This Weeks Harvest

This week the garden has decided that the warm weather crops are ready.  The tomatoes have only had a handful of ripe tomatoes up until this point, but this week they have really started to ripen in good numbers, and they aren't tiny tomatoes either.

The large tomato on the right is a Brandywine tomato which is an heirloom variety.  The mid-sized ones are the Moskvich tomatoes which are supposed to be a short season heirloom variety.  So far they have lived up to their reputation and seem to be producing a good crop.  The tiny ones on the left side are the cherry tomatoes which I have planted from saved seed two years in a row.  All of these varieties have excellent flavor and I am quite pleased at how well the tomatoes have grown in this years garden.

 

The peppers have managed to stay productive as well even though they are currently being smothered by the winter squash patch.

This is the pepper bed believe it or not.  That tiny splash of red is a red pepper almost ready for harvest.  The rest of the green you see is the squash plants stretching their legs all over the garden.

The yellow peppers are loaded with fruit.  They don't seem to get as large as the green peppers but they are thick and fleshy enough to make up for it.  The jalapenos are already coming in droves and I think I will have to start giving them away just to keep up with them.

 

The peas are on their last legs and we are only picking a small amount every day. 

 

 The beans are starting to really put out flowers and the plants have dozens of tiny beans hiding amongst the foliage.  I think they have recovered from the chicken maulings.  I expect our bean harvests to fill out nicely over the next few weeks.

 

 

The cucumbers are starting to put out 3-4 pickle sized fruits almost every day though today I picked eight.  I expect these to keep increasing over the next few weeks as harvest season hits high gear.

 

The sweet corn is definitely ready to be harvested though I am really disappointed in the size of the ears.  They are tiny and thin and many of them don't look like they were well pollinated.  I hope the dent corn fares better.

 

This is a small harvest from earlier in the week.

When I have to work all day I usually only pick what I will use in the next day or so.  I leave the larger harvesting days for my day off when I have time to process everything while it is at it's freshest.  I plan on making the first round of tomato sauce from this week's harvest of tomatoes.  I will also be increasing the number of jars in my pickle stash thanks to the good crop of cucumbers I am getting.