photo round-up complete

A long overdue photo, Bill contemplates his chilled chocolate stout, his secret-simon-santa gift that was much appreciated.  

This is a 500g punnet of pesto. The playing card is for perspective. I had a great crop of basil and along with some self-sown dill and parsley, it has kept the whitefly away from the tomatoes.

I pleased I froze quite a bit of pesto. The plants I left in are a darker green now and the pesto is not as good.

I forgot that the season this year is at least 2 weeks early and once again my pears ripened on the tree. They are okay but they don't have the same glistening juiciness as pears ripened off the tree. 

I will peel, slice, and freeze them this year for smoothies and pie. For really good bottling they need to be on the firmer side. 

 Pears unmistakably signal autumn, so the blog transitions in a swoop to the next season. 

Photo round-up part one

Here's a partial glimpse of the surfeit of apple cucumbers.   I had 3 plants, which was 2 too many, besides which the 3rd was a Triffid that put all its growth into a glasshouse takeover and only burst into fruit when I clipped it back harshly. They fruited early, the spring carrots confirm that for me.

I have planted a packet of multi coloured carrots since which don't seem quite so vigourous. Will see what results. 

 

We moved the wood out the back for the winter to clear the top of the garage for the workshop project up the back. It will require good access to bring all the materials for the foundation and the garage itself in, and good egress to wheelbarrow the excess clay out.

May need to drop a tarpaulin over the face of the wood to keep out rain. 

 I have a flush of little kale seedlings come up on the compost heap, there's mustard amongst it. I have cleared a little spot (below) and  planted them out intensively. We use the kale for smoothies and it is a good salad when it is little seedlings. 

My ongoing goal is to repopulate the weed cover with the plants I prefer and I do leave something of most crops to self-sow. 

I'm going to need to do one more post to get the remaining photos on...

you say tomato

I have got the camera going at last. Left it out one night in the garden and had to dry it, and the case, off.  After that it was willing to download the photos again so perhaps it had just needed a gentle bit of warmth. Don't we all. 

I had an embarrassment of strawberries well before Christmas and got to the point of freezing them for smoothies, thus. 

There is a moment when the strawberry season overlaps with the emergent raspberries and blackcurrants. Something about the blackcurrants brings out the sweetness in the others, no sugar required, delicious with cream. I recommend. 

 

The family are getting a bit weary of tomato salad by now but it can't be helped. I have 7 different types of tomato; grew the heirloom package from Koanga (that was 5 types) plus a black cherry self-sown from last year, and 'Gardener's Delight' (top pick from Monty Don, long sprays of smallish red tomatoes).

The yellows have great flavour, plants strong and productive. Colour not good for pasta sauce though... the 3 yellows below.

Reds, black cherry is the 2cnd left, far right has a green stripe on red. 

Gardener's delight is 2cnd right. 

This is my brag shot. Big yellow beside a black cherry tomato for scale. One slice covers a piece of toast. Louis was home sick so we all had tomatoes on toast for morning tea and there was still 1/2 a tomato left.

I have saved seed and next year will probably grow about 5 of these. Top picks would be the yellow one with green stripes and the black cherry but why limit it to that.

I had a surfeit of apple cucumbers that nearly took over the glasshouse. I sensibly cut my losses early, not before harvesting about 50 of them, and pulled them out .

Put Lebanese cucumber in their place. This is the best cucumber, crispy, crunchy, and about 1/2 the size of a telegraph; its perfect for a meal in its entirety. The seeds are not obtrusive, it isn't watery.  

I am having trouble adding that photo at the minute so will start with it next time; Its good just to get back on the page, adieu.