ve harvested a bunch of mature pods and am letting them dry out on newspaper.  These don't get included into the tally until they are dried and shelled.

In the past I've waited until the pods are almost completely purple before harvesting which has worked out well, but I'm wondering if they need to be completely purple, or if I can start to harvest them when they are fully formed and just starting to turn purple.  So this year, I've decided to do a bit of a test and am harvesting some of the pods at the earlier stage and keeping them separate from the others.

Cherokee Trail of Tears

I pulled out all of the Oceanis (filet bean) and Provider (snap bean) plants as rust had taken over and the rains was only making things worse.  We loved Provider, but I doubt I’ll be growing Oceanis again – they were not very tender and the flavour was also lacking.  This is not altogether a bad thing as that means I get to try a new variety next year with no reservations :)

And lastly, I also harvested a few of the larger Ailsa Craig onions as their tops had flopped & we were expecting rain:

Ailsa Craigs

I probably should have harvested more of them, but I just didn't have the time.  These are in the garage curing right now, so they won't be added to the tally for another few weeks.  I'll likely harvest the rest of the onions in a piecemeal fashion, harvesting only those whose tops have flopped over.  I mentioned previously that most of the onions are not doing well in terms of size this year, so I'm waiting as long as I can in the hopes that they get just that little bit bigger.

Also harvested this week but not photographed were a nice bunch of Romano beans.

My harvest totals this week were:

Romano Beans – 562 grams (1.24 lbs)
Chinese Cabbage (trimmed) – 892 grams (1.97 lbs)
Cucumbers – 1,674 grams (3.69 lbs)
Eggplant – 374 grams (0.82 lbs)
Snap Peas – 172 grams (0.38 lbs)
Sweet Peppers – 1,258 grams (2.77 lbs)
Hot Peppers – 810 grams (1.79 lbs)
Summer Squash – 3,959 grams (8.73 lbs)
Tomatoes – 33,050 grams (72.86 lbs) – a record week!

Total for Week – 42,751 grams (94.25 lbs)
Total to Date – 122 kg (268.95 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.

I'll end this post with a photo that inspires me to let more volunteer dill grow throughout my garden:

Awwww.....