Monday Harvest – 21st Jan 2013

I harvested quite a few onions this week – this variety I bought as seedlings called “red onions”.  They are really mild and lovely in salads.

The rat issues with the tomatoes continue, although I experimenting with a few things at the moment which hopefully will work.  The rodents seem to have a preference for slicing tomatoes, which they have decimated, but they are leaving me the occasional cherry tomato.  The larger ones below are yellow boy – harvested early to try and avoid attack.

I continue to harvest lots of cucumbers and zucchini and made my 2nd batch of bread and butter pickles this week.

Also noteworthy in the above basket is this years first ripe chilli.  A cayenne from seed sown on the 30th June 2012.  The bulk of our chilli harvest is usually in March so I’m happy with the occasional one in January.

I was running low of potatoes so I dug around the side of the bed and found a few for dinner.

I’m not sure how good this years potatoes are going to be – it seems very late to be harvesting and I don’t think the plants are getting enough water.  I’ve been giving them some but we really need some rain.  2013 has been hot and dry thus far.  With this in mind I have been trying to keep the water up to the plants.  The silver beet is coping OK and I harvested my first crop from my new plants.

Also doing OK is the rocket which is living up to the ‘wild’ tag.  Part of my lawn has been overrun by sprawling plants – as a result I am eating a lot of it.

The beans in the basket are: Purple King, Windsor Long Pod, Majestic Butter and Beanette.  None of them are producing as well as they did last year but frankly I’m not sure what to attribute this to yet.  Perhaps I’ll see how they do for the rest of the season.

What is doing as well, if not better than last year is the basil.  I’m harvesting a lot each week and still the plants seem to get bigger and bigger.

Those were my main harvests this week, for more head over to Daphne’s and check out the other Harvest Monday posts.