Saturday Spotlight – Green Sprouting Broccoli – Calabrese

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Liz

I thought for this weeks spotlight I would highlight a plant which I am both sowing and planting out (to ensure a reasonable succession) at the moment rather than one I am harvesting.   Now I know a lot of people rave about Purple Sprouting Broccoli (PSB) but I’m not really one of them.  I find it just takes too long to develop and to my palate doesn’t taste different enough to other broccoli varieties to justify the delay.  Green Sprouting Broccoli (Calabrese) on the other hand is much quicker to crop.  Calabrese is a loose headed broccoli which produces one smallish head along with numerable good sized side shoots.

Calabrese

Unlike some other broccoli varieties the side shoots develop at the same time as the main head which means that once it starts cropping harvest is pretty much continual.  Calabrese shoots are pretty similar to those sold in Australia (and possibly elsewhere) as broccolini, and I find their loose structure well suited to the stir fries I use broccoli in most.

Broccoli

Calabrese is pretty easy to grow provided you ensure it doesn’t get too damaged by cabbage white butterflies.  I don’t net my garden, which is probably the best protection against the butterflies, mainly because I grow too many different types of crops in the same area.  Basically I’m too lazy to lift a net every time I want a bit of lettuce.  However I find that rubbing my fingers over the underside of the leafs helps rid the leaves of eggs and the occasional visual check to identify any caterpillars that manage to survive works fine.

One advantage I find with Calabrese over the tighter headed broccoli varieties is that it is easy to see aphids in it’s flower heads and get rid of them when I find them.  I find a quick spray of water usually dislodges them fairly easy.

Calabrese needs much the same conditions as most other veg.  Nice well fertilised soil with a decent amount of organic matter.  Although it prefers full sun I find it tolerates partial (about 5-6 hours of sun a day) shade quite well.  I have grown it in pots before but like most brassicas I think it is easier and far more productive when given a space in the ground.  Having said that if a large pot is all you have then I would still give it a go.  Hopefully you’ll still get shoots by the basketful.

Broccoli

I still haven’t found a linky plugin that works but I have created a page (above, just below the header) with an Index of all the Spotlights to date.   I will add links to any new posts below and in next weeks post as well as ensuring they appear in the Index.  Let me know if you write one by leaving a comment.

New Spotlights last week were:

Our Happy Acres – Purple Queen Bush Bean

City Garden, Country Garden – Sorrel

My Little Garden Project – Big Rainbow Tomato

Garden Glut – Minnesota Midget Melons

A great variety of fascinating produce.

And new from this week:

Tronchuda Beira (Portuguese Cabbage/Kale) – From Seed to Table

Australian Butter – Climbing Beans – My Little Garden Project

 

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Thursday Garden Gobbles – Corn Fritters

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Liz

I have posted on the subject of fritters before.  I am something of a fan it has to be said.  There are very few vegetables that don’t fritter well in my view (although I’m not completely convinced by beetroot but I suspect that is the exception that proves the rule….oh and cucumber, I really don’t like the idea of a cucumber fritter.  Otherwise though fritters rule!  So much so that I turned my first corn harvest of the year into some.

Corn

I planted my corn a bit late this year but its lovely to be finally getting some and I have to say it made for delicious fritters.  (This is an old photo I have to admit today’s batch were served with a tomato and olive salad and were wolfed down in double quick time before I could even think of pausing to photograph them).

Corn Fritters

The recipe for these is in the post linked to above.  For more gobbling head over to Veggiegobblers post haste.

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Top 5 – Things I enjoyed about Summer this year

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Liz

As I sit here typing this we are having out 10th day over 30C in a row.  Now I know there are places where that’s a cool period but for us Melbournites it definitely counts as a hot spell.  It wouldn’t be so bad except its pretty much killed off my tomato plants (actually a lack of watering probably did that, but still…..).  Having had a hot summer though has had its plus points.  For me it was:

Catalina Pickling Cucumbers

Cucumbers – I grew a lot of cucumbers this year and consequently have eaten a lot of cucumber this year.  I love cucumber salads but I also like them whole (peeled or unpeeled depending on the toughness of their skin) and sprinkled with salt and chilli powder – really refreshing.

Hot Dry weather killing off the pests – I think the hot dry weather has meant insects numbers have been reduced this year.  Perhaps it was my imagtion but the whitefly seem to disappear as the weather warmed up, I haven’t noticed many aphids and only the occasional cabbage white flutters around the garden.

Mixed capsicums

Growing lots of different pepper varieties – This year I have grown loads of different chilli and capsicum varieties and I’ve really enjoyed it.  I like the different colours, the different sizes and shapes, the different flavours and the different  levels of heat.  Loads of fun and they are really attractive plants.  If you can only grow one vegetable plant then I think chillies would definitely be worth considering.

Brinjal curry - Eggplant

Eggplant Masala – My eggplants have down really well this year and my favourite way to eat them is as eggplant masala.  I really love this cooking method in which the eggplant is cooked whole on the bbq to allow the smoky flavour to penetrate and then added to a curry sauce.  Really, really good but if someone has the secret for growing coriander and eggplant simulataneously then I would love to know how it is done.  My coriander seems to be bolting before it has even produced a leaf at the moment.

Preserves

Preserving stuff – Where my parents live is about 4 degrees cooler than Melbourne on average (this is especially true at night).  As a result a hot summer for us usually means the perfect veggie growing weather for them.  As they have an extensive veggie patch that means heaps of veg available to preserve.  So far this summer I have preserved: 1.5 litres of plum jam (from mum & dads plums), 16 jars of Bread and Butter Cucumbers (from my garden), 3.7 litres of tomato sauce (ketchup), 4 litres of Madras chutney (from a mix of home grown and bought ingredients), 12 Fowlers number 27 jars of peaches amd 21 (and counting) Fowlers no 27  jars of tomatoes (mainly from mum & dads garden).  I have a large bag of onions, a box of tomatoes and a bag full of eggplants ready to go as well.  That would be a project for tomorrow then…

 

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Monday Harvest – Mar 11th 2013

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Liz

I have had quite a hectic week this week culminating in a long weekend away in the Grampians.  As a result I have few harvest photos and little energy to do much in the way of commentary about those I do have.  Apologies – I promise to have more enthusiasm next week.

The first of the only two photos I have this week is of Summer Dance cucumbers.  I thought my plants had stopped producing, then all of a sudden these arrived.  Delicious they were too.

Summer Dance Cucumbers

The second of my photos this week is of a harvest basket which aside from not featuring beans and silver beet is probably a fairly good representation of what I’m harvesting at the moment.  Loads of Bonica eggplants.  A fair few tomatoes, in particular the Broad Ripple Currant seems happy to continue setting fruit. Loads of basil.  More and more lemon cucumbers (although perhaps for not much longer as the vine has a lot of powdery mildew on it).  Lots of peppers – in particular Scotch Bonnet (Bishops Cap) chillies and the smaller capsicum varieties.  And finally some Cavolo Nero.

Summer Harvest Basket

That’s it for me, for more head over to Daphne’s Dandelions and check out what is in other people’s baskets.

 

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Saturday Spotlight – Bonica Eggplant

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Liz

I have been growing Bonica eggplants for a few years now and so far they’ve never let me down.  Bonica is a pretty standard large purple oval shaped eggplant, not dissimilar to those that you see in the shops.

Bonica Eggplant

Eggplant is one of those weird veg that definitely tastes much better when you grow your own but is hard to describe in what way.  Fresher somehow and richer.  Hmm I’m really not doing a great job in describing the taste am I?  Perhaps I’d better stick with how I grew them:

This year I sowed seed at the very end (the 30th) of June.  I potted up the seedlings before planting them out in October.  I harvested my first fruits on the 26th of January.  This year I planted the eggplants in a part of the garden that gets  partial sun (about 6-7 hours of sun a day).  I have kept them well fed and watered.  I find that eggplants do like a bit of food.  A friend of mine has a plant which I gave her from the same batch of seedlings.  She planted it out in an old bed without fertilising or adding fresh food in any form and it just hasn’t grown at all.  Its still about 20cm high and hasn’t flowered let alone fruited.

Harvest Basket

So far my 2 Bonica plants have produced 5kg of fruit and I estimate that I’ve harvested about a third of what the plants should eventually produce.  I suspect the yield would be higher if I was able to grow them in full sun.

I have also grown Bonica in pots in the past.  Whilst the plants didn’t get as big and the yield was not as large as ones grown in the ground they still did well and fruited nicely.  Personally I think they make quite attractive pot plants.

I always stake my eggplants regardless of where I plant them as the fruits tend to weigh the branches down quite considerably.

Unfortunately I can’t seem to locate a linky plugin for WordPress that actually works so instead I will put links to your posts in mine.  If you write a Spotlight then let me know in the comments and I will link to it in both this and next weeks posts.  Just as a warning – I have quite a hectic weekend planned so it may take me a while to add them on this one occasion.

In case you missed them other Saturday Spotlights to date include:

Our Happy Acres – Oakleaf lettuce

Seed to Table – Golden Corn Salad

Suburban Tomato – Yugoslav Tomatoes

Suburban Tomato – Majestic Butter Beans

And the newest additions:

Our Happy Acres – Purple Queen Bush Bean which if nothing else is worthy of investigation for the rhyming name alone.

City Garden, Country Garden – Sorrel

My Little Garden Project – Big Rainbow Tomato

Garden Glut – Minnesota Midget Melons

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Posted in Chillies, Capsicum & Eggplant | Tagged | 30 Comments