Harvest Monday - September 19, 2016

Here we are in the middle of September and our temperatures are finally seasonal.  Well, more or less seasonal.  We are in for a warmer than usual week – temps in the mid-20’s (around 80F) until Friday – but then it’s back down to cooler fall weather.

So on to the harvests, starting with the smallest - a couple of golden raspberries.

'Fall Gold'

They were delicious!  There are a few more on the canes and it looks like we may also be getting some red raspberries too, if they ripen up before we get a frost.  This has been a rather dismal year for berries – yes, I only planted them last year, but our summer drought really did a number on them.

Now on to a first harvest for this season.  Last night when I was emptying the compost, my curiosity got the best of me & I pulled a carrot.

1st carrot of the season
(the photo was taken at nightfall so the lighting wasn't the best)

Well, the one that I pulled – a Mokum – looked amazing and it cleaned up even better:

9” long and weighed in at 162 grams (5.7 ounces)

Since we’ve had such a hot summer, which is not the best situation when it comes to growing sweet carrots, I’ve been holding off on harvesting hoping that some cooler fall weather may sweeten them up.  Lucky for me, I didn’t get around to sowing them until June, so I’m not too worried about them being over mature.

Of course, we had to taste it.  Super crunchy and it tasted good, although I must say it could have been a bit sweeter.  I’ll start to pull up carrots as needed now, but will leave the bulk of them until cooler weather arrives.

The other 1st was a Zao Feng squash, which is now in the basement:

Zao Feng squash together with a scallop squash

and final harvest of Trail of Tears beans (for drying)

This was a small guy, weighing in at just over 2 lbs.  There is not much information on this particular variety, so I’m going to let it sit in the basement for a few weeks before trying it, just in case it needs that time to sweeten up.

This was a light harvest week for tomatoes and peppers.  There are still a lot of fruits on the plants but I just didn’t get around to picking them.

A few tomatoes (including the 2nd last Brandywine)

together with the final harvest of cranberry beans (for drying)

Variety of peppers and a tromboncino

The skinny tromboncino in the photo didn’t get fertilized, but it was big enough to pick & was included in a scramble that my son made (he was so proud!).

As a side note, something has been eating the Lemon Drop peppers:

Nibbled Lemon Drop

Unlike other peppers that may be nibbled because they are in direct contact with the ground, that is not the case with these.  The damage is to peppers that are hanging on the plant, with no ground contact, and it is only on fully ripe, yellow peppers, not those that are still green.  I’ve even had one pepper completely eaten where the only thing left hanging on the plant was the core with the seeds.  So far, I’ve lost about 6 or so peppers but it seems that the culprit has moved on as I inspected the plant yesterday and didn’t see any more damage, even though there are quite a few ripe peppers on it now (which I’ll be harvesting today).

Two of the bean trellises were taken down this past weekend and I harvested any beans that were left.  After a few weeks with zero fresh bean harvests, this small harvest was cooked for lunch the same day:

Garden of Eden & Golden of Bacau

Another tromboncino & a few cucumbers were picked:

Tromboncino & a variety of cucumbers

The cucumber vines are looking pretty bad as they slowly succumb to powdery mildew but I may be able to get a few more fruits before they get pulled.

The broccoli is still producing side shoots:

Arcadia side shoots

And after a few weeks with no harvests, I’m finally harvesting kale again:

Red Ursa and White Russian kale

I’ve actually decided to take the netting off the brassica bed at this stage.  My thought is that, even though there still may be cabbage white butterflies fluttering about, I think we are late enough in the season that they wouldn’t have time to lay eggs that would hatch and cause much damage before our first frost.  The bonus is that the kale will get a bit more light and harvesting will be much easier.

My harvest totals this week were:

Beans – 212 grams (0.47 lbs)
Broccoli – 1,282 grams (2.83 lbs)
Carrots – 162 grams (0.36 lbs)
Cucumbers – 1,582 grams (3.49 lbs)
Kale – 544 grams (1.20 lbs)
Sweet Peppers – 124 grams (0.27 lbs)
Hot Peppers – 640 grams (1.41 lbs)
Summer Squash – 1,486 grams (3.28 lbs)
Winter Squash – 968 grams (2.13 lbs)
Tomatoes – 968 grams (2.13 lbs)

Total for Week – 8,010 grams (17.66 lbs)

Total to Date – 184.78 kg (407.37 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.