Harvest Monday – 11th Feb 2013

Last week was definitely my best harvesting week of the year thus far.  Pretty much all my summer crops are producing at the moment (except for some very late planted corn) and I’m really enjoying the harvests.

This week the beans have been really abundant, especially Majestic Butter which is doing really well.  There seem to have been a few in every basket I picked this week.  Incidentally I resolved some of the puzzle around the non production of my runner beans – something is eating them.  I noticed some set the other day and then the next morning they had all vanished stork and all.

I’ve started harvesting from my new batch of rainbow chard.

I continue to harvest most of my tomatoes green, or as they are just starting to colour, to keep them safe from pests.  Although, as you can see from the Tigerella below, not completely safe….

I harvested most of the remaining Borlotti Beans this week, along with some Purple King which I left on the vine until they got to drying point.  I have to say I am impressed with their flavour and its lovely to have a variety that you can happily eat green or dried.

Aside from the chard I had quite a lot of firsts for the season this week.  I harvested a golden nugget pumpkin.  I’ve yet to eat it but I was excited to get one after the first few were eaten by the rats.

Another first was raddichio.  I found this one buried under my bean plants in something of a sorry state, its pretty small but frankly given its position I was glad to get anything out of it at all.

Not quite a first but going from one or two to an abundance were the Lemon cucumbers, thanks to Bek for the seeds.  This week I harvested at least 10 from the solitary vine I grew.

These peppers are also mostly firsts.  I have been harvesting mini Mama’s for a while but the rest are firsts.   Cherrytime Capsicum (the roundish red one), an Alma Paprika (the crinkly yellow one) and a Hungarian Yellow Wax (the long yellow one).  Thanks to Diana for the Cherrytime seeds and L for the Alma Paprika seeds.  I wasn’t expecting the Cherrytime to have any heat but it did, a nice mild warmth.  Ditto the Hungarian Yellow Wax.  The Alma Paprika is sweet.  I enjoyed them all stuffed with a feta, ricotta and herb mix.

My final ‘new’ harvest of the week were some garlic chives which were really good in some rice paper rolls.

Otherwise it was more Catalina Pickling cucumbers,

and loads of basil, rocket, and the first lettuce I’ve had for a while.

That’s it for me for this week but for more harvest head over to Daphne’s Dandelions where she hosts the fabulous Harvest Mondays.