Harvest Monday - 01 July 2013

At this time of year, the harvest start to become a bit more varied. This last week I have picked small quantities of several things, and I can see that others (like peas and Broad Beans) are nearly ready.

This week's star performer was again the Turnips. Four "Purple Top Milan" and one "Golden Ball"

"Golden Ball" is an old favourite of mine, but one which I have seldom managed to grow well because it seems very susceptible to attack by weevils or some sort of burrowing maggot - probably the Cabbage Root Fly. This though seems like a near-perfect specimen:

I have also harvested some more new potatoes. I'm deliberately picking them young, because I have so many pots of them that if I waited until the first ones were fully grown before harvesting any, by the time I got to the last pots they would definitely be past their best. These ones are "Accent", another First Early.

The main heads of all six of my Tenderstem Broccoli plants have been consumed, and we are onto the secondary stems now. They are very much like Sprouting Broccoli, though even more tender. They cook very rapidly.

We've had a little more Asparagus, but only one or two spears each time, which means we have to save them up until we get a viable quantity. The yield this year has been disappointingly low.

We have had loads of lettuce. I tend to pick individual leaves rather than a whole plant, because this means you can have as much or as little as you want. The lettuces I have grown in containers have done surprisingly well. So much so that I have sown another big batch of lettuce seeds (7 varieties) and plan to grow them in the same way again.

Next week I hope to be able to report the picking of my first cucumber, and the tomato plants are beginning to set fruit too. There are also Strawberries showing a bit of colour...



I'm entering this post for Harvest Monday, hosted as ever by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions. Why not look to see what other lovely things people have harvested this week?