harvest monday

this is my first time linking up to harvest monday at daphne’s dandelions. normally i just check out other peoples’ stuff because i can’t get my business together in time to post on monday. it’s always interesting to see what other gardeners are harvesting--especially at this point in the season when so much is coming in. my garden probably won’t be in full swing until september, but it’s been supplying me with a decent amount of food pretty steadily for a while now.

here’s today’s harvest. i was up in the mountains all weekend so this morning i saw everything for the first time in three days, and even in that short time a lot had changed. i picked two black magic zucchinis, some bush beans, a bunch of ground cherries...

first two purple bell peppers. they’re very small, and i picked them because i assumed the purple color meant they were full size but i wonder if they’d keep growing if i left them? anyone know? my black hungarian peppers keep growing after they turn purple. the coloration came way faster than with a normal bell pepper, probably less than two weeks after the fruit set. next time i’ll try leaving them longer.

i got my first cream sausage and oranje van goeijenbier tomatoes, along with a bunch of chiapas wild (red currant), white currant, tiny tim and gartenperle. cream sausage is sweet with no detectable acid, not my favorite. OVG was pure lemon sourness. totally shocking and not good. they’re all going in the sauce pot.

from my mom’s herb garden at the cabin i pulled up the garlic i planted last fall: susanville, chesnok red and purple glazer.

my raspberries are ripening! i picked another handful tonight. they rarely make it in front of the camera. i think this is a common problem.

harvest from 8/3: ronde de nice zucchini, first joe’s long cayenne pepper, first marmande tomato, first two of what were supposed to be brandywine but are absolutely the wrong size and shape, and a bunch of tiny tim and chiapas wild.

harvest from 8/1: ronde de nice zucchini, bush beans (contender, dragon’s tongue, purple queen, coco rose de prague and brittle wax), three black hungarian peppers, a handful of ground cherries, and tomatoes: black zebra cherry, isis candy, white currant and lots of tiny tim and chiapas wild. black zebra cherry is the tastiest of the small tomatoes i’ve tried so far this year.

from 8/2, homegrown purple majesty potatoes all cut up. aren’t they beautiful? they look neat smashed too:

i love purple veggies. i’m also growing purple carrots, tomatoes, beans, basil, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, radishes...not only do i love the strangeness factor of the purple food, but green and purple is my favorite color combination, so a lush garden full of purple things makes my eyes happy. i played with that color combo for this potato dish:

rosemary roasters, served with:

sautéed zucchini and beans.

my OSU blue tomatoes are turning a beautiful shade of purple. they’re still green on their undersides, any surface the sunlight doesn’t hit. luckily this plant is in a pot so i rotated it to get even coloration on both sides.

now i’m off to peek at everyone else’s gardens. thanks to daphne for putting together such a fun weekly event.