I love this time of the year. Not only is it the week before the AFL grandfinal, not only has the weather kind of warmed up (although today was pretty cold), not only is it school holidays meaning I get to spend some time with Miss 6 but its also show time in Melbourne. I went to the show today. I love the show despite the rampant commercialism, the showbags (a curiously Australian phenomenon whereby people – me included- buy large quantities of either chocolate or plastic tat at, or above, the prices they would normally pay in the supermarket), the rides and the myriad of ways to waste money. I love it because its only at the show that you get to say hello to a ridiculously over-sized turkey, watch the big men with big axes chop lumps of wood in seconds flat, and marvel at the thickness of the blue ribbon sponge cake.
On top of all this excitement tonight is the Brownlow medal. Now to some the Brownlow medal count is a ridiculously tedious event whereby the umpires votes for the best players in each game of the season are red out and at the end of the night a footy player emerges victorious. But to me it is an exercise in slowly building excitement. A bit like gardening in that respect. Which brings me to this weeks harvests which quite frankly have been a little sparse. I do have other things in the garden like kale and silver beet but I didn’t harvest any this week. What I did harvest was a lot of herbs, like this parsley, thyme and bay leaf for stock and salads:
Also like these bunches of mint. Common mint for Lemon & Mint Cordial and basil mint which I tried in some taboulleh but found it a bit too overpowering. So overpowering in fact that I doubted that it was in fact basil mint and did for a time think I may have poisoned myself. Funny what a combination of a slightly paranoid nature and over tiredness will produce.
My other main harvest for this week (aside from the last Easter egg radish I will have for a while) was lettuce. I have quite a lot of lettuce growing at the moment, my freckles lettuce in particular is doing well so I’m eating quite a lot of salad.
And that rather meagre collection of photos represents this weeks harvests. Perhaps next week will be more exciting, although given I’m in between crops at the moment I suspect it will probably be more of the same. Not such a bad thing as I like green leaves.
To see things other than green leaves then head over to Daphne’s and see what people are harvesting all round the world.
I love the show! I love the displays of vegetables form all the regions. I love the ridiculous cake decorating and the prancing Alpaccas and the dairy cows displayed with their full udders. I love the shiny RM Williams and the checked shirts. I love the CWA stall and the scones. I love the smell of fresh manure.
And I love the Brownlow – I am watching it now. But best of all I loved last year’s Browlow and the beauty of the first hijab! Have you spotted Ms Houli yet? I haven’t.
I love Jimmy Stynes and the blondes and the gowns and the marks and the goals and the season sum-up even if your team has failed – like ours have (Essendon and St Kilda and my lad’s Geelong).
And, back to the topic, I love the veggie pick at this time of the year.
I love your comments. Great summary of the show. RE the Brownlow – They didn’t seem to show as many of the players this time, or maybe I was too busy examining the contents of my show bag to notice. She did look gorgeous last year though didn’t she? As for the season of footy – it all started so well for the Bombers at least and then well the wheels well and truly fell off didn’t they. I have to say I would have tipped Geelong at the start of the finals which shows exactly how good a tipster I am…oh well there’s always next year!
Just one word for you, ‘mate’ the word of the Brownlow.
Do ya reckon mate? Cooda been worse cood have been ‘buddy’….
I am always curious what you do with the herbs.
I grow them but I am embarass to say that I hardly used them and tend to forget herbs in the garden. With the weather warming up, lettuce usually ends in October for us.
I add herbs to a lot of salads. I use them to make both pesto and salsa verde. Parsley I use in pasta sauces a lot. Ditto basil and oregano. And coriander goes into curries and stir fries. Also in stocks. Actually I tend to use a herb in almost everything I cook.
I wanted to try make pesto for a long time but don’t get around to do it. Going to miss coriander soon as they don’t like the warm weather here. Mine has already flower and producing seeds.
Mine looks like its about to start flowering too.
Your lettuce and radish are giving me fond memories of spring! They look lovely!
Your show sounds like our big end of summer/fall fairs. I wonder if they are indeed the same?
Our lettuces are ramping up now too and it is salad season once again. Very yummy and much appreciated.
Love the picture of the herbs in the watering can. Pretty!
Your “show” had me scratching my head. So I looked it up (you can find anything on the internet). It sounds a lot like our fairs. Though ours are usually in the autumn. Ours (the Topsfield Fair in our state) will start at the end of the month. We don’t have log tossing though. And no showbags. And I’ve never gone. I have been to other fairs though. I have a friend who used to put her work into the completions. She is a spinner and a knitter.
Ah now we definitely have a lot of spinning and knitting in ours too – knitted dolls seemed to be very much the thing of the moment.
How Funny! Weather is getting colder here and my herbs are drying. Your herbs look much much healthier than I had it in spring.
I think that it will be all too soon that I’m drooling over your photos of colorful harvests and mine will be green green green (and grateful for that). Your greens sure are pretty. I’ve never heard of basil mint – is it supposed to taste like a combination of the two herbs?
I found it very strong. More basilish than mint kind of like a really strong harsh basil flavour with a mint undertone.
I laughed out loud when I read that your basil mint was so overpowering that you thought for a time that it really wasn’t basil mint and that you had poisoned yourself. That sounds like the thoughts I would have had. 🙂
Ridiculous how the mind works sometimes isn’t it?
I love basil mint. I use it on my lunchtime salads that I take to work.
You’re right though… a little goes a long way.
Your show sounds like fun, a bit like the country fairs we have around here. Did you take Miss 6? Bolton has a two-day fair in August. But the big fair around here is The Big E, the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, Massachusetts. We used to spend a day or two at the Bolton Fair with the kids and hauled home a lot of loot. Not showbags, more like chocolate raspberry tarts, a rack of BBQ ribs from Red Bones, turkey pot pies, usually things you can eat because that’s where my mind is always at.
I took both kids plus my parents as a 3 adults to 2 children ratio is about right for such events I find… Your fair sounds great – anywhere that has chocolate raspberry tarts has got to be good!@
The herbs are so pretty, it won’t be long we will be drooling over your summer produce.
Very nice set of greens!
Every harvest is an exciting harvest! Your greens are gorgeous!
I’m relieved you survived your near death experience with my basil mint. Can you imagine? Where would I hide, having poisoned the sweetheart of the veggie bloggers? Borneo, maybe? I don’t think you have any readers there (yet!). As FrogDancer says, and you have discovered, a little goes a long way!
And you are very brave, going to ‘The Show’. The crowds make me claustrophobic – I’m relieved my kids are all grown up and I don’t have to endure it, anymore.
I bit the bullet and removed the netting from the broadbeans and a virtual ‘bee-line’ formed! Even if the beans don’t need the bees, the bees certainly love them. So far so good, the chooks haven’t got in yet – the bed is very closely planted and wrapped in soft plant ties to keep the lot upright.
I love the idea of a bee-line to pollinate the broad beans! I will have to check my stats to see if I’ve ever had a visit from Borneo – maybe I have, probably not. Regardless though I suspect you over estimate my appeal but its very nice of you nonetheless.