Suburban Tomato

Its been a warm week here with another one forecast for next week (albeit slightly cooler).  I do like to have a couple of proper heat waves over summer otherwise I feel a bit cheated.  I don’t always enjoy the really hot weather but I’d miss it if we didn’t get any.  The forecast for tomorrow though is mild so I’m hoping to spend a bit more time in the garden which is looking a little distressed due to; not just the heat but our complete lack of rain.

One advantage of the heat is that the tomatoes the rodents missed (they seem to have vacated my garden for the time being) are ripening:

The above basket contains Tigerella, Rouge de Marmande, Yellow Boy, a number of Black Cherries and a couple of Burnley Bounty as well as some Mini Mama Capsicums.

My peppers seem to be enjoying the heat – provided I keep the water up to their pots.  They are all setting fruit and I am harvesting a few each week.  Below is an Alma Paprika, a couple of Hungarian Yellow Wax and a Purple Beauty.

I finally bit the bullet this week and pulled out the zucchini.  I’ve loved having it but it was starting to smothered more and more of my other crops and I felt it was time for it go.  In the process of pulling it out I harvested a number of small zucchini’s and flowers which I later stuffed with a herby rice mixture.

My most prolific crops at the moment are beans, particularly the Majestic Butter, Bonica eggplants and Lemon Cucumbers.

I had quite a few very similar basketfuls this week but I’ll try and show restraint not post too many of them today.  Instead I’ll include a basketful of herbs which I haven’t photographed much of late.  At the moment I’m harvesting a lot of basil, parsley, mint, oregano, thyme, tarragon, chervil and spring onions.

As well as the European herbs I’m cutting quite a few Asian ones.  Below are a Kaffir Lime and leaves, some lemongrass and Thai basil.

Finally, a winter crop – the Cavolo Nero seems to thrive in all seasons here and I have to say I really enjoyed the quiche I made with this lot this week.

For all things Harvest related head over to Daphne’s Dandelions and I will be back tomorrow with a Top 5.

Last week was definitely my best harvesting week of the year thus far.  Pretty much all my summer crops are producing at the moment (except for some very late planted corn) and I’m really enjoying the harvests.

This week the beans have been really abundant, especially Majestic Butter which is doing really well.  There seem to have been a few in every basket I picked this week.  Incidentally I resolved some of the puzzle around the non production of my runner beans – something is eating them.  I noticed some set the other day and then the next morning they had all vanished stork and all.

I’ve started harvesting from my new batch of rainbow chard.

I continue to harvest most of my tomatoes green, or as they are just starting to colour, to keep them safe from pests.  Although, as you can see from the Tigerella below, not completely safe….

I harvested most of the remaining Borlotti Beans this week, along with some Purple King which I left on the vine until they got to drying point.  I have to say I am impressed with their flavour and its lovely to have a variety that you can happily eat green or dried.

Aside from the chard I had quite a lot of firsts for the season this week.  I harvested a golden nugget pumpkin.  I’ve yet to eat it but I was excited to get one after the first few were eaten by the rats.

Another first was raddichio.  I found this one buried under my bean plants in something of a sorry state, its pretty small but frankly given its position I was glad to get anything out of it at all.

Not quite a first but going from one or two to an abundance were the Lemon cucumbers, thanks to Bek for the seeds.  This week I harvested at least 10 from the solitary vine I grew.

These peppers are also mostly firsts.  I have been harvesting mini Mama’s for a while but the rest are firsts.   Cherrytime Capsicum (the roundish red one), an Alma Paprika (the crinkly yellow one) and a Hungarian Yellow Wax (the long yellow one).  Thanks to Diana for the Cherrytime seeds and L for the Alma Paprika seeds.  I wasn’t expecting the Cherrytime to have any heat but it did, a nice mild warmth.  Ditto the Hungarian Yellow Wax.  The Alma Paprika is sweet.  I enjoyed them all stuffed with a feta, ricotta and herb mix.

My final ‘new’ harvest of the week were some garlic chives which were really good in some rice paper rolls.

Otherwise it was more Catalina Pickling cucumbers,

and loads of basil, rocket, and the first lettuce I’ve had for a while.

That’s it for me for this week but for more harvest head over to Daphne’s Dandelions where she hosts the fabulous Harvest Mondays.