Harvest Monday - 9th June 2014

Well, last week I said I would show off some peas, so prepare to be impressed...

Yes, I admit, they are not particularly impressive - and only 200 grams of them. But the main thing is, they are home-grown. And in a sense they are a surprise bonus, because I had not intended to grow any peas this year, after all my previous problems with mildew and poor yields. If you follow my blog regularly, you will know that these peas were from a supermarket-bought pack of "Marrowfat Peas" which I tried to grow indoors for use as peashoots. In the end the plants turned out to be very wiry, with lots of tendrils so not nice for peashoot-production, which is why six months later we are here, eating a handful of mature peas...

The peas, like most of the plants in my garden suffered severely in a massive hailstorm the other day. It's a good job I wasn't growing mangetout, because all the pods and leaves are heavily scarred.

No complaints about the Lettuce though. We continue to harvest a steady supply of good-looking and tender specimens. I can't say that I am a connoisseur of Lettuce flavours, but I am very much aware of their texture, and these ones are perfect.  This is a Butterhead variety ("Devin"), and the hearts certainly live up to that name - soft, pale yellow and "buttery".



I have harvested my last little batch of Radishes.

They were the least good ones of the season, rather tough and not very juicy. Sunshine after a deluge of rain (and hail) caused many of them to bolt, so after selecting any that seemed edible, I pulled up all the rest. I'm not too unhappy about this because I needed to make room for my Swede Turnip plants, which are ready for planting out.

Had a few more Asparagus spears...

It's been my best year ever for Asparagus - though that's not saying a lot! I think it has earned a reprieve, so I won't dig it up just yet.

But now for the "piece de resistance"... The first of the potatoes.

Just over half a kilo of beautiful, clean, scab-free spuds! These are "Sharpe's Express", a First Early variety.

Mmm: perhaps photographing them on a blue-green plate wasn't such a good idea.

I have tried a different technique with these. Instead of tipping the whole plant out of its container, I just had a furtle around in the pot for the tubers and lifted them out individually. This means that the plant is still growing, and may go on to produce a few more tubers!

This my entry for Harvest Monday, where you can read about lots of other lovely things that have been harvested this week...