Harvest Monday–August 8, 2011

We had rain this weekend so I did not visit the garden on Sunday. I visited this morning just to check on things and came home with with a bag of veggies. A couple of cucumbers, some Cubanelle peppers, a Lady Bell pepper, Sungold cherry tomatoes, a Raven zucchini, a third picking of Jade green beans, and Jet Star tomatoes. Not bad for having no expectations.

I picked a couple of the Jet Stars with catfacing that were starting to color. The larger one weighs 20 ounces, the smaller one 14 ounces.The one at the bottom of the picture was picked semi-green on Friday and is already ripening nicely. With a heavy load of tomatoes on the vines, I usually harvest the first ones to color up and ripen them at home, so the plant can put its energy into the remaining fruit. This year with the bizarre weather, some of the earliest fruit to set was affected by catfacing, caused by cool temperatures resulting in incomplete pollination of the fruit. The later fruits do not have this problem.

I have several pounds of green beans harvested last week in the fridge. I may try to blanch and freeze some of them using my vacuum sealer. In the past, I found the frozen beans to be mushy and watery. I may also try to freeze some stewed beans, larger beans that are simmered with onions, tomatoes and a chili pepper for about an hour. I will post a recipe later, but this is one of my favorites.