Time seems to have gotten away from me, it’s the 7th January and I’ve yet to wish people a Happy New Year. So to everyone who reads, has read this blog, or will read it in the future, I hope you have a very happy 2015.
Before we move too far into this year I want to look back at the end of 2014 and in particular what my garden produced in December. Aside from wanting to document what I grew, I took a few photos and want to share them.
This post could have probably been entitled beans, beans and more beans as they were certainly the most prolific thing in the garden in December. I harvested a good couple of handfuls daily and have been eating them with most meals since the start of summer.
These are a mixture of climbing and dwarf beans and I will do a fuller post on the beans I am growing this year in the next week or two.
Also producing reliably at the moment is my silver beet. I have included quite a small image as, although it tastes delicious, it looks pretty ugly. I think the holes in the leaves relate to breaches of my chook defences but they may the result of slug and snail attack (although I think the former is more likely as the basil and lettuce is comparatively undamaged).
Eating well with the beans and silver beet are these volunteer but very welcome potatoes (I really must get better at clearing out the bed). I know this photo is cropped a little oddly but the original version was just a little too phallic for my delicate sensibilities… Not sure that I have completely removed the suggestive nature of the pic????? I should compose my images more thoughtfully in future…..
Not sure if I should follow with the above with carrots but I will anyway.
Carrots are not something I usually grow but am enjoying picking and eating them in their ‘baby’ form. This lot were my latest thinnings:
I try and grow as many salad leaves as I can as I love being able to go out and pick what I need. Aside from the many varieties of loose leaf lettuces I grow I also have wild rocket which has self seeded in a range of locations throughout the garden. I love wild rocket, both for its flavour but also for the fact that it provides green leaves in the hotter weather which tends to make lettuce bolt.
Also useful as salad leaves in lettuce bolting weather are the many herbs I have growing. The keen of eye will have spotted the flat leaf parsley in the above photo, but I also have: basil, thai basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic chives, kaffir lime, tarragon, Vietnamese mint, mint, peppermint, chocolate mint, lemon thyme, pizza thyme and sage all producing at the moment.
Normally the herbs would be the thing I was most excited about but that was before I planted a new fruit tree. This is a cross between a plum and a nectarine, and I picked this fruit too early but initial (under-ripe) tasting suggests it is more nectarine than anything else and it will be absolutely delicious if I can be patient enough to allow one to ripen.
And that was December. As everything above is still producing January should prove to be all that and more, personally I can’t wait to eat it.
I love the silver beet. Thanks for introducing me to it! I have had it in the garden faithfully since I learned of it from you. The fruit tree looks like it would taste good.
Yay – I’m excited. Personally I prefer it to spinach flavour wise and it is sooo easy to grow. Glad you’re enjoying it.
It is hard to wait for those fruit to ripen. For my last year it was peaches. Oh it was hard. Then of course they all came ripe at the same time. Happy New Year!
What is the name of the new fruit tree – the Plectarine? The Nectarlum?
Did my last comment come through – I asked which way did your beans wind
No it didn’t. Askimet seems to want to send your comments to the spam folder. Any idea why? As for direction – clockwise? Not sure really, even looking at it I can tell which way it’s growing but I’m finding it hard to describe.