Harvest Monday – Mar 26th 2012

The weather has taken a turn for the autumnal this week which frankly I could do without – especially as some days have been quite chilly.  Still it is due to warm up again later in the week and the plants don’t seem to mind so I shouldn’t complain.

In fact the eggplants have been really quite prolific of late.  Some of these went into an eggplant pickle I made yesterday.  The green chillies were used in it as well.

The recipe also called for ginger and I had exhausted my supply in the fridge so I ventured outside to harvest the first of this years crop.

I harvested this from the plants in the ground which are a lot smaller than my potted ones, even so this was enough for my eggplant with some left over for a curry later this week.

With the pickle safely maturing in the fridge I turned my attention to dinner and decided to make fish pie.  This called for: some silver beet, parsley, celery, lettuce for a side salad and whilst I was in the harvesting mood a few more chillies.

This wasn’t my only celery harvest, I think I harvested a bit every day this week.  The stalks are nice and thick at the moment and the plants are growing well, so it seems a good time to be eating it.

I am still getting a few tomatoes and one cucumber this week.  I also harvested a new pot of Kipfler potatoes but was really disappointed with the amount.  These were summer grown – put back into the pot after I harvested in December, so either it was simply too hot for them to set tubers or they ran out of food.  I did put some more slow release fertiliser into the pot before replanting them but perhaps not enough…

Otherwise my harvest was mostly about more chillies and herbs.  I have been so happy with the chillies this year and my long cayenne has flowers all over it at the moment so hopefully it is contemplating a second crop.

My final harvest of the week is cheating somewhat as it didn’t come from my trees but as I spent quite a while scrambling about under the trees at mum & dads amidst the rodent droppings (there were quite large piles of empty shells about the place) I thought I could claim it as my own.  I certainly will be eating it.

For other harvests from around the globe head on over to Daphne’s – she’s ever so hospitable.