I haven't posted much about our garden harvests for a while, though we have been enjoying our home-grown produce over the last few months.
- Sugar snaps were as tasty as last year, though we didn't get quite as many.
- Raspberries were utterly delicious and we're looking forward to the bushes being much larger (and hence producing more fruit) next year.
- Sweetcorn was a complete failure – anonymous critters and the weather.
- So far we've only harvested the Home Guard potatoes and they've been hit and miss with half of them affected by horrible brown lesions inside. We've binned a lot.
- Tomatoes have been a mixed bag: the Super Marmande's didn't cope well with some erratic watering and many of them split. Those that didn't were woolly and yield wasn't great. The Harbinger (freebies) were OK. They didn't split but they weren't particularly tasty either. The winners by a very big margin were the gorgeous Sungold which were golden orange, sweet and utterly delicious. And reasonably high yielding too. Those will be grown again next year!
Reds I roasted and blitzed into a pasta sauce and froze in portions.
Green, Pete made into some spicy tomato ketchup.
- We didn't plant much lettuce but what we had has been very nice.
Courgettes added to Pete's Cheesey Potato Bake
- The One Ball courgettes have grown well, as always. Beautiful yellow globes of sweet flesh, best picked small to medium for best texture.
The box of beauties in the photo above went to the lovely Oliver Rowe of Konstam (which has, alas, shut it's doors since then) and he used them in his menu over the next day or two!
- Green peppers are good and have grown pretty well in the green house this year.
- Chillis (from Wahaca seeds) have also done well (and are fiery hot, so I am told).
- Leeks and broccoli are still growing. As are parsnips and the rest of the potatoes.
Oh and the good news? It looks like we have an allotment for next year!
Although I affectionately call our kitchen garden "the lottie" we have been wanting more space for some time so we're delighted to have our own plot at the Whetstone Stray Allotments nearby. The tentative plan is to have soft fruit and vegetables – anything that needs frequent watering and harvesting regularly at it's peak – at home and slower growing and less attention-needy produce over at the allotment!
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6 comments:
what a bumper harvest - those tomatoes look wonderful
Wow, that is a big harvest! Our garden harvest was very poor this year. We had a lot of carrots, but that's about it. We had only a few apples on the tree (and this after our tree has been pruned by a professional who promised us tons of apples!) and other veggies have either rotted or eaten by snails. We do have a lot of snails. Does that count for garden harvest?
sounds like you've had a pretty good haul.
we grew toms for the first time this year - tom thumb, meant to be a reliable cropper. They had lots of fruit, but just when they should have ripened the weather got wet, and by the time it got drier they didn't make sweet tomatoes at all. I'm going to try plum toms instead, not impressed with ours.
good luck with the lottie!
amazing harvest! so jealous! congrats on the allotment x
You've got some lovely produce there Kavey. I love the look of those courgettes, and it goes without saying home grown tomatoes are the best!
Thinking about planting lettuces in pots next summer, and tomatoes, having seen those courgettes I might try them too.
Reji, the Sungolds in particular were delicious.
Mym, our harvest wasn't as good as usual - lower yield of tomatoes with many lost to erratic weather and watering and the sweetcorn a complete failure - first year in many we've not had home-grown sweetcorn. But you must be gutted about the apple tree? Can you get advice to check it was done correctly and if not, ask for the surgeon to at least reimburse his fee?
Rachel, can recommend sungold from this year and tigarella from last year! And baby plums always good.
Dom, thanks so much!
Azelia, the courgettes seem to grow well for us year after year!
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