What do you do when you have a fractious 3 year old in the garden who is: “bored, bored, bored”. Well, after you have examined all the bugs possible, it seems you dig for sweet potatoes and they calm down pretty quickly.
Those were the last of this years harvest. A number of small/medium tubers and one huge one weighing 1 kg by itself. I included the gloves in the photo for scale but it has only been partially effective – the sweet potato looked even bigger in the flesh.
When I haven’t been attempting to amuse volatile 3 year olds this week I have been harvesting parsley. My crops are going great and I’m enjoying my daily dose of Vitamin c in salads, pesto and sauce.
Also green and high in vitamin C is this sorrel which I harvested before the chooks ate it. It seems to be their favourite food stuff and while they don’t break down many of my fencing defences they do if there is sorrel involved. So I let them at the plants but harvested a bit for lunch first.
Otherwise, this week was about more peppers; Bishops Cap, Poblano and Tobago Seasoning chillies as well as Cherrytime and Purple Beauty Capsicums, and citrus. I harvested one of the last two finger limes as well as one of the first Tahitian Limes.
And those were my harvests this week, except for the spring onions, silver beet and herbs that failed to make it in front of a camera. For more head over to Daphne’s where she hosts Harvests Mondays each week.
I’ve gotten some monster sweet potatoes too. I always like them. They are so easy to prepare. Those little tiny ones are such a pain but I hate wasting them.
Our harvests are starting to overlap – no sweet potatoes here, but lots of parsley… and the hens are enjoying plenty of sorrel too!
Its funny how that happens – it seems to happen both now and again early in our Spring. Broccoli will be my next crop to start producing.
Digging in dirt and finding buried treasures is good therapy for anyone. Certainly works on me.
Its my favourite gardening job too.
What are chooks?
Sorry Australianism. They are Chickens.
Nice Sweet Potatoes. I’ve had a devious thought: you could bury the potatoes when the fractious 3YO is not looking and dig them up AGAIN, whenever required.
and again, and again, and again. Excellent idea!
That is using your head – digging and young ones are a great combination! And digging “for” something is like a treasure hunt. 😀
Isn’t it interesting how our chickens seem to crave certain crops? Mine ignored the swiss chard all winter but when the tender spring growth came on they were all over it. They adore broccoli too.
Mine have been eating the broccoli leaves but so far have left the heads alone which is good.
Hmmm…sweet potatoes. That sounds wonderful!
Chickens and sorrel, huh, I never would have guessed. I’m amazed that you are still harvesting peppers, your climate is definitely a tad bit more mild than mine. What a magnificent sweet potato!
Our daytime temps average about 17C at the moment and night time about 10C which is mild but then it isn’t winter yet.
That is a monster sweet potato! I made parsley pesto this week, but our sorrel is getting a bit old and is flowering. Too bad I don’t have any chickens!
Your harvest sounds great. I’m enjoying parsley and sorrel too though haven’t grown sweet potatoes. And I have a 5 year old to amuse rather than a 3 year old. Am finding that letting her make ‘perfume’ while I garden is the current answer – as long as I can stay calm/amused about most of the flowers in the garden being picked!
I should really grow more flowers as he is placated by flower picking when visiting his nanas. Calm in the face of garden destruction is an enviable skill indeed.
It all looks lovely! I have had a heap of parsley too and am struggling to use it all!
That’s one huge sweet potato! our season is just starting and i’m only getting my slips into the ground.
Lovely monster sweet potato. Worm searching any good for the 3 year old?
My parsley planted in the summer, is getting going now – just in time for soups. The remaining finger limes on my plant all fell off the other day and I promptly sat down and munched on them. The little bubbles crunch almost don’t they?
Funnily enough he collected a bug catcher full of them just this afternoon, so yes – very good.
I wonder whether we will harvest any sweet potatoes this year?
Oh! I am jealous of all your harvest. That sp really look humongous!! What did you do? Isn’t winter there yet as you are harvesting so much?
How fun for your 3 yr old to get to dig up sweet taters in the garden. My kids can get pretty bored out there waiting for me to do my garden work too. They get less interested every year I think.