Monday Harvest – 27th Feb

It has been hot here for the last few days (temps in the high 30sC/high 90sF), the heat broke a bit today with thunderstorms and rain but really high humidity.  We’ve had a reasonable amount of rain but I am hopeful of a bit more to fill the water tank and generally give the garden a bit of relief.  The forecast for this week is a lot milder which I think the garden will appreciate it has been looking a bit sad for the last few days.  The celery and raddichio in particular look very scorched.  However none of this has stopped the harvests and I had another good week.  It has been weeks since I bought any veg other than carrots and onions, so I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.

There – my first eggplant, a bonica – a bit on the small side but I was bored of waiting….for all my impatience I haven’t eaten it yet – silly eh.  Along with the eggplant are black cherry tomatoes, long cayenne chillies and a mixture of beans.  I’m getting more black cherry tomatoes than anything else at the moment, but I did harvest some Purple Russians, a Black Krim and some Tommy Toes.

Whilst I’m on the subject of tomatoes the plants seem to be responding well to my pruning – the Rouge de Marmande is already setting fruit on its new growth.

The cucumbers are finally slowing down a little, but I planted two new plants a few weeks ago which hopefully will start producing soon.  I will be interested to see how long I can keep cucumbers going for.

As I mentioned in my Summer of Salads post, my lettuces are doing fabulously, as are my mints, Basil and Thai Basil – this basket went into the Calamari salad.  While I’m on the topic I simply can’t get over how many people don’t like/eat calamari.  I can’t think the last time I went to a restaurant here without calamari on the menu in some form or other and I think I probably presumed the whole world loved calamari.  Evidently not…perhaps its a particularly Australian obsession, we do like weird stuff like Vegemite after all.

On the subject of leaves I did eat quite a lot of parsley this week, both in Tabouleh and in Spaghetti Puttanesca, which I have convinced the kids is their favourite pasta dish too.  I make mine with heaps of parsley and it is just delicious.

The other noteworthy harvest was of course more Passionfruit.  I think next week will be the last week I get to write about them as they’re nearly done but I have been so pleased with getting anything at all off what is a very old vine.

I suspect these are headed for the freezer because if I make another sweet dish I’m going to have to embark on one of L’s diets and I’m really not at my best when hungry.  In all seriousness though she has posted some great low fat recipes in the past week so perhaps I could eat them plus some passionfruit icing filled biscuits and some sort of equilibrium would be maintained.

For more harvests get yourself on over to Daphne’s Dandelions for edible inspiration.