Monday Harvest – 23rd Feb 2015

Warning: This post contains gratuitous images that may distress those whose tomato crop has failed.

Yay for a good tomato season is all I can say.  Few eaten by rodents, the plants fruiting well, or reasonably well, and loads of laden baskets:

This basket is mainly Black Cherry with a few Broad Ripple Currant and a couple of Tigerella thrown in.  It also contains the first of my apple cucumber crop.

Well I think they are apple cucumbers.  My next door neighbour had a couple of seedlings left in a ‘mixed cucumbers’ punnet so I stuck them in this is what they produced.  My kids are fans so I’m happy.

Personally I find them a little seedy and of this style I think I prefer the lemon ones (mainly for aesthetic reasons).

Best of all though I like the Lebanese cucumbers and my vines are doing really well at the moment giving 2-3 fruits each day.

The tomatoes in this basket are mainly a unidentified self seeded one.  Not sure what the variety is but it makes a nice fresh tomato sauce for pasta.

And some more tomatoes below – this photo highlighting the Tigerellas:

But it isn’t all tomatoes, I also have other solanaceae family crops:

Like these Purple Congo potatoes.  Although they have novelty value, I’m not a big fan.  They taste OK but they are a pain to harvest – purple looks a lot like dirt – and they tend to resprout quickly meaning you often harvest sprouting potatoes, as you can see above.  At least they are purple inside as well as out, which is fun for the kids if nothing else….

Jalapeno chillies, on the other hand, I love, and this is my first harvest for the season:

I used the chilli in some Vietnamese style noodle soup along with these aromatic herbs.  Thai Basil, Vietnamese mint and mint.

Less exotic are my carrot crops. 

They are growing in a fairly shaded area which means that their rate of growth is slow.  But it also means they aren’t getting the bitterness carrots sometimes get in hot weather.

An excellent size for snacking.

Much like those tomatoes.  Interestingly the one on the left is a self seeded black cherry and the ones on the right are intentionally grown.   My parents had a black cherry self seed last year that also produced bigger, apricot sized fruit.  Co-incidence?

More tomatoes just for the hell of it.

And finally I hear you say, something different, something new.  The first of the figs.  I photographed it, turned my head and the next thing I knew it was gone.  Into the mouth of an eight year old.  She said it was “yum”, and given I’ve gotten to eat a few since I would have to agree with her.

Before I leave you with more images of tomatoes I should really tell you what else I’ve been picking.  Lots of silver beet, basil, kaffir lime leaves, curry leaves, thyme, parsley, mint, oregano and loads of beans.  Here is today’s bagful:

And that’s about it except for tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes.

Sick of the sight of them?

Be grateful I limited it to 7 tomato shots, I have many, many more…… and then head over to Daphne’s for Harvest Monday.  You never know, someone might even be growing something else…….