Harvest Monday - 15 July 2013

Well, Summer is here with a vengeance. We have had hot sunshine more or less all week, with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s. The plants love this, as long as they can get enough water, so it means a half-hour with a hosepipe every evening. I usually water the garden after the sun has gone down, to minimise water loss through evaporation.

My harvest this week has included lots more new potatoes:

This is a mixture of varieties, including "Casablanca", "Accent" and "Orla".  The yield this year is not big, which I attribute to erratic watering. I have been away from home a lot in the last couple of months, and I suppose if I had been around all the time I would probably have given them more water. The compost in some of the pots was pretty dry when I tipped them out. The quality is good though.

I wrote yesterday about harvesting the first of my carrots. Here is another photo of them.

The Turnips keep on coming. My mixed row seems to have included very few of the "Atlantic" ones, but "Golden Ball" has done well, as have these "Purple Top Milan" ones, which I made into "glazed turnips" served as an accompaniment to roast duck. They were really lovely done that way!



They look almost as if they have been polished, don't they? They haven't, but I had just washed them and they were still slightly wet when I photographed them.

I have harvested what for me is a respectable quantity of Strawberries - about 250g!  No jam-making for me... However, berries like this are very much at the top end of the Deliciousness range. A bowlful of them with a generous dollop of clotted cream makes the perfect Summer dessert.



I have not included here any pictures of the lettuce I have picked, or the herbs, but suffice it to say we have used plenty. This is probably the best time of year for herbs. We used a lot of them in a simple vegetarian dinner a couple of days ago: pasta with Asparagus and Broad Beans, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and finely-chopped Mint, Parsley and Spring Onions. Simple, but very delicious.

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Now this is not my harvest; this is my daughter Fiona's harvest. These sleek beauties are from the veg patch that I helped her prepare back in the Spring, which is now in full production. Apparently Fiona's husband Juan Fernando is a convert to the joys of growing veg now. She says that he is constantly pestering her with cries of "Let's go and dig up some more potatoes!"  I sympathise. There is something very exciting about harvesting potatoes, because you can never tell what the harvest is going to be like till you start digging.