Harvest Monday 9/12/16

Hopefully this was our last week with 90+ degree weather.  It has been impossible to prevent fall seedlings from wilting and fall seed germination rates have been terrible.  It's getting a bit late to plant fall crops unless we have a late frost, so hopefully I can get everything planted this week as the temperatures decrease.  The other problem I'm experiencing are bugs.  This is the time of year that I feel that I might as well wave a surrender flag.  For the fall seeds that manage to sprout in the heat, it doesn't mean that all is well.  Something has been eating the little, new leaves off my seedlings.  I was happy to see several lettuce seedlings one day, the next day they had vanished.  I'm not sure who the seedling eating culprit is, but they are not my friend!

Harvests this week include some eggplant, okra and a gourd.  The eggplants haven't been getting very large.  The leaf footed bugs seem to be trying out the eggplant, which may be effecting their growth. They suck the life out of veggies! I planted okra this year because it was supposed to thrive in the hot and humid South.  Well, it has not disappointed.  I have yet to find another way to cook it besides roasting that I can handle eating, but I have grown to like roasted okra.

A summer basket of okra, eggplant and an edible gourd

The peppers seem to be enjoying the heat.  Those same leaf footed bugs have been damaging the peppers too.

Marcani Red and Antohi Romanian Peppers

I've been getting a few, pathetic tomatoes.  You can see the speckles that the leaf footed bugs cause.  They have a piercing mouthpart that they use to suck the juice (and the life!) out of tomatoes.  I've had some tomatoes that I cut open and have no juice inside.  I was hoping my tomatoes were going to have a comeback and produce more, but I'm beginning to have doubts.

I discovered a zucchini that I let get out of control.  It's not really normal for me to get any zucchini this time of year, so I'll take overgrown one over nothing.  However, if you notice in the picture, it is covered with holes.  These are pickle worm holes.  I was not going to let some little caterpillars stop me from having zucchini!  I held it down in water for a few minutes and out came the caterpillars.  Surprisingly there was only one despite the many holes.  I then cut out the bad spots.

Caserta zucchini riddled with pickle worm holes

The good parts of the zucchini, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes went into ratatouille.  I combine it with some chickpeas and rice for a meal.

Ratatouille with eggplant, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes and herbs

I harvested some green and purple beans this week.  I've met my freezer goal for green beans this year.

Green (and purple) bean harvest

I also harvested a good sized spaghetti squash (4 lb 6.5 oz).  This will likely be my one and only spaghetti squash this year because the vine is looking almost dead and the remaining squashes are not ripe.  I also picked another Dickinson pumpkin at 9 lb 13.4 oz.  My one Dickinson pumpkin vine has now produced over 43 lbs!

I opened up three of the Seminole pumpkins that I harvested last week.  No ax was required.  They were harder to cut open than the Dickinson pumpkin, but not impossible.  They are also much smaller.  Most of mine are between two and three pounds, so after you get out the seeds and strings there's not a lot of flesh left. The flesh is also much wetter than Dickinson.  It did have a nice taste.  I made a pumpkin, sweet potato leaf and feta quiche.

Seminole pumpkin and sweet potato leaf quiche

On Labor Day we went apple picking.  Maybe one day we will get to pick apples at home, but until then we venture to an orchard for some delicious apples.

Apple picking

And of course, if you pick apples that means there must be pie!

Delicious apple pie

Weekly Harvest (lbs):

Summer squash  1.77
Peppers 2.31
Okra  1.18
Green beans 2.47
Tomatoes  0.88
Eggplant 2.75
Winter squash 14.24
Sweet potato greens  0.33
Soybeans  0.30
Gourd 0.24

Yearly Total: 778.8 lbs

That's all the harvests coming from my garden this week.  To see what others are harvesting, check out Harvest Monday on Our Happy Acres.