First off, some more Broad Beans. These are "Robin Hood" ones.
I have been a bit disappointed with these. I thought they were going to be good, but they ran out of steam quickly. Very few of the flowers on the upper portions of the plants produced any viable pods, so the overall yield has been low.
The beans are good though - lovely and tender. Here they are, mixed with some peas.
The frustrating thing about peas is that when you grow only a small number of plants there are never enough pods ready at once! These are the ones that went in with the Broad Beans seen above. Fortunately they cook in much the same time.
Naturally there was more Lettuce! Here we have three "Little Gem" and one "Devin":
The "Little Gem" have been really good this year, with very tight crispy hearts.
Another salad ingredient I have cropped a couple of times recently is this Greek Cress. It doesn't amount to much in terms of weight, but it contributes a lot of flavour. It is pleasantly peppery without being overpowering.
Cutting it is a bit of a fiddle, but if you do it carefully you can cut it several times - at least three - because it will re-grow.
As usual, I'm linking my post to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres, where I'm sure you will be able to see some other great harvests this week - it's prime harvest time, after all!
Too bad about Robin Hood. That was looking promising for us small space gardeners. Maybe all that rain drove the pollinators under cover.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried growing cress, though it sounds like it would be a good addition to the salad bowl. Your lettuce looks great too. The heat is certainly setting mine back, as are the slugs!
ReplyDeleteI seem to be having the same issue with the broad beans, although a few are setting pods higher up on the plants. I would have thought it was related to the heat, but considering your cool conditions, I suppose not.
ReplyDeleteThe Greek cress sounds interesting. I've not heard of it before.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad about the Robin Hood broad beans. I'm surprised since they actually produced quite well for me, well enough that I'm going to try them again next year. I did notice though that a lot of the first blossoms didn't set, so I suppose that my long mild winter/spring made the difference. I know what you mean about the peas, it's a good thing that I only ever needed to serve 2 people since my patch didn't produce an abundance until the end, then a couple of big harvests and then they were done. I tried a Greek cress this spring also and loved it. A similar cress that has those finely cut leaves is an Iraqi one named Rishad, it's equally as good as the Greek. Gorgeous lettuces, you harvested them at the peak of perfection.
ReplyDeleteOur Robin Hood beans are just flowering - it will be interesting to see how many pods set.
ReplyDeleteThose lettuce heads are so beautiful. And the broad beans and peas look fantastic. You are definitely having a long extended spring, it seems like your tomatoes and peppers are holding up well to the wet weather.
ReplyDelete