Wow, I'm just back from the allotment (after a not-so-wow slug hunt), but as I was leaving the site I had an amazing view of the strawberry moon in one direction (full moon on the summer Equinox) and a pinky sunset in the other....fantastic.
Talking of strawberries, they've been the main focus of my harvests this week. But before that, here's my proper first potatoes of the year (apart from the tiddlers last week). These were from two plants, so not a huge harvest but very tasty. We had them as a side dish drizzled with olive oil, much nicer than my photo looks.
And on to the strawberries..
Yup, there's been rather a lot. This is just a few of them.
We've been munching through quite a lot as snacks but as there've been so many I've lightly cooked down a couple of batches to freeze.
We've also had strawberries and cheese on toast, a dish we discovered last year on the BBC recipe site. It's very easy, just melt a knob of butter so it's bubbly, add the strawberries to soften them and add 4 teaspoons of honey and some flaked almonds.
The recipe uses ricotta cheese but we had soft goats cheese, on a walnut sourdough toast, yum.
I kind of feel a bit 'done' with strawberries already, is that too soon?! But I'll carry on picking them (no doubt sampling a few as I go, as usual) and freezing the majority of them I think. We don't eat much jam and I'm not a fan of all that sugar, so freezing them still lets us enjoy strawberries when the season's over. Plus I need to keep picking them regularly because with all this rain we've been having, the strawberries soon go mouldy on the plants, and the slugs are enjoying them too.
Other harvests have included more baby chard, lettuce from the back garden and some herbs (mainly mint, basil, coriander and sage, when I remember to pick them that is). Hopefully this week I'm going to plant out my brassicas, I still haven't done that yet. And try a few more potatoes. Oh I spotted a few more broad beans on my autumn sown plants, which I might pick or leave to get big and save the seed to use this autumn. I haven't done that before so it might be interesting to try.
Thanks very much for reading, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.
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The "Strawberries on toast" dish looks amazingly good! I bet the sharpness of the goat's cheese worked really well with the sweetness of strawberries.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, yes we'll be having the strawb on toast again for sure, yum.
DeleteThose strawberries are oh so lovely! And that toast looks good too. I'm not sure I could ever get my fill. I have been known to eat them every day for a month when they were in season. I stopped growing them though and now it's blueberries and blackberries for me instead.
ReplyDeleteHaha, actually I have continued to munch on the strawbs, so obviously I wasn't as 'done' with them as I thought Dave :)
DeleteThose potatoes look darn fresh and delicious to me - I can just imagine how buttery they were! I wash, cut and then freeze the strawberries without cooking them - it works quite well and I can take out as many or few as I need at any one time.
ReplyDeleteHi Margaret, hmm I might try that with some of the strawbs. Though for me, cooking them down a bit does maximise the space in the freezer as there's no air gaps. But I took my eye off a pan the other day and it all bubbled up and spilled everywhere, gah!
DeleteYour strawberries have done really well that's a mega harvest. Have you had any problems with slugs or snails?
ReplyDeleteThanks Sue, yes I've lost loads to snails and slugs and also mould due to all the rain. But there's still plenty to pick. Any that have been badly damaged by slug/snail I usually pick them off the plant but then leave them in the same place they were growing....the slug/snail then keeps eating the same already damaged fruit rather than damaging a new one.
DeleteI do the same thing with our nibbled strawberries.
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