Harvest Monday: September 7

I passed peak tomato without even noticing it.

After picking another 30 pounds on Thursday evening, I realized there wasn't an overwhelming amount of fruit hanging on the vines. Sunday morning, I harvested just a handful. We'll have tomatoes here and there for another 1-3 weeks but I believe the days of 30-pound harvests are long gone.

Looking back, the first tomatoes ripened around July 26, came in at a steady but manageable pace for the next 3 weeks, and then kicked into high gear for 30+ pound weeks for the next 2-3 weeks, and now we're back to the steady trickle. It's interesting to look back at the calendar because it feels like I've been harvesting and processing tomatoes forever.

Here's the photo evidence from Thursday. In addition to the tomatoes, I got some nice peppers.

My mom and I processed 20 pounds of the ripest tomatoes on Friday, resulting in 5 quarts of crushed tomatoes and 3 quarts of tomato juice.

Saturday was a work day, prepping the garden expansion area for cover crop seeds, which I managed to sow just before sunset, followed by my husband raking them in with the lawn tractor. It was just in time, as the rains came overnight. This is the first year I'm planting a cover crop. I hope it goes well. I went with an all-purpose garden cover crop mix from True Leaf Market. 

While cleaning out a portion of the garden, I pulled my first few carrots (gorgeous, but long; I probably let them go too long) and the rest of the Jacob's Cattle bean plants. No photos though.

Sunday was dreary; perfect for more canning. First, I went to the garden during a break in the rain to pick the majority of my basil. I also ended up with a handful of tomatoes and some more gorgeous peppers.

Mom and I tackled the Ball roasted tomato soup recipe for the first time, doubling it. We ended up filling almost every square inch in my oven with trays of roasted tomatoes.

16 pounds of tomatoes and hours of work yielded the expected 6 quarts of roasted tomato soup + 1 quart of tomato juice. This better be darn good soup! While the tomatoes were processing, I put together a batch of pickled jalapeños that could be water bath canned. My husband eats pickled jalapeños on his pizzas frequently, and we've always purchased them at the grocery store. I hope he likes the home canned ones, because jalapeños are easy to grow and quick to pickle. When I put them in the canner, I had both burners running a canner, which I think was a first for me.

Sunday dinner was wood-fired pizza from a local farm, but I made a salad of tomato, basil, mozzarella, olive oil, and a balsamic reduction.

This post is part of Harvest Monday; visit Happy Acres to see what other gardeners are harvesting this week.