Thursday, March 31, 2011

Spring Greens

Lemon trees have come up trumps which is an absolute treat.  I expect every household on the property will be enjoying lemon cordial this week. Mine is. Now I have been ruthless on the bushes that haven't performed, they went to the dump, and have kept the others cut back hard to get past them.
I had already granted them a stay of execution anyway, primarily because of their flowering habit which seems to be almost all year round. The glasshouse has a continual party of bumblebees and buzz-pollination and glasshouses are synonomous. I'll reward them each with epsom salts and compost before the winter, and a metre or three of frost cloth each.

 
Last year I used some sort of chilli garlic spray for the scale and gave them a jolly good wash with warm water. More in the realms of routine maintenance than pampering. They have responded generously.

This bean is Bob's. Frada is dried and all but seed-sorted but Bob is still growing green although some pods are ripening off and changing colour now. From memory its an interesting round brown speckled bean whereas Frada is a creamy lozenge not unlike a glucosomine tablet, for all those over 40. Enormous to swallow whole. Won't be swallowing beans whole.



More beans, this time cannellinni. I bought several  packets of seed a few years ago before I took notice of things like climbing beans and bush beans. I was just looking for cannellinni. When they came up some were bush and some were climbers, some white flowers some pink. I saved seed from the climbers which are more productive and this time have noticed a big difference between the two colours.
                                         

For the record, pinks are in the lead and photo is of the different pink bean flowering habit. I think the word is racemes, these rods of beans that it throws out that make them extremely productive. This is where seed saving really comes into its own.



Plodding along, we are chowing through a wealth of brassiccas seeing as the 'Spring crop' has matured early, and that includes lettuces too. Guess I put them in too early. Last year too late. Won't do that again. It means we are snowed in by vegetables what with all the Autumn crops coming in.
Ah yes, those green things are caterpillars, nothing that a pot scrub won't flick off, a soak in salt water and a good clip. What I'm getting too is 'perfectly good.' I guess its a variant of good enough (Marg) except that they are perfectly, good, all they need to be.  Perfect for this Jamie Oliver recipe from his jamie at home book. Cauliflower cannellonni and my fussiest eater was scraping the dish. We'll have that again.

5 comments:

  1. maybe its my computer, I've lost my photos and who pknows where they've gone to?

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  2. I was just gonna say, "where are the photos?"

    I'm sure they show very smug produce though Miri so perhaps I've been spared an unfortunate comparison with what comes out of our garden (weeds, when I get around to it)

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  3. Beans are always a success at our place, too. Some crops are heavier than others but we always get something and they're always nicer than the frozen ones you can buy.
    Mum gave us a bottle of her latest lemon cordial and it's very delcious. Next I might make some grape cordial...

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  4. Cauliflower cannelloni sounds delicious! I cant see the photos either, but Im sure they were great.

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  5. It's interesting to read about your two kinds of cannelini beans. Mine are climbers but have white flowers. They were productive this year, I just finished harvesting them a couple of weeks ago. I've saved seed for next year too. I also grow borlotti but those are bush beans, not quite as productive but good at the front of the potager!

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