What are you harvesting today?

Tomatoes   

Yellow perfection and Sugary Tom. Not at the peak of fragrant ripeness, but I couldn't resist any longer !

Oh well done CH. Mine are still very green, although supposed to be an early variety. I swore last year that I wouldn't bother with them again, but as they were the only seed I had, and wasn't doing much veg, thought I would try them once more. Sown in Jan and grown in the greenhouse - Latah would have given me something by now.

I'm envious of all this harvesting but I'm watching the strawberries in the greenhouse - one is ripe enough to pick but I'm holding out for a few more.
I've got some troughs of little gem lettuces (from the seed swap packet) that are well on their way to getting hearts so shouldn't be too long before I have something to harvest.

I've picked three pounds of berries from my little goosegog, and there are still some on the plant to ripen further for a crumble. Jam making tomorrow - Mr D loves gooseberry jam but it's notoriously difficult to buy here. Will lay down stocks for the winter!

Strawberries!! Loads of lovely ones from the hanging baskets in my greenhouse, for once some nice, sunny weather has coincided with them starting to ripen.

Dandelion, have you ever done gooseberry jam with elderflowers (dangle a muslin bag in the jam while it's boiling). It gives it a whole, new dimension.

My recipe did suggest dangling some elderflowers in, but I couldn't say where our nearest tree is (I did dig up some elder plants from the garden, which had seeded them selves.) Will have to track some down for next time. I'm hoping the jostaberry has a bigger crop of fruit this year, as I think that would make lovely jam.

picked some sad raspberries and some gooseberries today. Strawberries are ripening nicely and I have hopes for tomorrow.

Oh no JG - why are your raspberries sad?

I had this lovely idea of planting the fruit bushes - and raspberry canes by hte anpple tree to create a fruit area. Between the apple tree getting quite large (particularly as we've missed time to prine it for 2 years) and some other things growing up, they've not had enough light. The ones that have grown into our neighbours garden look better. I'm going to clear the area round the canes this weekend and we're going to prune in November this year. I'm also plannig to move the gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes into a less shady area over the winter - something I failed to do this year.

Sounds like a plan!

Carrying sun kissed tomatoes and cucumber from the greenhouse for lunch, tbe aroma was so special. Reminds me of being in Greece.

Made pizza tonight witb fresh garlic and oregano. I've gathered a few bunches of different types of oregano to hang upside down in the shed to dry.

Made strawberry cheesecake ice cream this morning, and picked more to make jam later. Some raspberries too. They are a bonus - they are from an autumn fruiting variety, which produces an extra spring crop if not cut back after the main autumn fruiting.

Wish we had a 'like' button on the forum - I would have hit it as i 'like' all of those!!

First courgettes. A couple of small ones of variety Midnight - we're going away for a week & I didn't want to come back to marrows, and a couple of good sized spherical ones from Tondo di Piacenza.  They had a lovely flavour.  Someone else may well be growing them as I had the seeds from the seed swap package & I just took out a couple of seeds from the packet & left the rest of the packet in.  I also now have a steady supply of Little Gem lettuces, also from the seed swap.

Picked a big cos lettuce and a bunch of chives this morning and made lettuce and chive soup (didn't have it chilled as the recipe suggested, because cold soup makes me gag!!)

My first courgette - it went into lamb fajitas last night. This was from a plant grown from saved seed - Chilli Head suggested I could get a surprise as they are inclined to cross pollinate, but it looked the same as others I've had before.

I'm glad your courgette was a success.  I have heard it said (in several places) that all squashes are prone to interbreeding, which can lead to unexpected results from saved seed - but I guess self pollination, or cross polination that produces a useful result is still quite possible.  I suppose most squashes, when immature, would work well enough as a courgette substitute anyway, so no great risk.

You've just beat me to it, BTW.  My courgettes are still a bit small - just about 10cm long.

I'm currently finishing the last of the strawberries, along with raspberries that should be autumn fruiting but don't seem to know that, and a few blackcurrants.  Summer pudding is on the cards I think.

Tonight I'll be trying to get together enough veg to make Kari Sayur.  May be onions, garlic, new potatoes, beans, golden beet, a few peas for the homegrown bits, and whatever can be found in the recesses of the fridge!

Ah yes.  Speaking of onions and garlic- the garlic was so rusty this year that I've given in and taken it out.  Smaller than ususal, but I planted so much that I think we'll be OK.  I also lifted about 90 overwintered onions, which are a useful size so I'm quite pleased on the whole.

Chilli-head wrote:I'm currently finishing the last of the strawberries, along with raspberries that should be autumn fruiting but don't seem to know that, and a few blackcurrants.  

- the garlic was so rusty this year that I've given in and taken it out.  Smaller than ususal, but I planted so much that I think we'll be OK.

I seem to remember reading back along that you have the autumn fruiting raspberry 'Polka'. Same here. And mine also give a useful crop in the summer from last year's canes that fruited in the autumn. It took me a couple of years to work out what was going on. There are also plenty of fresh new shoots which should give me a crop later this year - so if I don't cut them down, in the summer next year as well.

And same here with the garlic as well. It looked as if it was doing really well. When I came back from a week's holiday, the whole lot was covered in rust, and I've ended up with quite small bulbs. Quite disappointed as last year was the first time I had ever grown garlic successfully, so was looking forward to building on that.

Have been enjoying some peas (the Downton Abbey/Tutenkhamun ones, whichever you prefer...) - we had a pea and lemon risotto last night which seemed a good way to use them.

At last my first ripe tomato from the greenhouse - variety Red Cherry from the seed swap.

That's amazing - when did you start them off FB? I have a few green tomatoes in the shed, but nothing remotely ready to eat. Hope the red cherry was delicious!

Dandelion wrote:That's amazing - when did you start them off FB? I have a few green tomatoes in the shed, but nothing remotely ready to eat. Hope the red cherry was delicious!

Oh! I was disappointed with how late they are as they are meant to be an early variety. Chilli Head had tomatoes ages ago. I started them in very early February in a heated propagator. The variety Latah has always given me earlier fruit.

I usually aim to be picking tomatoes by mid June.  Often the weather doesn't cooperate and it is the end of June.  This year everything is a bit out of time because of our family holiday to Florida coming at a difficult time (2 weeks at Easter, the busiest spot in the gardening calendar !), which has been bad for most things but has resulted in earlier tomatoes - partly through getting ahead before the holiday, and partly because my neighbour who waters for me when I'm on holiday is more diligent than I am !

Why does it matter ?  Well, in my experience, tomato flowers that set much after midsummer will struggle to ripen fully before the days are too short. Now, I don't do chutney, so these tomatoes  will not be much use to me.  Similarly pepper and chilli crops benefit from an early start to get a long season, although green chillies are more use than green tomatoes, we don't really much like green peppers either - they aren't ripe !

On the subject of tomatoes - we had our first pasta sauce made with freshly pressed passata on Friday.  Always popular in our house.  We used San Marzano and Franchi Red pear tomatoes for a nice thick passata. 

This should be a new thread 'What didn't I harvest today'
Came home to find my gooseberry bush completely bereft of fruit, I am gutted.  (Oh I love the pizza eating smiley CH, it's just popped up)  I usually pick about half of them green & leave the rest to go red.  Because they were going red quickly this year I decided to leave them all until we got back from holiday.  I think the blackbirds are the culprits, there is not one single fruit left!

I do have courgettes & lettuces coming apace now, have had my first cucumber & enough leaf on the spinach beet to use some.

Are green goosberries less tempting to blackbirds do you think? I left half the fruit on the bush when i made jam, and apart from a few split berries it seems to have been left untouched by the birds. (They must have been too busy trying to dig a little Japanese maple out of its pot. What a mess...)

We do seem to have extraordinary numbers of young blackbirds around here.  I  assume as a result of the extraordinary number of slugs and snails about earlier in the year !

I picked off the last of the spring flush of raspberries last night.  I discovered the penalty for leaving the old canes on autumn fruiting raspberries for an extra spring crop ... a pruning job from hell to cut them out from the thicket of new growth.  The plants are now looking more as they should - as a group of canes rather than a tangled bush.

I have my first gherkin from the seed swap - don't quite know how to use just the one gherkin - need a few more for a pickle.

Ah, I realised that I was going to have the same gherkin dilemma (I might have put them in the seed swap). The only thing I could think was to have a jar of stuff they are going to be pickled in & to drop them in a few at a time as & when they are ready. My Marguerite Patten pickling bible says to either salt or brine them first.

I dug my first Arran Pilots yesterday - always reliable here &don't disintegrate when cooked. I let them grow on quite big as I only do earlies.