Harvest Reds

The past few years I've really enjoyed growing these Polish Linguisa tomatoes. They're a large, pepper-shaped paste tomato. The young plants look pretty spindly and frail, and they're some of the last ones to start setting fruit, but once they get going, they're quite prolific, and continue to ripen their tomatoes up until frost. My favorite way to prepare them is to slow-roast them in a 200 deg. oven all day, until they're leathery-soft. Then I layer them in a pint jar with fresh basil leaves and olive oil, squishing them down well to get the air bubbles out, fitting in as many as I can into the jar. They keep several months in the 'fridge. The flavor is so exquisite that they're usually consumed by merely spreading them on toast. The golden tomato is an Orange Oxheart, another favorite of ours. The flesh is firm and sweet, nearly the color of a peach, with a complex, smoky flavor. This year our Orange Oxheart plant was rather sickly, and its fruits somewhat mealy and meager. Generally, though, this is a dependable, delicious tomato. I grew these three varieties of chili peppers this year.

The long, shapely ones are Cayennes. The medium-sized ones are Thai Dragons, a good standby for these parts. They always bear much fruit & ripen well. I'm not sure what type the tiny ones are; they're suuuper hot. They're about the size of my pinky fingernail, and even just one of these peppers in a dish really heats it up. The plant is smallish and covered with tiny, red peppers. I plant my chili pepper plants in pots, so I can move them around to the warmest sunny spots during the summer, and then when the weather cools, I bring them into the house or greenhouse to finish ripening.

This year I'm drying my chilies, but sometimes I pickle them in half-pint jars. This batch has five different varieties in it! Those leaves in there are mint leaves. I make a super easy and yummy hot-sauce by opening a jar of my pickled chili-peppers and whizzing the entire contents in the food processor. The result is a vinegary, thin hot pepper sauce perfect for dripping on anything that needs pepping up. I can't resist sharing this photo with you.

I took it just before sunset, after I'd finished harvesting and cleaning out the winter squash bet. Mmmm....I see many pumpkin pies in the future.... I've been wanting to introduce you to the ducks, but they're quite shy about getting their picture taken.Here they are so busy nibbling lettuce seed in the garden that they didn't notice me with the camera. The brown duck is a Khaki Campbell named Peep. The two Black Runners are Lady and Sir Ernie Longneck. I kinda' have to coerce them into the garden, but once I get them in there, they get into foraging and eating slugs. Probably their favorite garden treat is Brussels Sprouts. They like the leaves and love the sprouts. It can be quite a game, me shooing them away from the Brussels Sprouts bed, them scooting & clucking around the garden, only to return to the Brussels, me chasing them again....gotta love them quackers.