The garden has been surprisingly productive over the past two weeks. Despite expending the bare minimum effort required, I have harvested quite a reasonable bounty.
1.5 kilos tomatoes
The tomato plants were in desperate need of staking. They had collapsed in quite a few places and were suffering from fungal disease on the leaves.
Over the weekend I restaked and tied the plants up, trimming the diseased lower foliage. They are looking a bit bare around the bottom now, but should continue to produce. I really need to mulch underneath again to slow the re-infection.
Over the past fortnight I’ve harvest 1.5 kilos of tomatoes, mostly this week. The chickens have scored another 400g or so – I’m having trouble with blemished fruit that I can’t explain – you can see that some of the salvageable fruit is slightly affected. We’ve had a couple of light frosts, so maybe cold damage?
I used some of the tomatoes in salads and fried as part of a hot breakfast.
8 carrots
and 4 stalks of celery
The carrots are just reaching harvestable size. They are lovely and sweet too – I really must plant another block of them to ensure continuous supply. The problem is that the backyard is the obvious place to do so, and the chickens keep ‘getting loose’ and digging up anything I plant.
The celery is great at the moment. I find it is such a rewarding thing to grow because it doesn’t go limp in the fridge like invariably does with the stuff I buy.
Silverbeet (a few bowlfuls)
Like always the silverbeet is a reliable producer. I’ve served it steamed as a side dish and with a hot breakfast.
A few blueberries
The Misty blueberries have been ripening at the rate of a few per week. It is also flowering and setting new fruit at the moment. I’ve been snacking on blueberries when I wander about the garden.
An apple
The apple tree has been giving me approximately an apple a week. Being the second (Autumn) crop, the apples are on the smaller side.
A handful of peas
The shelling peas are just starting to reach maturity now. I’ve harvested a few pods for snacking, but the vast majority of the crop is coming.
A turnip
I roasted once of the turnips as part of a pork roast dinner this week. I also roasted some daikon, which was remarkably successful. I think I’ll be coming up with new uses for daikon quite a bit over the next few months. They are getting enormous!
A handful of Broccolini
and a Wombok cabbage
I lightly stir-fried the broccolini with some of the wombok along with garlic, ginger and soy. I would have added chilli if it wasn’t for the kids (who didn’t eat it anyway).
Eggs (average of perhaps 2-3 per day)
I’m always forgetting to mention our eggs. The chooks are slower over winter, but are still providing more than we can use.
Lettuce (iceberg and mini cos)
Used in salads. I’m almost out of lettuce so I should probably get some seedlings to fill the gap.
Wild Rocket (a handful or so)
These have self-seeded around the front yard. I’m quite pleased about that because I forgot to intentionally plant it and I *love* wild rocket.
1 Rhubarb stalk
This was the first harvest from my rhubarb. I was planning to wait until Spring before harvesting for the the first time, but my father in law wanted to try some – raw. Strange I know, but he ate some and concluded that is wasn’t as tart and punchy as normal rhubarb. Not sure if this is because it is wintertime, nor whether this is a good or bad thing.
For more harvests, visit Daphne’s
500m2 in Sydney 