We are in something of a hungry gap at the moment. As you will see I have leaves, lots of them but not much else, except for some potatoes:
I’ve enjoyed these Dutch Cream potato crops. They were planted in pots in May reusing potting mix (but only after I added a bit more slow release fertiliser). The yield was OK but all of the potatoes were pretty small. I’m not sure whether this was for climatic reasons, lack of sun or lack of food. Regardless though they tasted pretty good.
Leafy but also tasting good at the moment are the herbs.
Above lies coriander, kaffir lime leaves and Vietnamese mint. Below is more parsley. I still have 3 bolting plants left in the ground but I think I may pull them soon to free up some space for other crops.
Because I had lots of parsley I made tabouleh (yet again) so needed some mint.
I have had problems with my celery crops this year, the stems are skinny nothing like the nice juice plump ones I had last year. I’m blaming the weather but it may be under-feeding that is the issue.
I’ll end this week on a positive note – my lettuce is doing brilliantly. Particularly the Freckles (a Cos variety),
which is pictured here along with a range of other salad leaves.
For other harvests head over to Daphne’s Dandelions and check out what’s happening all round the world.
Incidentally isn’t the spam ridiculous at the moment? I know Sue at Green Lane Allotments has been having issues too. In the time it took to write this post (admitedly a period punctuated by putting the kids to bed) I have had 68 72 comments hit my inbox – all from people who have not commented on this blog before. And what is it with all the references to the plot of Lost? Very odd and very annoying!
I don’t see any basil mint amongst that lot. Scared (or should that be scarred?)? 🙂
I bought a dehyrator a while back and I’m using it for the first time on some oregano and as my parsley is starting to bolt as well, it’s waiting in the wings for its turn to get frazzled. It might be waiting a while – the oregano is taking forever!!
I’m still trying to work out how to use the basil mint – I will crack it, I just haven’t yet. I’ve been considering a dehydrator but wasn’t sure how much use I’d make of it. What do you think of yours?
It’s early days with the dehydrator – I’ll let you know after I’ve used it a few more times. It indicated for oregano it would take 2 – 4 hours on low. Let’s make that about 8 hours! Mind you, it was still damp from being washed so I expect that was the problem. I ‘patted’ it dry as per instructions but obviously not enough. I jarred it up tonight and it looks fine. I shall see!
Having learnt a lesson, I’ve left the parsley to air dry, with the stems in a glass of water. I’ll give that a crack soon.
I hummed and hawed about getting a dehydrator but as you would know, many herbs are dormant through winter and I object to buying dried herbs from the supermarket when I can grow all I need, myself.
I can’t wait to try drying garlic, tomatoes, chillis and maybe some fruit!
If it works well for the fruit and veg I would be interested to know.
Our celery isn’t up to much either and it’s had plenty of water and was sown early!
On my blog, the post to attract most spam was ‘Say hello to Stella’ – the one about the cherry tree so I disabled commenting on that post . This post was only published in September and according to my stats has had 3970 views. I did find that one spell of spamming seemed to originate in Taiwan!
I think the trouble is that the spammers latch on to popular posts after a while and the more spam a post gets – the more popular it appears so it attracts even more spame etc.
The thing I find really frustrating with the spam is I don’t really understand their intent, why spam? Anyway sorry to hear that your celery wasn’t great – perhaps next year will be better the world over.
Great leafy greens Liz. My celery is a bit skinny too, but has a lovely decidedly celery-ish flavour. I certainly don’t think it a lack of water after the wet winter we’ve had, but perhaps they are lacking in a bit of food.
very nice that you got spring potatoes, even if they aren’t huge! Nice spring harvest for you.
It may be just greens but it is some beautiful greens. And I’ve had issues with spam too. Usually my word verification keeps them out but they have been getting in anyway. Though by the time I go to erase them, Blogger has already done it. I so hate word verification, but the comments would take forever to get up if I had to check them all first. Sometimes quick at checking comments and sometimes I don’t check the blog for quite a while.
My system means that people who I’ve approved comments from before previously are automatically approved and I have to go through the rest to sort spam from genuine which is time consuming but I think it’s probably the best way to do it.
Getting things from the gardens is always a treat, even more so during the hungry gap season. Sorry you are getting so overwhelmed with spam. Happens with my site occassionally too. Very annoying.
Isn’t it – maybe they’ll give it a rest soon.
Those Spam comments grow like weeds! 🙁
very apt analogy
Sorry to hear about Your SPAM-problem! They never really seem to get into my comments in the blog (but I see them in my e-mail – don´t know if we have a special Swedish filter there or if it is more frequent on sertain blog-hosts), though I´m not using the word-verification on my blog, since I hate it so much (must have missed 100:s of my own posted comments since I´m a bad reader when it´s blurry, and I don´t always check if it´s gone through)! Anyway – Love all Your harvest! Nice potatoes from pots and so much greens! Lovely! Have a nice week! 🙂 Mia
Hi Mia
They don’t get published on my blog either but it is such a nuisance having them flood into my email account.
Yeah same with mine – they don’t go on the blog but they clutter up te comments I have to look through to find the real ones.
I don’t like word verification either – its makes me feel old as my eyesight is not what it once was…
I’m fast approaching those leafy green months. In the meantime I’m enjoying every bite of fresh tomato and pepper that I possibly can. It’s a good thing that they aren’t fattening! I hope that my green season looks as good as yours.
And so would I b with your fabulous harvests – they look sooo good.
That’s quite a nice harvest for the week. Your celery and potatoes look perfect. You know what I am thinking right now, to roast some potatoes tomorrow with lot of herbs.
Do you get spam comments on Word Press too , I thought its just blogger like that.
I don’t think anywhere is immune from spam. I must roast some potatoes with herbs – lovely idea.
Potatoes and herbs never fail you! Our hungry gap is coming next week when we finish up the Summer stuff in the refrigerator.
I’m loving all of your lovely greens 🙂
And ,yes, the spam is quite ridiculous these days! Though it seems it is hitting you worse than me currently. Ugh…
I find it comes in waves with particular spammers sending through to each of my posts over a period of a couple of days and then I’ll never get anymore from them but a new lot will come through. I used to gets heaps for Texan real estate for instance but haven’t had them in ages.
Beautiful greens, bet those potatoes were creamy and tasty.
They were lovely I have to say.
Oh yum that gold tubers very good harvest considering the weather.
Everything flowering at the moment here.
My son is loving the bottlebrushes, every time he passes one he yells bottle brush and our street is lined with them – it gets pretty noisy with all his yelling.