Re: What are you harvesting today?

by freebird 27th June 2013, 5:54 pm

Ooh, CH, tell me about growing coriander. We have a serious coriander habit, but I can't seem to get anything decent when I try growing it. I get just a very few leaves before it all goes to seed. I've given up temporarily.

Picked strawberries today, and the first few raspberries. Still using last year's chillies that I dried, but down to the last few meals now. I'll have to buy some before the next harvest.

by Chilli-head 27th June 2013, 7:29 pm

Mine usually bolts too, FB. I guess the last year or so it has rained enough to keep it happy, it need a lot of water. The seed I sowed this year was from the HML seed swap ! But look on the bright side, if you leave it to seed you can collect that, and make afelia.

by freebird 7th July 2013, 12:33 pm

Oh no! I've just used up my last few dried chillies. But harvested a couple of strawberries, a handful of good raspberries and rather more poor raspberries (the canes are loaded, but the fruits very small and dryish) and some surprise white currants. A couple of years ago I found some seedling currant plants but didn't know what they were or where they'd come from. Separated them out, and planted the best in a 'special' place and the others out of the way as spares. Of course the 'special' one hasn't survived but the others have, and this year have whitecurrants on.

by Dandelion 7th July 2013, 1:39 pm

Haven't grown white currants before FB - how do you use them?
We have some fruit on the Jostaberry for the first time - not ready yet (they berries are purple when ripe: it's a gooseberry/ black currant cross). Will probably make a pie when I pick them.

by Chilli-head 7th July 2013, 8:06 pm

First tomato, at last. Still a bit tart, but not bad. We ate it with a salad of homegrown rocket and cucumbers, along with some potato salad with my Charlotte spuds. Summer at last !

by polgara 8th July 2013, 3:34 pm

Emptied a potato bucket this morning. Result, enough pots for 2 good meals & they tasted just great. Suits me. I planted about 6 pots in the bucket so I think that is a good return. With the price of pots at the moment I would think I saved about £1. Still got 6 or so buckets to empty over the summer & already planted another lot.

by Dandelion 8th July 2013, 5:32 pm

polgara wrote: Emptied a potato bucket this morning. Result, enough pots for 2 good meals & they tasted just great. Suits me. I planted about 6 pots in the bucket so I think that is a good return. With the price of pots at the moment I would think I saved about £1. Still got 6 or so buckets to empty over the summer & already planted another lot.

That'll be one bucket less to water, POl!
Am just out to cut two over-sized courgettes to make a tomato-y gratin thing.

by freebird 8th July 2013, 8:16 pm

Three French beans, two strawberries and a goldfinch in the apple tree (to the tune of a well-known Christmas carol)

by Dandelion 8th July 2013, 10:29 pm

How did you cook them all? (Bet GB has a recipe...)

by Chilli-head 9th July 2013, 4:15 pm

Last night I picked the very last of the broad beans, some peas and strawberries.

I lifted my shallots and onions too, before they all rot. I have mounting problems with onion white rot, and I think I shall have to try Fred Crowe's method (see this thread)

by freebird 9th July 2013, 10:02 pm

Garlic! My first proper, lovely garlic. It's all been a bit hit and miss over the last few years, but CH's advice on varieties and discovering autumn planting seems to have made all the difference.

by Chilli-head 10th July 2013, 8:05 pm

I had to remind myself what my advice was ! But I stick by the IOW garlic farm endorsement. I had best luck with their "Provence wight" this year. Quite fat cloves. Garlic Bella Italia was a disaster; tiny cloves and starting to rot. Not the usual white rot I might ecpect either, a green mould.

Which ones did you grow FB ?

by freebird 10th July 2013, 9:22 pm

Errrm. Actually I can't remember. I kept the packs for ages, as I usually keep a record of all my sowing, germination and harvest dates. But with everything being so late this year, I've really been up against it and decided to forgo record keeping for time in the garden. I think I grew Iberian Wight and Cristo, but not sure which is which. The other doesn't look quite ready for harvesting yet.

Did harvest my first courgettes though. Very small, but they will be good in a stir fry. Plus a few more French beans, more raspberries and a handful of potatoes.

by Dandelion 10th July 2013, 10:28 pm

Today we have mostly been eating lettuce

by polgara 11th July 2013, 3:26 pm

3 raspberries!!

by Dandelion 11th July 2013, 9:45 pm

I picked the entire broad bean harvest today and shared them between three of us. Three beans each. Not three pods each, three beans. That was what the crop amounted to - nine...entire...beans!!!!

by freebird 11th July 2013, 11:15 pm

Why haven't they any beans on, Dandelion - did they not make flower, or did the flowers not make beans, or did something attack the pods?

I've harvested a few pods from the four plants that seeded themselves last year - enough for a small meal. The rest of the plants haven't got that far yet, as I planted them in the spring, quite late, and the cold weather held them back too. I'm hoping they will come good eventually. We never eat the beans fresh in season, but freeze them to enjoy when other things have finished.

by Dandelion 12th July 2013, 5:47 pm

I grew the plants in the autumn and kept them fairly frost free in modules over the winter, planting them out in the 'spring'. I can only assume it was the cold weather - the plants never really flourished.

by Chilli-head 12th July 2013, 7:14 pm

I always plant mine in early November, with no protection at all. They don't seem to mind the frost, but the wet got to mine this year - blackleg, where they rot off at ground level. Only about half really grew.

by Dandelion 13th July 2013, 12:25 pm

Last year a lot of mine got chocolate spot virus - sensitive little things, aren't they??

by freebird 13th July 2013, 5:42 pm

12 gooseberries - that was all the birds left me! But a goodly amount of blackcurrants just off of three branches. Too hot to pick for very long. And more raspberries.

by freebird 22nd July 2013, 10:24 pm

Picked the rest of the blackcurrants this evening - left it a bit too long really and some were gone over, but it is the first chance I've had to do the job. Also a really good amount of French beans. These are my freebies - last year's saved seed grown in an old council recycling box in homemade compost. They're doing really well this year. And I've just dug up the rest of my garlic. This is the other variety, of which there is more, but the bulbs are much smaller though still usable. I'm still pleased with it, as it's the first time I've grown garlic and been uniformly successful with it.

by Ploshkin 23rd July 2013, 8:56 am

Well, yesterday actually. I picked 7lbs of gooseberries, had to pick them all green as the sawfly caterpillars were decimating the foliage, I usually like to leave half to go red. It was also that significant day of the season when everything on the plate was home grown - new potatoes, broad beans, baby carrots and courgettes with a pork & egg pie (first time I've made one) made with our own pork & eggs, how very satisfying.

by Chilli-head 23rd July 2013, 9:49 am

That is quite special, having an entirely home produced meal.

I didn't manage it ... I made a tomato tart, with homegrown red onion, thyme, basil and of course tomatoes. The puff pastry and olives are beyond my abilities to homemake ... The tomatoes, Harbinger, had a really good flavour though.

by freebird 23rd July 2013, 11:37 am

Ploshkin wrote: I picked 7lbs of gooseberries

I picked one. Gooseberry, that is, not pound of. It got missed when I picked the other 12. Gooseberries, that is, not pounds of. Sigh.

by polgara 23rd July 2013, 9:01 pm

Broad beans today.

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