Only a month of winter to go. I feel that this winter has passed relatively quickly – although that may have as much to do with our 2 degrees above average July than anything else…. The slightly warmer weather seems to be bringing signs of Spring along a little earlier than usual too. For instance my parsley is beginning to flower already. As a result I think I need to make sure I enjoy the winter crops while they last. This is what I enjoyed this week.
I have started to harvest from my Eureka lemon. I have also had to prune it quite hard as it has quite a bit of citrus gall wasp and I am hoping that hard pruning it will prompt enough new growth that some might avoid wasp attack this year.
The smaller fruit above is a Tahitian Lime.
My next harvest wasn’t entirely intentional. The chooks dug these up and have been banished to their pen ever since. They are cylindrical beetroot and became a salad not long after this photo was taken.
These de Napa turnips were pulled by me, rather than the feathered friends, and were used in a nice hearty barley and vegetable soup.
The calabrese is still producing handfuls of shoots. These few went into a frittata I made with our lovely fresh eggs.
I have a few remaining peppers still ripening and I am trying to cut them as soon as I notice them to give the plants a bit more energy to both fight the cold and also put on new growth as soon as Spring truly comes.
And finally for this week, I realised that despite using quite a few sticks of celery each week I rarely feature it in my harvest photos. I harvested this particular stalk because I fancied a snack – I am particularly partial to celery filled with cream cheese.
And that’s it from me harvest-wise this week. For more harvests head over to Daphne’s Dandelions.
Naughty chookies! I made a mistake today by letting my sheep into the home yard where the grass was incredibly long and vibrantly green. I though the very heavily pregnant lasses might like a munch on the verdant green. Instead they spied my lucerne mulch on a new native vegetation garden I had built and stomped all over the plants and ate the lucerne!
Very nice harvest, I can see I am going to have to take up turnip growing, they look so cute.
Naughty sheep! This is my first year growing turnips and I have been enjoying them I have to say.
Well done on the celery – one of our bete noire, I still hope we are in the middle of summer not near the end!
Very lovely lemons and peppers, and I bet you can’t wait for spring!
The chooks were just trying to help you weed. I’m sure they would appreciate your sharing by tossing them the tops. Those are nice turnips, I finally got a couple last week.
They are about as helpful in the garden as my 3 year old….actually come to think of it they share many of the same traits – the tendency to make a mess, always pulling out the wrong things and an obsession with bugs.
If this is what you harvest in winter, your spring and summer harvest must be really wonderful! The turnip looks particularly good, well so does everything else!
If you only have a month of winter left, we must only have a month of summer – that’s not something I want to think about! Your celery looks good… well everything does really.
Lovely harvests. I especially love the lemons.
Ah, the chooks just knew that it was time to harvest those beets and wanted to make sure they didn’t old and tough. 🙂
I’m amazed that you’re still harvesting peppers, lovely.
Given the time of season for you, that’s a lovely array to pick from. With August, we start thinking about the slide into winter, and are now planting for fall and taking stock of all the things we still need to put-up!
You are harvesting pepper in winter!! That must be a very mild winter there then with no snow? Beautiful harvest.
Nah it never snows in Melbourne, my garden doesn’t even get frost.
Ah those pretty peppers again, love them no matter green or red.
Those turnips are so pretty and juicy sweet looking, the soup must be yummy.
I covet your celery. Mine never looks that good. I can never get the long, straight stalks. What is your secret? Those turnips are beautiful. I have never thought to plant them but may give them a go if they look that pretty.
I’ve enjoyed growing turnips – they are nice and pretty and I always find root veg fun to grow. regarding the celery – I’m not sure I have a secret. A few years ago my father brought back some seedlings from a friend – I have no idea which variety it is- and I’ve been saving the seed ever since – perhaps its just a nice easy variety…