Another week of winter gone and we creep further and further towards spring. It actually feels like it is almost here – this week we have almost continuous sunshine forecast, and today we reached 20 degrees celcius.
This week was another pleasing one for harvests.
The kids with Tuesday’s pickings
I’ll start with my gloat about tomatoes.
2.4 kilograms of tomatoes
I picked 2.4 kilos of usable tomatoes this week. There were plenty more with bug (or something else) damage that went to the chooks. I picked 1.5 kilos yesterday alone, and I reckon if I can harvest 1.5 kilos in the dead middle of winter, then maybe I’ll need to declare them a winter crop in my garden, well away from summer when the fruit fly make me cry.
I actually gave most of them away. I’m seriously considering bottling them seeing as I’ve just run out of the tomatoes I bottled over summer.
270g (4) Apples and 250g (3 stalks) Rhubarb
I picked the last 4 of my apples on Tuesday. I used them along with 250g rhubarb in an apple and rhubarb crumble.
255g Swede (trimmed weight)
Used in minestrone
9 Carrots
Used in minestrone and and Liz’s Caldo Verde.
2 bunches Coriander
Used in a salad and gave one bunch to a friend.
2 Daikon
These are getting really long now, although occasionally I hit one that is shorter and fatter. I gave these ones away to a friend.
1 Chilli
This is the first ‘Tobago Seasoning’ chilli from a plant I grew from seed. It is mild when de-seeded, and hot (but not excessively so) with the seeds left in. I grew these with the intention of stuffing them with marscapone like the type you see in delis, but it was really slow to grow. Now the plant is loaded with small fruit in the dread of winter. I’ll transplant the plant back into the garden bed once the weather warms up and hopefully I’ll have a bumper crop over the summer.
4 sticks of Celery and 260g Kale
Used in the minestrone and the Caldo Verde.
A bowlful of Popping Cress and Wild Rocket (Wild Arugula)
Used in a weed salad I made yesterday.
3 stalks Silverbeet
Used in a warm roasted vegetable, chorizo and silverbeet salad with a spicy thyme and sumac dressing.
2 Bay leaves
In the Caldo Verde.
For more harvests from around the world, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.
500m2 in Sydney 
What a great harvest! Can’t believe you are picking tomatoes in your winter; it’s summer here and I don’t have enough to do a canner run!
Thanks Mary – I’m pinching myself – seems surreal to me too 🙂
Beautiful harvests. I really need to pick and freeze some rhubarb for winter. For some reason I haven’t been wanting to eat it right now, but I know I will.
I should really fertilize mine. I don’t think I need to worry about preserving it because it doesn’t seem to have died down over winter.
That kale looks healthy!
Thanks 🙂 A lovely friend gave me the seedlings, and I had never tried it before this week. I’m glad she did, because it is growing happily in almost full shade.
I am seriously impressed with your ‘winter’ tomato growing. It’s very impressive – a real benefit of frost-free Sydney.
The weather is really glorious lately isn’t it?
What’s your tip on planting soy beans? I have had a lot of trouble raising them in past years. Do you plant direct or raise in punnets?
You need to give these ones a go. I sowed in late February for a mid-winter harvest. The weather has been stunning. I hope it continues, because I hate rainy winter days.
Last November I planted edamame directly in blocks – 2 square metres of it at maybe 25cm spacings. I didn’t stake any of them, and those 2 metres produced 7.5 kilos of pods. So if you grow it in full sun like I did, you really don’t need to devote much space for a huge yield.
My main tips would be:
– Full sun
– Don’t sow too early or late, it needs a long warm growing season. Too early and they will be stunted by early cold and too late and they won’t mature before the weather cools. I would aim for an October sowing.
– Don’t harvest too late or the beans will get tough
Wonderful harvest. Your kids are soon cute!
Thank you – they love picking things from the garden.
Tomatoes in winter, now that just not fair! All I can grow in the winter in our garden is ice cubes!!
Yes, I know we are really fortunate here. But a wise woman once told me that my winter tomatoes are compensation for fruit fly in the Summer (that targets my apples, citrus, stonefruit, tomatoes, capsicums and eggplants).
20 must have been lovely – we are about stuck at about 16 at the moment but at least its sunny. What did you think of the Caldo Verde? I like the look of Tobago Seasoning. Would you like to do a chilli seed exchange?
I loved it and so did the kids. P thought that the chorizo was a bit of a weird match, but surely chorizo goes with anything?!
Totally up for a chilli seed exchange. I saved seed from that exact fruit, so I’m all set. I’ll email you.
Tomatoes in winter, you’re killing me! I can barely get mine to produce in summer. What great good fortune. I love those mild chinense peppers, they have such an amazing aromatic flavor. I’m hoping that my Pimenta Biquinho peppers will produce something for me this year, most likely round about the beginning of winter, those babies do tend to be late.
Ah – so maybe it’s normal that mine took so long.