 |
| Runner Beans |
This batch is comprised mainly of "Streamline" beans. The other variety, "Tenderstar", has only produced 2 or 3 pods so far.
Also on Tuesday I picked a little batch of baby Carrots. These are the so-called "Cocktail" or "Finger" type. The variety is "Amsterdam Forcing 3". They are the ones I have been growing in a raised wooden planter outside our kitchen window.
In our house, carrots like this seldom get cooked. After topping and tailing and a good scrub, they are eaten raw, as a pre-dinner nibble.
I'm picking Spring Onions little and often now. This particular batch went into a Chinese-style stir-fried dish which we call "Marudi Pork". I have mentioned before, in a post HERE.
On Wednesday I picked the first of my yellow beans. These are ones of the variety "Berggoud" aka "Berggold", grown from seeds kindly sent to me by a friend in the Netherlands. The plants are growing in one of the big black plastic pots.
I also harvested another pot of potatoes. These are "Maxine", a Second Early variety:
The yield from two seed-tubers in one 35-litre pot was just over 900g. There were a couple of tiddlers, but most of the tubers are a very good size - about as big as a hen's egg, which is reckoned to be the ideal size for a "new" potato. They are also lovely and clean, with no scabs or blemishes.
I also got these:
These are from the "Lady Christl" plants that I re-planted after harvesting a couple of months ago. I won't be repeating the experiment, because the second yield is far too sparse to justify the use of a pot. My photo doesn't really make this obvious, but those potatoes are tiny. Only the four biggest were worth using, and only one was of hen's egg proportions. They wouldn't have got any bigger, because the haulm (foliage) had died down completely.
During the week I also pulled up a few more carrots to go with a roast chicken meal. This time I took some of the "Norwich" variety. Of the four roots I pulled, three were very regular, but one was definitely not!
They were lovely carrots - firm, crunchy, tasty, and with no damage at all. The Enviromesh has done its thing brilliantly again.
I got some tomatoes too:
The big one is the first of the "Cherokee Purple". Not pretty, but very tasty.
The basket of small red tomatoes is representative of my harvest, because it gets topped-up as and when fruits ripen. I have been picking some of the fruit a bit under-ripe, for ripening indoors, to lessen the risk of losing them to blight.
The green ones are "Costoluto Fiorentino". They are not ripe, but their plant was severely infected with blight, so I picked of all the fruit of any significant size, in the hope that some of them will eventually ripen.
Well, that's my harvest for the week (I'm not showing Lettuce or Baby Leaf Salad any more, but I am still picking it!). Why not head across to Dave's blog Our Happy Acres, and see what other gardeners have contributed to Harvest Monday?
Wonderful looking harvest :) Our harvest Monday's are so we can pick what we want to sell on the Tuesday market. Always a busy day picking, bagging and then cake making, then pricing and packing up van. Non stop monday's we call it.
ReplyDeleteA lovely selection of veg. I've missed growing lots this year so am busy planning for 2017 now.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great variety of veg in your harvest. Your tomatoes are doing well even though the dreaded blight has struck, mine are only just getting going but I don't foresee a huge harvest this year, the plants are looking a bit pathetic in comparison to other years. I've grown Costoluto Fiorentino in the past, a really delicious tomato, juicy and sweet.
ReplyDeleteNice harvest, Mark, and even tomatoes. Too bad about the blight. Are you referring to "late" blight, the one that caused the Irish potato famine? That doesn't winter over here but blows in from the south, and it has missed us the last couple of years.
ReplyDeleteYep, that's the one! We don't get it every year - usually about 2 years in every 3 - but when it hits it is devastating.
DeleteMore lovely harvests. Your runner beans and potatoes always look so perfect. Sad thing, the blight on the tomatoes. The ripe ones look great.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I grow my potatoes in containers, and as long as you are good about watering, this seems to produce a better result; certainly a lot less damage and disease than when grown in open ground.
DeleteSuch wonderful abundance you have! And your carrots would be absolutely perfect in my Little One's hands :-) We didn't have many that pulled through the heat of July, but those that did were divine and quite large! Hope you have a great week!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you've got a nice variety of harvests this week! I think Cherokee Purples are one of the best tasting, although not prettiest, tomatoes. That's a shame about late blight. I get it here pretty much every year. I thought that since we had a bad drought last year that I wouldn't have late blight in my garden, but no, it still managed to survive and infect. I try to grow blight resistant tomatoes as much as possible and it seems that most of the time the plants survive and continue to produce despite the blight.
ReplyDeleteThose Maxine potatoes look picture-perfect! I think I need to consider trying to grow a few potatoes in pots. I had such terrible results this year from the ones I grew in the ground. It's a shame about the blight too, something I am thankful I don't have (yet) here!
ReplyDeleteVery nice potatoes. Next year I plan to grow all the potatoes in containers because the voles are becoming a major problem. Too bad about the blight. I don't know if my tomatoes have blight or bacterial spot but I'm leaning toward the bacterial source. At any rate they are nearly done for.
ReplyDeleteHmmm so that is what Maxine potatoes without any scab look like then. Mine are pretty awful to look at this year, and must be peeled to be eaten really. Yours just look pretty!!! Thanks for the recipe tips too.. really interesting!
ReplyDeleteWonderful harvests - and another funny carrot :) I'm really looking forward to unearthing the volunteer potatoes that are in the carrot bed. They flowered later than those that were properly planted and appear to be much more lush...I'm hoping all those leaves mean a good sized harvest.
ReplyDeleteI'll be picking my first Costoluto Genovese tomato today - when it comes to beautiful veg, these top my list.
Your carrots and runner beans are very beautiful as are your potatoes. I'm growing sweet potatoes in a giant planter this year, but really must try that with regular potatoes next spring.
ReplyDeleteYour Marudi Pork with noodles looks delicious, I'm going to have to try it soon.
We are bracing ourselves for the onslaught of beans which we hope will come shortly. Then it's a case of freeze, freeze, freeze.
ReplyDeleteWhy are so many potatoes named after girls?