Harvest time

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Claire

Master Chef
Joined
Sep 4, 2004
Messages
7,967
Location
Galena, IL
One of those silly moments. I planted three pepper bushes. The regular and "super" cayennes I can dry. The Hungarian hots are going to wind up in the trash (we've eaten as much as we can handle), ditto the jalapenas. I've eaten tomatoes and cukes until they came out of my ears, and am an herb lover and have pureed lots of herbs with garlic and olive oil for the freezer. But, being the kind of person I was raised to be, I feel bad because I'm "throwing away" food. And this is from a very small garden! I try to keep it small because there are only two of us. Next year, I swear to God, I am only planting one pepper (probably super cayenne, seems to be best for drying), one cucumber, and two tomatoes (this would give me enough to gift my friends). What did you over-plant this year, and what would you do differently? Snow is predicted for Wednesday, so we're harvesting everything we can.
 
Oh Claire, you simply can not only plant one pepper plant next year, and two tomato plants is also questionable! What if something happens to the one pepper plant??

I did not overplant anything this year, but sure have over-harvested potatoes. Out of our usual 3 80 foot rows of potatoes we get between one and two wheel barrow loads of potatoes. This year we have four solid wheel barrow loads of potatoes. Now that's a lot of potatoes for 2 people. Not quite sure what to do with them all. The winter squash yield was low, sweet potatoes was excellent. Am still harvesting tomatoes, green peppers, kale, parsley, carrots, broccoli, celery. The winter squash is huddled in the garden so I can throw on a blanket if frost threatens. Snow:ohmy: , yikes, not ready for that yet. Just heard DH fire up the rototiller, he is preparing the garlic plot. We are going to plant more garlic than recent years, because it sold so well on ebay. That's the only thing we have talked about doing different. Been doing this for so long, it is kinda routine.
 
Claire said:
One of those silly moments. I planted three pepper bushes. The regular and "super" cayennes I can dry. The Hungarian hots are going to wind up in the trash (we've eaten as much as we can handle), ditto the jalapenas. I've eaten tomatoes and cukes until they came out of my ears, and am an herb lover and have pureed lots of herbs with garlic and olive oil for the freezer. But, being the kind of person I was raised to be, I feel bad because I'm "throwing away" food. And this is from a very small garden! I try to keep it small because there are only two of us. Next year, I swear to God, I am only planting one pepper (probably super cayenne, seems to be best for drying), one cucumber, and two tomatoes (this would give me enough to gift my friends). What did you over-plant this year, and what would you do differently? Snow is predicted for Wednesday, so we're harvesting everything we can.


Claire, do you have a compost heap/bin? If you do, you could feel a little less guilty by throwing your surplus plants,fruits, etc. into the compost pile. I started one this June and am already seeing compost beginning to begin.

I add all my compostable kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, etc. for the wet matter. It should a 50/50 mix of wet ingredients to dry. I'll have no problem with dry ingredients now that the leaves are falling and getting dry. During the summer when I didn't have enough dry matter, I just threw in the shredded pieces from my paper shredder. I'd like to see someone try to steal my identity here.:LOL:

Next spring I expect to have some compost to add to my garden. I'm really looking forward to that.
 
"ditto the jalapenas."

Last year, I pickled all of mine. Really easy, and people love them. Let me know if you want the recipe.
 
Claire said:
One of those silly moments. I planted three pepper bushes. The regular and "super" cayennes I can dry. The Hungarian hots are going to wind up in the trash (we've eaten as much as we can handle), ditto the jalapenas. I've eaten tomatoes and cukes until they came out of my ears, and am an herb lover and have pureed lots of herbs with garlic and olive oil for the freezer. But, being the kind of person I was raised to be, I feel bad because I'm "throwing away" food. And this is from a very small garden! I try to keep it small because there are only two of us. Next year, I swear to God, I am only planting one pepper (probably super cayenne, seems to be best for drying), one cucumber, and two tomatoes (this would give me enough to gift my friends). What did you over-plant this year, and what would you do differently? Snow is predicted for Wednesday, so we're harvesting everything we can.

Claire - take the Hungarians and freeze them. Whole, just as they are. OR dump them into a large jar, and pour boiling vinegar over them. They'll last forever. as you say, the cayennes will dry out nicely ( place in a barely warm oven overnight).
 
Peppers freeze well. I just froze the last of our jalaepno crop. I IQF them then bag them.
 
I plant roughly 20 chili plants each year and get 10s of kilos of fruit from them, some I dry, some I blitz up in the food proc with salt and leave then ferment for a week or so and make chili sauce, others I swap with fellow gardeners for other veg.

I wouldn`t throw them away though :(

even the used chili paste with all the bits of seeds etc... from making the sauce gets put into bags and frozen, it`s nice to add that to the water when you`re boiling a beef brisket, or as a rub to marinade in.
 
I did very little preserving this year, just some herb purees for the freezer. I had 3 tomato plants, 2 cuke vines and the three pepper bushes. Even with that few I still provided three friends with tomatoes, peppers, and cukes. Yes, I did try to "do" a compost heap when I first moved here but the only place out of sight is also too dark and cool and it didn't work well. As it is, we have an empty lot across the street the entire neighborhood uses for the purpose. We have an agreement that only trimmings from the garden (and leaves in the fall, etc) go there. Fewer tomatoes because I over-crowded the ones I grew this year and the quality wasn't as good. We also had a few wet spells and a lot of them split. I didn't even make tomato sauce for the freezer because we and my friends ate them as fast as they ripened.
 
I'm done harvesting my garden. I did can 62 qts of tomatoes. I planted 20 plants but some were distroyed when a tree fell over the garden area during a wind storm. My peppers didn't do well at all this year. Last year I had so many I was giving them away. I did freeze 12 qt bags of peppers last year.Was disappointed this year. Also my rhutabeggas didn't do well this year. Last year I had so many and again giving them away after freezing 15 qts.I did freeze 36 qts of corn and 32 qts of green beans.I'm already planning my garden for next year and will plant some different items and less tomatoes as my daughter is planting her own garden now so I don't have to do as much.I would like to try celery. I'm going to can more also and not so much freezing.
 
All those quarts of tomatoes? What a woman! Or man! What a person! I grew a type of celery one year in Florida, but it isn't the easiest thing to preserve if you do not have a dehydrator. I only have a small above fridge freezer, and don't like to can/pickle, so that's why more food gets tossed than I'd like. I think I'm going to take those Hungarian peppers and bake or steam them (they're too small for roasting like my husband does with big reds or poblanos), freeze, then put through a food mill. thank you all for the advice!
 
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I grow celery to eat fresh, (cook with), and as an ingredient in my canned products. I start the plants from seed in February, they can take up to two weeks to germinate if not helped along, and remain tiny for several weeks. I set them out in the garden after danger of spring frosts has passed. And I harvest from them about one month later. Virtually any vegetable in my garden is taken very early, the first celery stalks I harvest are only a few inches long. And I use celery in my canned tomato products. I really do not grow it to preserve, we munch on it from June to November. It will take some cold weather in the fall. I do dry some of the leaves, the dried celery leaves are an important herb for me throughout the winter.
Now my tomatoes. This was a strange year for my tomatoes. What ones survived the late spring frost, grew pretty well despite having virtuallly no rain. Then they started to rot before they ripened. And now, when the vines should be dead from whatever kills the plants mid season every year, the plants are growing away. Only got to can 30 quarts of juice. When I harvest every few days now, I just make Kadesma's tomato and cheese recipe, made one over the weekend, and will make another one today.
 
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