Today was the first day of summer. In Australia our seasons start at the beginning of the month, so 1st December is officially the first day of summer. And a pleasantly warm start it was too (29C). Spring too was warm this year, so warm in fact that I have started harvesting some traditional summer crops.
My basil plants are big enough to pluck the occasional leaf off:
My September sown beans are bearing fruit:
(the varieties are Majestic Butter and Gourmet Delight plus a couple of climbing beans that self seeded from last year).
And I bandicooted the first handful of Purple congo potatoes. These potatoes are something of an unplanned harvest, as the plants are the result of a particularly poor harvesting effort last year. Their colour makes them particularly difficult to find in the dirt…
As well as all the signs of summer harvests I continue to harvest herbs and handfuls of lettuce and silver beet.
All highly satisfactory really.
As always head over to Daphne’s Dandelions for more harvests from around the world.
I had a hard time finding my blue/purple potatoes this year too. When I dug up that bed later to plant some turnips, I speared quite a few potatoes as well. Yours look pretty good for a surprise harvest!
Ooh aah, beans and basil, I’m missing them already. I’m sure you’ll be showing off tomatoes soon as well – I can’t wait to see them. Are the purple potatoes purple all the way through?
Yeah they are purple all the way through – I will try and post some pictures of them cooked.
Lovely harvests. It is so nice to see a warm climate in our winters. It is cold this morning. Brrr.
Reading about your summer beginning gives us hope – something to look forward to as we head into Winter. I tried some coloured potatoes this year, including Blue Kestrel, but I wasn’t overly impressed with their taste or texture. Their appeal seemed to be mainly visual. What are those Purple Congo ones like?
I think Purple Congo is probably similar to Blue kestrel in the nice to look at only OK to eat department. They are ok but there are better varieties for eating in my view. I wont complain though as they are currently making a difficult to grow things in area of the garden look quite lush and green at the moment.