Harvest Monday – 6th August 2012

Another good week. We’ve had cool temperatures but mostly sunny days and the garden is very quickly waking from its winter slumber.

A couple of blueberries

I mostly fail to mention my blueberries in these posts but I’ve been harvesting at least a couple per week. They get munched as a snack whenever I wander in the garden. These were the berries that were already on the Misty blueberry plant when it arrived by mail order from Daley’s in Kyogle. It clearly wasn’t expecting to be shipped so far south because it’s setting fruit again now.

5 Passionfruit

Over the weekend I put P to work pruning the passionfruit back. Passionfruit vines fruit on new growth, so pruning significantly should (theoretically) increase your yield. I’ve read that cutting back by a third is the general aim, but I think we might have gone slightly overboard.

Before and after the prune

1 Swede and 2 Turnips

I harvested these along with some carrots to contribute to a roast dinner at my sister’s place. I really adore root vegetables, particularly at this time of year.

Approximately 500g Shelling Peas (Greenfeast)

The kids have picking peas as a snack whenever they go outside. The ones in the photo above were just snacks. Tonight we picked a more substantial batch that went along with some carrots and potatoes in a meal of corned beef.

All the veggies in this (tonight’s) meal were in the garden the hour before.

500g New Potatoes and 1 kilogram Dutch Carrots

The potatoes were from one grow bag – a pretty disappointing yield, but tasty nonetheless. The carrots went with the beef and also to my sister’s roast pork meal.

1 Stick Celery

The celery is wonderful at this time of year. This grows in almost total shade, yet thrives in winter because the soil stays moist. In summer the soil dries out and the stalks get hollow, but now the stalks are lovely, fat and juicy. This stalk went into the boiling water for the corned beef (seems a bit of a waste).

A bowl of Baby Spinach

The spinach is still really small, but I managed to harvest a bowlful of baby leaves for some eggs benedict for lunch today.

 

11 Daikon (approx 5 kilograms)

I took some daikon along to playgroup for the Japanese mothers. They loved it, but it was a bit awkward when the Indian mothers expressed interest too. I didn’t realise that they are used in Indian cookery. I had a great discussion with one of the mums about Indian vegetables, so now I have a list of new things to try. It’s great how food connects people, isn’t it?

These daikon in the picture were smaller ones that I gave to my friend Yukari – she uses daikon regularly and I can’t possibly use all that I have grown.

The daikon I used this week went into a batch of kim chi and a batch of Japanese pickled daikon (takuan).

1 Bunch of Silverbeet

The silverbeet is lush and wonderful – much more than I can use. I gave this bunch away, and Sarah took some more today.

1.5 kilograms Tomatoes

The tomatoes are slowing considerably. There won’t be much more from these plants now, but they have been fantastic.

1 Bay Leaf

Into the corned beef

1/2 cup Parsley

In the parsley sauce on the corned beef

330g Rhubarb

I forgot to include this last week. It is being used for something exciting that I’ll feature in a future post.

That’s all for this week. Head on over to Daphnes’s Dandelions for more great harvests from around the world.