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| 25 July |
The courgette glut is upon us - it's that stage when if you turn your back courgettes become marrows. Fortunately, just after we had gathered the lot above, we met a neighbour's daughter arriving for a visit and she was only too happy to take most of them off our hands.
The garden greenhouse is also producing a steady stream of Mini Munch cucumbers.
The first bed of peas is now ready for picking and providing peas for the freezer. It looks as though slugs or snails have enjoyed rasping many of the pods but fortunately the peas inside are just fine. It does take a bit of time shelling all those pods though.
We also have enough Robin Hood broad beans to freeze.
All of the Vivaldi and Orla potatoes have been lifted - I say all but we only planted five tubers of each variety. This year we are trialling a few varieties that are new to us. Martyn reported our thoughts about these two varieties on his blog here.
The thornless, Loch Ness blackberries are now ripening.
The earlier blackcurrant bushes have been rather disappointing this year but the later variety Ben Lomond is providing a better harvest.
Malwina is still offering up fresh strawberries. The individual berries are smaller but no less delicious.
This year we are having our largest crop of Japanese wineberries. In past years the canes have only provide a sprinkling of berries but last week we had enough for a dishful each with more to come. I can see where the name comes from as they do have a wine taste. The berry clusters are very sticky and the canes very thorny and so care is needed when picking.
The climbing French and runner beans have now taken off. We have picked a few Cobra - French beans and Lady Di - runner beans but the best is yet to come if all the flowers set.
The range of flower colours is attractive too.
Then we have the cut flowers. The sweet peas are now flowering well. At the moment they have really long stems but generally the stems become shorter as the season progresses.
I'm also cutting flowers from the annual flower patch which is continuing to fill out.
Click on the image below to view a larger version.
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| 30 July |
This year we are having our largest crop of Japanese wineberries. In past years the canes have only provide a sprinkling of berries but last week we had enough for a dishful each with more to come. I can see where the name comes from as they do have a wine taste. The berry clusters are very sticky and the canes very thorny and so care is needed when picking.
Today I am linking to Harvest Monday over at Dave's blog Our Happy Acres
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That is a fabulous harvest, with such beautiful flowers too! Very intesrested in the wine berries, which I don't think I've seen before, but they look lovely in your photo
ReplyDeleteOne pair is quite small, Belinda much smaller than a raspberry.. Maybe should do a post about them.
DeleteKa Boom--the garden is exploding. How amazing!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of the wine berries--they look terrific, though picking them doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun!
Enjoy those beautiful harvests (glad you were able to "re-home" some of your courgettes. They do indeed multiply!)
Lovely blooms, too. Wow!
:)
No wine berries and as problematic to pick as the tayberry, Sue which is quite vicious. It's just that you end up with very sticky fingers.
DeleteThose Mini Munch cucumbers look a lot like the Manny I grow in my greenhouse. I've never tried growing or eating wineberries. They certainly look different from any berry I've ever grown! You have such a great variety in the things you grow, and lovely flowers!
ReplyDeleteThe wineberries are very different, Dave to any of the other berries that we grow. They are really quite interesting
DeleteYou grow so many interesting berries, I wish I could taste them all. What a lovely assortment of vegetables and flowers too!
ReplyDeleteIf you lived near enough you would be quite welcome to try them, Michelle :-)
DeleteRe the Wineberries - me too; I have seen them growing, but never had any to eat. Isn't it strange that the slugs can have a go at the pea-pods without damaging the peas inside - if only we could always share with them like that! I'd be happy if the slugs would agree to eat only the outside leaves of my cabbages, and leave the hearts for me.
ReplyDeleteMartyn and I were just saying yesterday that we are happy to share some of the fruits with the birds as long as they leave plenty for us, Mark. We don't net the raspberries, blackberries or most other fruit as the birds only eat a few and there is always plenty of undespoiled fruit for us.
DeleteWonderful harvests - those Wineberries are a thing of beauty, like jewels! One of these days I'll have a cutting flower bed - yours is lovely.
ReplyDeleteI am still experimenting with the cutting bed, Margaret it isn't quite how I want it just yet but a challenge is always good isn't it?
DeleteLook at all your courgettes and peas, so lovely! And your berries are still plentiful. It makes me smile to see so many courgettes.
ReplyDeleteI am happy that I made you smile, Phuomg :-)
DeleteWow, the cutting patch is looking beautiful. A bit of a courgette glut here as well. I wish I could grow as many cucumbers. The wineberries are curiously sticky aren't they, but very beautiful. No ripe ones on my vine yet, but masses developing by the look of it. Lovely to see all the different bean flowers next to each other. I hadn't seen the yellow ones before. Celebration are really pretty, I grew them one year, think I might try them again next year.
ReplyDeleteThe yellow one is a climbing French bean, CJ as are all the flowers on the top row of the collage. I think there will be a few more wineberries to pick when I next visit the plot. More sticky finger time.
DeleteYou have so many beautiful flowers and all those berries look delicious! And that looks like a ton of peas to shell, but it will be nice to have them available in your freezer.
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot of peas to shell, Julie. I sat in the summer house with a cup of coffee and just worked my way steadily through them all. :-)
DeleteFabulous - you really are seeing the results of all your hard work.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, Jayne when we first planted everything out we were not very optimistic that it would grow as well as it had. There again I think we think the same every year.
DeleteMini munch cucmbers?! Are those in your hand called mini? :-)
ReplyDeleteThat’s a great harvest Sue, I am especially jealous about your raspberries, I bought two small twigs of raspberry canes this spring and since I haven’t sorted the front garden yet I just planted them in two 15L pots, thinking they would grow into good size plants, ready for planting out next year. I should not have been worried about the pot being too small, the plants are absolutely tiny and feeble, but perhaps they take a few years to grow up – I have never planted raspberry twigs before :-)
Would have loved to have blackcurrants too, if I had somewhere to grow them, do you have to net them, do the birds eat them if you don’t?
They are Mini Munch, Helene you can harvest them smaller than this if you like but we just harvest them as we need them.
DeleteThe raspberries should be making some good strong green growth from the base if they are summer fruiting varieties. If they are Autumn fruiting they should have canes
already. They settle in fairly quickly. If you like send me a photo. What variety have you?
The birds don't seem to bother our blackcurrants too much but I know of some people who have to net them. Maybe it is a case that on the allotment site there is just so much choice. The blackbirds seemed to favour the tayberries at the moment. They would take the blueberries if we hadn't netted those.
Goodness.....you are having a good year! I am overwhelmed with courgettes too, they are such a reliable plant. I am fascinated by those wineberries, I grow them for their ornamental value alone.xxx
ReplyDeleteThey are fascinating plants, Dina. The leaves and the stems are quite attractive too.
DeleteWow. Just... wow. So much great produce! You must be spending half your time picking and the other half cooking, blanching, freezing, pickling and preserving :)
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like that, Darren. Except we miss out the blanching stage, we haven't blanchrd anything that we have frozen for ages now.
DeleteThis year I've bought and planted two Japanese Wineberries, I read that they fruit just 2-3 year after planting. I'm very curious about the taste, but I'll have to wait.
ReplyDeleteThat's about the length of time that it took for ours to fruit, Dewberry.
Delete