Harvest Monday – 13th February 2012

13 Golden Nugget pumpkins

The pumpkins are coming to an abrupt end. We pulled 2 of the 3 plants out during the week and harvested another 13 pumpkins. I think I only have another 3 or 4 to go for the year.

21 cobs of corn

The corn is still powering along, which is just as well because Little D can eat it by the truckload. Today we pulled out the last of the 1st (main) planting, and harvested 15 cobs. Some was looking a little long in the tooth, so we ate a portion immediately, gave some to the chooks and froze the rest.

15 tomatoes

We are finally getting some tomatoes, but they are falling victim to more fruit split, fruit fly and caterpillars. We are getting rain on most days and the bugs love it. I’ve been picking the tomatoes very green and letting them ripen alongside the purchased tomatoes (such a travesty to be buying tomatoes in February!) The nice, ripe, perfect tomatoes in the picture are the bought ones of course. The odd, mostly green ones are mine.

1 Rockmelon

My last remaining rockmelon didn’t split! It did come off the vine itself though, which I hope is a sign that it’s ready. I’m leaving it on the bench for a few days just in case, but it smells good.

Massive bowl of basil (yielded 8 cups of trimmed, firmly-packed leaves)

I trimmed my basil plants yesterday and made a monster batch of pesto for the fridge and freezer. There is still so much left to harvest!

100grams dwarf green beans

This lot are finishing and I haven’t sowed replacements. That has the makings of a bean drought, but I noticed today that a few fallen Lazy Housewife beans have self-sown and are growing strongly. All may not be lost!

4 Cucumbers

This week I picked 1 lebanese and 3 ‘double yield’ cucumbers. Looks like the lebanese have taken off, so I hope to get quite a few more before season end.

1 Capsicum (green bell pepper)

This went into a batch of tomato salsa that I made during the week.

1 Jalapeno chilli

Also into the salsa. The plant isn’t thriving where it is so I have pulled it up and potted it. I’ve moved it to a full- sun location and I hope it will put out a whole bunch more fruit this year. If not, I’ll just overwinter it.

4  Satsuma mandarins

 These were terribly sad and sorry. It is the first year for the dwarf tree and I’m surprised it even had enough energy to produce fruit. It is barely a foot high. Another case of me lacking the discipline to thin the early fruit like I’m supposed to. These fruit either split from the rain or didn’t like the iron/zinc/magnesium supplement I sprayed on the foliage last week. I suspect a bit of both. Why do I never learn? Despite their intensely green skin, they were surprisingly edible – like a sour orange, but definitely not as sour as a lemon. This bodes well for next year.

9 Lebanese Eggplant

Still producing strongly. I with this lot I’ll make more baba ganoush for the freezer.

180 grams Edamame

Last week I promised edamame, and I almost didn’t get around to picking it.

This afternoon I picked 180grams and the kids demolished it with dinner. I boil the pods whole in salted water for 3-4 minutes then refresh them in cold water immediately. That way they don’t continue cooking and they’re not too hot for the kids to eat.

I love watching J and Little D eating edamame – they pop the peas out of the pods and half the time they go scuttling across the floor (to squeals of delight). Eventually they get them all eaten, and they have a blast in the process.

I was sad that the pods don’t seem to be fattening up as much as I hoped, but for some strange reason they seemed fatter after cooking. Might have been my imagination…

For more great harvests from around the world, visit Daphne’s blog.