August Harvesting

Just to note what is doing well in the garden at the minute, and what we are enjoying at the table.

Potatoes: Lots dug, and waiting to be used, lots more still in pots.
Courgettes: Producing steadily, but not in glut amounts. The round ones are especially good.
Squash - a few uchiki kuri, a crookneck, Anna Hubbard.
Runner beans: Keeping on top of them so far.
Dwarf French: Sharing with the slugs
Lettuce: Bitter and running to seed
Beetroot: Lovely and big - leaves yummy, roots mostly going into chocolate brownies
Onions: mostly harvested, eating lots
Shallotts: I have 1kg in a string bag for storage - don't think they will last too long, though.
Tomatoes:Lots of green ones - just a few ripening.
White turnips - pulled some today for my mother - await her verdict. I fancy them pickled....
Artichokes are still producing a bit, but the novelty has worn off. We are letting a few flower for the beautiful colour, and maybe the seeds will be viable.

Blueberries ripeing, and a few raspberies.

A little sunshine would go a long way...I suspect I might have a glut of something then...

My strategy on the onions and shallotts is to eat away at them,and have leeks and bunching onions for when they are all gone.

I'm trying not to buy any fruit or veg - so that part of the fridge is strangely empty. I think I'll have to crack and buy some carrots - they are miserable this year.

First quarter 2009

Got off to a good start with peas and broad beans - they are in the garden and doing well. Any leeks planted earlier are growing, but not terribly fast. All the rest - cabbages, onions, calendula, lettuce have been destroyed by the slugs. Vast amounts of egg shells are not working.

The second phase of planting - tomatoes, borage, ore leeks are doing ok, but I have not exposed them to possible slug predation.

This week I am going crazy planting - mostly in paper pots - and hoping that something will survive my extended absence in April. You spend so much time looking forward to this point in time, and when it comes, it's not what you expected.

Outside, I have planted carrots, beets onions and early potatoes - and some in pots - this weekend I hope to plant the rest.

We are harvesting Kale, parsley, thyme, chard, corn salad. The daikon is going to seed. The leeks are almost all gone, but the autumn sown onions might be worth trying soon.

Autumn Harvesting

Weird, but it seems like I am able to harvest more now than I was at the peak of the season. Today I started a pot roast - and I added to the stew are around it - from the garden - borlotti beans, Leeks, parsley, and a kind of winter radish from real seeds. We also have daikon (mooli), carrots in planters, kale, some upside down tomatoes, raspberries, fennel, mispoona, mizuna, corn salad, a little rocket. Some brussels sprouts and cabbages coming on - the broc is a washout with caterpillars, but all in all pretty good.

With the beef coming from my brothers farm down the road, and Ballinagore potatoes still available, we are having some good locavore dinners.

Purple Carrot peeled and sliced

 

Here's what a purple carrot looks like when it's been peeled and cut.

Huge carrots

 

These ones went into a large planter in early March. We covered the planter in white fleece, so the cat thought it was a lovely bed. Eventually, though, the carrots greew, and this is the result - most a foot or so in length, and tasty with it! This is another experiment we'll have to replicate next year. The carrots have to be our best crop yet in Mullingar, in the 3 harvests since we started gardening here.

Purple carrots

 

Purple is one of our favourite colours - it was our wedding colour, so any purple vegetables are popular in our house. This year we tried Thomposon and Morgan's Purple Haze Carrot - and it's a keeper! We still have quite a few growing in the chimney pots, and they are doing great, and tasty when harvested! Definitely one for next year.