I had a slower week this week harvest-wise. The weather has started to feel really wintry with temperatures in the mid to high teens, lots of grey skies and a fair bit of drizzle. Not the best weather for either gardening or harvesting. I did still get out and cut a few things though. The cavolo nero is cropping well, although you have to wash it well as the aphids seem to like it as much as I do.
I pulled the remaining few watermelon radishes this week to make way for my kohl rabi. I hope I like kohl rabi as much as I’ve enjoyed the radishes. I also pulled a few beetroot that were being overtaken by the rapidly expanding Calabrese broccoli. I am eating a lot of them grated raw in salads.
My chillies and capsicum harvests slowed considerably this week although they are still noteworthy due to including the first of the long cayenne. Or at least I think they are long cayenne. My father bought some seedlings this year called ‘long cayenne’ but they were different to these with much shorter fruit. My fruit are about 20-30cm in length and a good 1cm in diameter. Has anyone grown long cayenne that were that long? I saved seed from a fruit I bought from a farmers market and forgot to ask what the variety was called.
Also in the above basket is the first of the latest crop of Tahitian Limes. I have quite a few on the plant this year with more setting at the moment. I love how productive limes can be – mine is growing on dwarf root stock and is in a 40cm pot at the moment and seems happy and well….Touch wood….
My final basket this week is a bit of an odds and sods lot. A bunch of basil, a very overripe eggplant to save seed from and my first ever home grown celeriac. The celeriac is just a baby really – I have larger ones still in the garden but this one I planted accidentally in the wrong place thinking it was a parsley seedling. I’d left it for a while but the area was under fertilised and I wanted it to grow other crops so out it came. I braised it with some lentils and it still tasted great despite being such a meagre specimen.
That’s all from me harvest-wise this week. Head over to Daphne’s for more.
Well done, with your harvests. I’m surprised I still have basil, but I don’t know what to do with it anymore as I’ve got lots of pesto and whole leaves in the freezer and dried basil in jars. Maybe more dried, I think.
Many of my prolific chillies have been turned into samal oelek and I’m eyeing off the parsley to make soup. Otherwise, I have capsicums (green) some of which I’ve stuffed and others that I’ll dice and freeze. That’s about all I’m harvesting at the moment. Other things are waiting in the wings but not ready, yet.
Go on – put it in the compost and don’t think about it again. Unless of course you use a lot of dried basil… My broccoli is almost ready and I’m very much looking forward to it (and hoping it is aphid free….)
lovely harvest! My cayenne chilies are not quite that long, but I did see in a diggers catalogue a very long cayenne maybe called joes cayenne. I love kohlrabi, Luke Nuyen has a great recipe of a pickled kohlrabi salad with beef and it’s delicious! Pickle the julienned kohlrabi in 1c vinegar and 1 c sugar for an hours, grill the beef and serve with a hot, sour and sweet Vietnamese dressing (I think he calls his Aunty Nines dressing). I also read in Stephanie Alexander’s book kitchen garden companion that you can eat the young leaves as well. 😀
I love the idea of that salad – sounds really good!
Well done on the cavalo nero, mine always seems to take a while to get going. There’s only one thing that likes cavalo nero more than aphids- chooks! (I wonder if cavalo nero with added aphid protein is even better?)
I have to admit I got my cavolo nero from ‘Harvest with Glee’ as advanced seedlings in about August and they have grown slowly and steadily since. I reckon now is probably the time to start some more seedlings and just hope they don’t bolt in Spring.
You are still getting an impressive amount of diversity in your harvest given you are going into your late fall/winter season. I would love to have some of those chili peppers – wish my growing season were warmer in general so I could grow peppers with more consistency and success.
I do enjoy growing them I have to say. I feel very lucky to be gardening in Melbourne’s climate.
very nice harvest! Are the white vegetables next to the red beets also beets? I didn’t know there were white beets. Does it taste like a beet? Very cool that you have a large variety in our harvest. My kale is still really tiny, just can’t wait to start harvesting them – hopefully soon!
Nah they are watermelon radishes. There are white varieties of beets but personally I don’t really like their flavour. I love the red, find the pink and yellow OK but draw the line at the white ones.
We’d be happy with even a baby celeriac but I think we have decided to give up on trying to grow them
Do they need a bit of warmth? As this is my first year growing them I have absolutely no idea about what they need.
Growing good Celeriac is a lot harder than they try to get you to believe. I tried it 3 years in a row, but never got anything that made it worth the considerable amount of effort I put into it. Re the chillis: I don’t know the variety called Long Cayenne, but I have grown one called Pinocchio’s Nose, which produces fruits approx 25cm long. It was good to look at, but not particularly good for culinary use.
I will have to google Pinocchios Nose as perhaps that is what I am growing. I like mine for making sambal from. Medium heat so works well. I haven’t done much to the celeriac other than sow the seed, pot it up and then bung it in the ground so I am reasonably happy with the others that are developing. Although the plants themselves are a little unappealing.
Johnny’s carries a cayenne called Joe’s Long Cayenne that grows to 20-25 cm. Never have grown it but it says 85 days to red ripe so maybe I could. And I’m sure you will like kohlrabi, not that I can say from personal experience, never being able to grow (or even germinate!) one of the blasted things.
I’ll check out some pics – thanks for the reference point.
The aphids have good taste, they always seem to go for the very best vegetables. 🙂
Huh, I’ve never tried grating raw beets into salads – gonna have to try that.
I can’t believe you are still getting all those peppers with those cold temps! It all looks lovely!
Thanks, I think they have stopped setting fruit but the fruit that has set is continuing to ripen which is nice. I suspect they might slow soon though.
My kale last fall was very filled with aphids too. That hadn’t happened to me before. At least this spring when they started growing again there were no signs of aphids. And I’ve yet to grow celeriac. Maybe some day.
One advantage of a cool Spring perhaps?
Never thought of braising celeriac with lentils, must give that a try this fall when my celeriac are ready.
I really like the combination, especially when I leave the lentils a little on the nutty side.
Interesting…I’ve never seen an over-ripe eggplant before! Is it edible???
I don’t usually try eating them I have to say – just collect the seed. It wouldn’t be poisonous but might not be very nice either.
Hi Liz, your comment on over-ripe eggplant sparked my attention- eggplant is the only thing I have not successfully grown from seeds. I have some over-ripe diggers heritage eggplants (small mauve ones) I would like to try using for seed. Do you have any tips you can recommend?
How easy the seeds are to extract depends on the individual fruit. I kind of usually just cut mine in half and then pull apart to locate the seeds, remove them from the pulp and then put them on kitchen paper to dry. I guess it depends on how easy they are to find and whether you want to save them all. If the eggplant is really seedy and you want them all the method detailed in great depth here works well too: http://adelaidegardeners.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/saving-eggplant-seed.html
Well done on the celeriac. We tried to raise some from seed last year but they just never got beyond seedling size, I’m not sure why. I really like eating them though, and I’m sure home grown baby ones would taste fantastic! If they’re big enough I love them mashed.
I have some in the garden that will definitely get big enough to mash – touch wood. I will definitely have to try them that way.
Lovely harvest! I’ve got baby celeriacs that I’m hoping will bulb up over the cooler months, but I’ve not grown them before so have no idea if it will work. Your kale looks great.
I think the best harvest are the ones that you don’t expect. Like your celeriac. I probably will be the best tasting one because it was the first/the one least expected. 🙂
Celeriac! That’s something I’ve never tried to grow!
Your harvests look wonderful.