The Beetroot keep on coming, a batch like this about once a week:
I also picked another (tiny) batch of Blueberries - seen here with a couple of Alpine Strawberries, which keep on producing a few more fruits every now and then:
The cucumbers are really motoring now. At the weekend I counted 18 fruits of significant size on my four plants, with many more tiny embryonic fruits following on behind.
We tend to use these mostly as a pre-dinner nibble (peeled and salted), but Jane has also made one into Tsatziki. She liked it, but I'm not fond of yoghurt, so I didn't try it. Jane is also rather partial to a smoked salmon and cucumber sandwich, but then you know my opinion of fish... It's a good job that not all of my plants made it to maturity really, otherwise we would have been inundated with cucumbers!
Of course, it almost goes without saying that at this time of year I have also been harvesting plenty of beans - Runners and French ones again. I have to pick them just about every day, and each time I seem to get at least 500g.
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| Runner Bean "Scarlet Empire" |
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| French Bean "Cobra" |
I'm not sure whether you will consider this a legitimate harvest for this week, but at the weekend I pickled most of my crop of shallots. As before, I kept the biggest ones for general culinary use and bottled the rest (just over a kilo), using ready-made Pickling Vinegar, which has spices already added to it. This is the end result:
If you want to see the whole (exceptionally easy) process, follow this link to a post I wrote about it this time last year... Ultra-easy pickled shallots
I'm entering this post to Harvest Monday, a good place to see what people from many parts of the world are harvesting this week, so why not go take a look?
Beautiful harvests. And cucumbers can really produce can't they? My dilemma is that I have to produce enough to get a good amount at once to make pickles. I only make so many pickles. Then once they are done the cucumbers just keep putting them out in large quantities. Then I get overwhelmed with them.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful harvest. We are just swamped with cucumbers at the moment, the fridge is full of them waiting to be made into pickles. I hope to get to that task today!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever seen pickled shallots before. This is a great idea. I do pickle some of our garlic though.
ReplyDeleteEverything looks great.I love the pickled shallots. I went down to my garden today and pulled out more weeds. There are a whole two tomatoes on the 6 plants I have. I have no idea why it is so terrible this year. We have had a lot of rain but that should have helped instead of hurt.
ReplyDeleteI do wish I could harvest a decent blueberry crop!
ReplyDeleteI am drowning in cucumbers too this year and need to get to work pickling them. Your tomatoes and beans really do look lovely! I've never seen pickled shallots, but I imagine they taste great.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great harvest. I'm enjoying the beetroot so much, roasted and then cut in to slices, delicious. My blueberries are doing better than expected this year. I've had a decent harvest from one plant and the second plant has berries just ripening on it now. Thank you for the information on the self watering planters, I think I'm going to get a couple to try in the greenhouse next year. I notice they come in different sizes, sorry to be a pain but do you happen to know which size you've got? You're tomato plants look really healthy so I don't want to get a smaller size that yours.
ReplyDeleteJo, the ones I have are the 40cm ones. I also got the "saucers" too, because they maximise benefit of the water.
DeleteGreat tip on the pickled shallots. I tried planting bulbs last fall but every single one rotted with the heavy snow cover we had. I may try growing them from seed next spring and pickling looks like a good way to preserve them (I'm just being optimistic).
ReplyDeleteLovely as it now stands in front of me all these fruits ..
ReplyDeleteI wish you would bring your tomato plants to my house and show my plants what they are supposed to look like I'd be very grateful.
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