Preserving

Sunday, October 3, 2010

1st Fall Harvest Monday for ME!

I know it's been a month since I have posted anything. We have been going through some things here at home which I will share at a later date.

The garden is producing amazingly well for this time of year. The tomato plants look very healthy and have a lot of green fruit on them. I have harvested a little over 30 lbs over the past four weeks. It seems that the bugs are eating more then their fair share of tomatoes though. I really can't complain. Last year we had the blight and tomato season ended very early. I have been drying the "Matt's Wild Cherry" tomatoes on a regular basis and drying a lot of herbs as well. The days are getting shorter. So, who knows how much of the fruit will ripen before first frost. I guess that I need to make a least one batch of green tomato and red tomato jelly this week.

I have been harvesting eggplant on a regular basis as well. The total of the eggplant for the past four weeks is 3 lbs 5 1/2 oz. I made a very nice German/Italian (that's an Italian dish made by a German) Eggplant Parmesan this past week. "The Italian" really enjoyed it and said it was delicious!!

Here's a sampling of what I have been harvesting.
I decided to finally add the only squash that I harvested this year due to the SVB invasion. I wasn't sure if these two Spaghetti squash were going to ripen and be usable.


A jar of dried Cherry Tomatoes.
They are so sweet and wonderful!
I am sure that we will really enjoy them over the winter.


Harvest Total: 41 lbs (that is 4 weeks of harvests)

Eggplant - 3 lbs. 5.5 oz
Herbs - 15.5 oz
Peppers:
    Hot - 7 oz.
    Bell - 13 oz.
Tomatoes - 30 lbs. 8 oz.
Spaghetti Squash - 4 lbs. 11 oz.


Stop by Daphne's Dandelions the host of Harvest Monday to see more Fall Harvests!


17 comments:

  1. Wonderful harvest! I hope everything is ok there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad to see you posting again!
    Everything looks good. Do you dry the cherry tomatoes in the oven, sun, or dehydrator? The color is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The spaghetti squash and egg plant fruits look great. Glad you are back posting again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great harvest. I envy you the eggplants (german/italian - funny). I hope to grow them next year if I can find a small size to plant in containers. Congrats on your tomatoes. I'm missing those things.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Mom, Thanks, we are doing OK

    johanna, I dry the tomatoes in the oven on very low. It takes a few hours to do...but, they are really tastey

    Laura, Thanks and I am happy to be back posting.

    tempusflits, I am sure that you will find a variety to plant in a container.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Missed you! Hope all is well.

    Colorful harvest! I want to try Spaghetti squash again next year. I tried to grow it this year, but it wasn't in the main garden and the seedlings were eaten by the deer.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lovely harvests. I dried some cherry tomatoes this year too. I wish I had success with my eggplant like you did.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's nice to see another Robin post! Your harvest looks as good as ever, and I'll have to try that oven drying method on tomatoes at some point.sto

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks Grafix....I missed everyone too! Spaghetti squash is usually one of the easiest things for me to grow. But this year those !#%$! SVB's got just about everything!

    Emily, My eggplant are still producing like crazy. It may be the best year for them yet

    Thyme2, It's nice to be back. I have only been drying my cherry tomatoes. There are so many of them I didn't know what to do with them.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well your spaghetti squash add some really nice color to your harvest this week I hope they taste good. I feel your pain with the darn SVBs! I also have a couple of bags of dried Juliet grape tomatoes. They are so strong, I am going to have to find something to do with them other than munching! Maybe some pasta!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Blogger has really been testy lately! It just ate my comment. Anyway, I was saying how beautiful your spaghetti squash are! How do you like to prepare it?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi I'm bloging from Osaka, Japan.
    Egg plant is one of productive vegetables in my garden.
    Your egg plants are beautiful and more round-shaped than my egg plants.
    I hope we will exchange ideas in raising vegetables.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Shawn Ann, This year was the first year I had SVB's and they got everything! We are planning to use the dried tomatoes on salads and in pasta sauces over the winter.

    Thomas, Blogger has been a bugger lately. I like to use make a dish using tomatoes, hot sausage, onions, garlic, seasonings and shrimp. Then put it over the Spaghetti squash. It's a little different everytime I make it...but always yummy.

    takaeko, The squash in the picture are Spaghetti squash. It would be nice to exchange ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I, too, am enamored of those dried tomatoes! Are those the Matt's Wild Cherry? It looks like you cut them in half? I probably have more on the vines so I may try drying some....

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ali, yes, I cut them in half. I need to go out in the rain today and pick a couple of hundred more to dry!! The "Matt's Wild Cherry" produces like crazy!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Love the spaghetti squash. Last year I swore I would only plant butternut squash so the SVBs wouldn't take down all the vines. So the groundhogs ate the squash as they ripened.I'm destined not not have squash I think. So I bought several small spaghetti squash last week from the farmers market.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Love your hot pepper jelly! and the tomato harvest. I just spent the last two days processing over 60 lbs of tomatoes... we had few and then there were many. ;) But with colder night temps, it looks like the garden is winding down.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment!