Top 5 – Most Successful Winter Crops 2013

I feel like I’ve posted on a lot of negative things lately.  The things that have failed, the things that I don’t know and the things that just haven’t worked (the less said about my attempts to grow tomatoes over Melbourne’s winter the better……).  So today I seek to redress the balance.  Today I start bring you the good stuff: the best of my Winter crops 2013 and next week I will highlight the best Spring ones.

Eggs – My most exciting harvest this winter was our first egg.  We bought our 3 chickens as day old chicks in February.   They grew over Autumn and they began laying at the end of June.  Initially eggs were a little sporadic but we are now regularly getting 2-3 eggs  each day.

Celeriac – I grew celeriac for the first time this year and was really pleased I did.  Whilst it took a long time to develop (well over 6 months), I had it in a spot that is difficult to access so I was happy to just let it do its thing.  The variety I grew was called Giant Of Prague and I wrote a Saturday Spotlight on it in July.

Celery- I always seem to forget to photograph the celery for my Harvest Monday posts, but I was able to harvest half a dozen lovely stalks each week all thorough our winter.  I like being self sufficient in celery.  I use it regularly but not in huge quantities and so if I buy it it invariably ends up wilting before I use the whole head.  Growing it allows me to harvest it stem by stem meaning it is always fresh, on hand and delicious.

Parsley – Regular readers of this blog will know that I am something of a parsley lover.  I use parsley liberally and enthusiastically in everything from stocks and stews, to pasta and dips.  Fortunately parsley generally grows very well in my climate and this year was no exception.

Turnips – Interestingly only one of my best winter performers this year was a brassica, and even then the prize didn’t go to one of the glamour brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco or cabbage), instead it went to the humble turnip.  I suspect this is, at least in part, because this was my first year growing them so the excitement of something new pushed them over the line.  Thanks to L at 500m2 in Sydney for the seed.

Those were my Top 5 winter performers for 2013.  Next week I will bring you Spring’s as we finally move into Summer.