Monday 17 July 2017

Harvest Monday - summer harvests

So the lovely yellow tumbler tomatoes in the lean-to greenhouse at home are coming along nicely. We've had quite a few handfuls like this. These types of toms seem to ripen earlier than the cordon varieties, so growing a couple of plants gives an earlier crop. It's also quite surprising the number of fruits from relatively small plants. I have issues with the other tomatoes though...I don't normally get any problems (apart from a bit of blossom end rot) but I think there's a virus going through some of the plants, wah.
The little yellow toms are nice in sarnies (gap left down the middle for easier slicing sandwiches in half without contents immediately falling out). Used a bit of purple basil and parsley in these too. The parsley in self sown in the back garden.
The courgettes are still coming steadily. I realised I got the variety wrong before...it's actually coucourzelle (apparently an unusual Italian heirloom variety). I really like the flavour, and it slices well.
A few more larger ones.
Aaand another (plus little cucumber)
The first couple of gherkin fruits were ready too. We actually ate these like cucumbers (peeled) as a snack rather than fermenting. They had a nice flavour.
There were more crystal lemon cukes plus even more courgettes and burpless evergreen cukes. (These are from the other day, I've harvested more today as well).
 
I have masses of self sown chard, I like picking the soft young leaves and making them into pesto (slightly cook the leaves first).
I add a bit of basil too...and for the last batch I used toasted cashews rather than walnuts.
The pesto is lovely with pasta, or spread in sandwiches.
Or with a Sunday nut roast....these were the last of my early potatoes, and were delicious mixed with the pesto. I stuck a few of the tumbler toms in for roasting too. And the nut roast (made by Jan), included parsley and rosemary from the backgarden and allotment.
Tonight we had the rest of the nut roast with Nero kale and a courgette lightly steamed together (and only just picked this evening too), more of the pesto, homemade marrow chutney and home-sprouted lentils....not bad for a Monday night dinner, yum. I'm enjoying having kale so early but hope it keeps cropping into the winter...there are plants at different stages of growth, so hopefully the smaller ones (only recently planted out) will spread out the harvests.

Oh I also made a gooseberry cake yesterday using a different recipe to the one I made recently but it didn't turn out that well! And after a huge harvest the fresh raspberries are finally running out but we're enjoying the few that are still cropping (and have frozen loads).

 

I was hoping to share some photos of the Bishop's Garden, near Norwich Cathedral, which had an open day yesterday. But it chucked it down with rain all afternoon, so we didn't get there in the end (we actually got halfway there when the heavy rain started, so stood under a tree for ages with our brollies, watched some canoeists paddling by on the river getting rather wet, then we took shelter in the nearby bowling alley arcade, played some arcade games, rain wasn't stopping so we soggily came home.). Not quite the naturey planned afternoon but it was fun anyway. Will have to keep an eye out for the next open garden session.

 

Waffling over, thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

11 comments:

  1. You are ahead of us with ripe tomatoes and cucumbers ready.

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    1. Hi sue. The tomatoes are doing well (apart from the possible virus). I have several cucumber plants in different locations, so getting a spread from across the plants. Some haven't started cropping yet though. Plus they're only little cuke fruits so don't have to wait as long.

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  2. I love your veggie face, complete with a cuke smile! Those are lovely looking courgettes too. I've never heard of chard pesto though.

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    1. Thanks Dave, yep there are good things about curly cukes! This is the first year I've made chard pesto....I looked it up earlier in the year when I had loads cropping from last year's overwintered plants, but didn't actually make it until all the fresh new growth came on this year's self-sown plants. One recipe used raw leaves but I prefer it lightly cooked (and use the cooking liquid instead of loads of oil). I chuck a few basil leaves in too, if there are any ready.

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  3. Lovely harvest!
    Several years ago I grew small "Sun Gold" tomatoes that looked very much like your yellow tumbler tomatoes. They were very good, and I imagine yours are too
    Have a great week!

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    1. Thanks lea. Oh yes I've heard of sun gold but never grown them. I might try some new varieties next year so will keep an eye out for it.

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  4. Chard pesto sounds good. I've made kale pesto so I suppose it's not a lot different. But I'll have to wait until I have either chard or kale in the garden again before I can make either version, which reminds me that it's time to sow both.

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    1. Hi Michelle. Ooh kale pesto sounds good. I'll have to remember that one. Good luck with your sowing.

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  5. That's quite a basil leaf there! I have never been able to pick a zucchini without the leaf falling right off (or looking too icky for a photo) - looks great.

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    1. I mean flower. Zucchini flower. Not leaf. I know the difference. I think.

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    2. Thanks Susie. Well, on the smaller fruits, the flowers seem to stay on ok but for the bigger ones the flowers get yucky. But I have accidentally cut off healthy leaves before when harvesting the courgettes. In fact I just did it the other day despite trying to be careful not to!

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