Monday, October 17, 2011

Harvest Monday - October 17, 2011

Oh, it is so nice to be back in my garden after a couple of weeks away on vacation. Vermont was beautiful even though the fall colors were nearly a no-show and a week in the din of Manhattan was enough to last me a lifetime. What I miss most while traveling is fresh vegetables, well, really any vegetables prepared in an interesting way. I find it to be tremendously difficult to find vegetables on a restaurant menu that aren't indifferently or downright poorly prepared. Even when a restaurant boasts about the local seasonal fresh vegetables that they prepare they are usually a tiny portion paired with a big hunk of protein rather than my typical meal of a plateful of veggies with a bit of protein added for flavor or substance. So it was a huge relief to find plenty of fresh vegetables to harvest from the garden yesterday.

The tomatoes haven't given up yet and the rats seem not to have been too greedy. Counter clockwise from the top left the tomatoes shown are Amish Paste,  Japanese Trifele, Galinas cherry, Aunt Ruby's German cherry, one Chianti Rose, a couple of Gigantesque (not at all giant), and a few Black Krim. And on the far left is a carton of Pimento de Padron peppers. I also have a bunch of tomatoes that I harvested the day before I left for vacation and left for my house sitter to stash in the freezer as they finished ripening (after she took as much as she wanted or gave to her friends with my blessing). Those aren't included in the harvest totals yet.


The Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli had a lot of side shoots that were ready to harvest, a couple of Green Fingers Persian cucumbers weren't too huge, one of the napa cabbages was starting to spoil but I was able to rescue a good portion of it, and the celery is growing like crazy and still not completely thinned out so I harvested another head of that.


Wow, the Neckarkönigin vines were loaded with green beans that were ready to harvest. A lot of the beans were very large and starting to get a bit lumpy with developing seeds but all except the very largest turned out to be not at all stringy and still tender and tasty.


I used the cabbage, about half the celery, some of the largest beans, and some of the tomatoes along with some frozen favas and pantry onions and garlic to make a big pot of vegetable soup last night. I also whipped up a batch of pesto with basil fresh from the garden to stir into each bowl of soup.  Mmmm, that satisfied my vegetable cravings and also seemed to be therapeutic for the cold that I dragged home with me.

Not included in the totals this week are the vegetables that I harvested the week before I left because I lost my notes for that week, dang it. I might have broken the 500 pound mark this week with those vegetables and the still unweighed frozen tomatoes.

Here's the latest harvest totals:

Neckarkönigin green beans - 8 lb., 15.5 oz.
Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli - 2 lb., 5.8 oz.
Hybrid One Kilo napa cabbage - 1 lb., 9.5 oz.
Dorato di Asti celery - 1 lb., 5.5 oz.
Green Fingers cucumbers - 5.7 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers (excluding the over sized ones) - 15.4 oz.
Amish Paste tomatoes - 7 lb., 13 oz.
Aunt Ruby's German cherry tomatoes - 2 lb., 12.7 oz.
Black Krim tomatoes - 2 lb., 1.7 oz.
Chianti Rose tomatoes - 7.8 oz.
Galinas cherry tomatoes - 1 lb., 5 oz.
Gigantesque tomatoes - 7.1 oz.
Japanese Trifele tomatoes - 6 lb., 9.5 oz.
Unidentified tomato variety - 8 oz.

The total harvest for the week was - 37 lb., 9.7 oz.
The total harvests for the year have been - 457 lb., 2.4 oz.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.


6 comments:

  1. Wow, almost 38 lbs of produce. The soup sounds good, any leftover :)

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  2. Now that is food for the body and soul! I totally know what you mean about eating while traveling. It is wonderful to have some one else cook for me and to try some new things while traveling - but I am always ready to come home and enjoy meals highlighting the fresh fare from my garden.

    The fall pole beans area always enjoyed by us - a last tribute to the summer season.

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  3. I know what you mean about restaurants not serving veggies - in think the worst place I have ever been to for that is Scotland. There were parts of Scotland where tomato ketchup was considered a vegetable. In fact I think I had the worst food of my life there - I had every vegetable conceivable battered and deep frying either that or boiled with in an inch of its life. Having said that though I've also had some of the best food of my life in Scotland so I shouldn't really complain plus its beautiful and i'm feeling quite guilty for whinging.... Fabulous looking tomatoes!!!!

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  4. I hear you on restaurant vegetables. And I've noticed the preferred vegetables frequently include yellow summer squash and zucchini. What about all the other yummy vegetables?!

    Hope the soup cured the cold, blech.

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  5. Beautiful tomatoes Michelle! Marc and I were in Burlington Vermont a week ago. I wonder if we were there at the same time. And yes the foliage was a no show. We asked someone and they said that in the area around Lake Champlain, the foliage changes about two weeks after the rest of the state for some reason. Maybe the lake has something to do with it. HOpe you had a great time and took plenty of pics!

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  6. Beautiful harvest. I wish I were eating those beans. I've decided that I have to plant some bush beans that will get ripe for the fall.

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