Monday Harvest – 24th October 2011

It feels like everything in the garden is bolting at once.  First the parsley, then the chervil, the mizuna’s flowering, the lettuce’s headed skyward, the beetroot looked like it wanted to so I ate it, the celery’s started and so on.

     

Its making it hard to find anything to eat, but I did come up with a few things.  Mostly they were aromatics:

     

Kaffir Lime leaves and Lemongrass for a noodle soup.  My first chilli of the season which was both tiny and ever so mild (I photographed it on this chopstick holder to try to make it look bigger – I failed dismally….).  Curry leaves for lemon rice.  Mint, Coriander and Spring Onions for fresh mint & coriander dip for Chicken Kebabs.  And turmeric for a curry – I had intended leaving this piece in the ground to grow on this year but I had people coming, I want to make a spicy sesame sauce for the fish, I’d run out of ground turmeric and, well, this is the result:

I did harvest some actual vegetables as well.  Salad ingredients like mint (it gets in everywhere), spring onions, radishes and lettuce.

And finally some leeks and celery for risotto (it wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t post at least one photo with a vegetable in an unusual place, I bought that wind chime for my mother about 15 years ago but somehow never actually managed to give it to her….).

     

Oh and just for the record (he he he he) last weeks album covers were: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Flaming Lips), Bring it On (Gomez), OK Computer (Radiohead), Wrecking Ball (Emmylou Harris).  Musically my personal favourite is Emmylou Harris but for album art I’d have to give it to the Flaming Lips.

For more harvests from around the world cruise over to Daphne’s Dandelions.

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24 Responses to Monday Harvest – 24th October 2011

  1. Dave says:

    You have such an interesting mix of plants growing! I’ve never tried growing turmeric root. Does it grow like ginger? I have seen the fresh roots in the Asian markets here but never tried them.

    • Liz says:

      It is a larger leafed plant than turmeric but other than that very similar. It seems to like a bit more sun, and like ginger likes a lot of food and water. We are really only the edge of where you can successfully grow it – my return from each rhizome was about double what I planted (if that). Whereas in warmer climates it would be considerably more. I get mine from a seed supplier but I reckon you could probably plant a root from the market successfully.

  2. kitsapFG says:

    Never even thought about growing turmeric! Fun pics as usual and its a good thing I did not even try to guess the artists on last week’s covers. 😀

    • Liz says:

      I sense my musical taste may be a little obscure…….actually when I came to photograph them I did look for things I thought people might recognise but the ones I had had really boring album art (or more accurately just pictures of the artist on the cover….) so I just went for what I liked….

  3. Bee Girl says:

    I’m going to jump in on the turmeric as well! Never even thought of growing it in the garden! How wonderful!

    • Liz says:

      It’s quite an asthetically pleasing plant – I can pretend I’m living in the lush tropics when really there are times when Melbourne is more like the desert really…..well from a rainfall perspective anyway.

  4. michelle says:

    Ah, it must be spring in your garden, everything is racing to see which will bloom first! You have such a lovely assortment of aromatics growing, I’m envious, it’s not quite warm enough here to grow some of the “exotics” that you have.

    • Liz says:

      To be honest its not really quite warm enough to grow them here either I do have a particularly sheltered garden (small and enclosed pretty much covers it) and I really only just get growth on some of them. The lemongrass and Kaffir Lime do fine, the curry leaf whinges a bit but is just about OK and the turmeric is a work in progress……I’m experiementing with galangal this year as well – we shall see.

  5. Mark Willis says:

    I had some Coriander in my garden this year, and it flowered, so I let the seeds mature and harvested them. We ate them this week in a dish that also involved Cauliflower and Parsley. The Coriander taste was incredible! SOOO strong. Much stronger than shop-bought seeds. That sort of makes you wonder how old the stuff that you buy actually is…

    • Liz says:

      I find that spices do tend to degrade fairly quickly – I love home grown seed – sadly my plants don’t always oblige by actually setting seed -sometimes they just flower and turn brown. Very annoying…. I try and make my ground coriander from fresh seed as that tends to lose its flavour quickly too. I like the sound of this caulfilower dish….

  6. Julie says:

    That’s the cutest little chili I’ve ever seen! Nice variety of herbs and I too never thought of growing turmeric.

  7. Phoebe says:

    How does fresh turmeric compare to dry? I imagine it would be sweet and rich…

    • Liz says:

      I don’t find it as strong. As you suggest I think it is sweeter, but I think they dry is a bit richer although I’m still playing about with substituting fresh for dry so that may be a quantity think. Interestingly it is far oranger than the dried variety, although the colour it imparts is still yellow.

  8. veggiegobbler says:

    I have exactly the same windchime! I’d like to have a go at growing tumeric. What do you do with your lemongrass. I’ve had some in a pot but it always looks terrible. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong

    • Liz says:

      There did seem to be a craze for recycling cutlery a few years back didn’t there…I have had lemongrass in a few different positions but it did best when it had a reasonable (but not excessive amount of water) and about 6 hours plus of sun. I have grown it in shade before and it grows but never looks very happy. None of my plants look good at the moment, they don’t seem to like winter but I do find they come back a bit when it gets a bit warmer. Funnily enough I was thinking of moving one to a pot so it can follow the sun a bit more – I was thinking of putting it in a fairly big pot though. Perhaps yours needs more space?

  9. Jo says:

    I can almost smell those aromatics.. yum!! And your recipes sound delish too.

  10. Daphne says:

    I never would have thought to grow tumeric. Though it is probably one of those warm climate plants that I can’t grow here.

    • Liz says:

      It only just produced for me – it seemed to need 6 months of warm/hot temperatures to survive – you would need to lift it over winter but if you have 6 months of heat it might do alright.

  11. Rick says:

    Wow really great pictures this week, they look fantastic. I’ve never grown leeks before but I think that will be one of my test crops for next year, I’ve wanted to try for several years. Yours look great!!

    • Liz says:

      Thanks, I have found the leeks easy to grow but very very slow when I grow them over winter – they are quicker in spring and summer but then I have the common problem of wanting to grow everything and not having space for it all..

  12. Diana says:

    Mmmm…I can think lots of way to enjoy those aromatic harvest, wishing we have some kaffir lime leaves and curry too. You have so many variety to harvest each week. Another beautiful harvest!

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