The predominant memory of last week's harvest is of travelling home with the car filled with a scent that was a mixture of ripe strawberries and sweet peas.
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| 17 July |
The Malwina strawberry plants are shrugging off the lack of rain and producing lots of their delicious fruits. They have definitely prevented our strawberry harvest from being a disappointment this year.
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| 18 July |
Each visit to the plot also sees us coming away with a large tub of very tasty Tulameen raspberries. We have also picked a sprinkling of All Gold autumn raspberries.
Our fruit collection was tending to be dominated by darker coloured berries. There were lots of blackcurrants to be picked which is quite a tedious job and took far longer than the blackbird liked. It frequently had to take sudden evasive action, always accompanied by squawking disapproval, as it was late in spotting one of us crouched amongst the bushes.
The blueberries are still ripening steadily and the fruit of the thornless, Loch Ness, blackberry is starting to ripen.
We also picked some very sweet ripe wine coloured gooseberries. The variety is unknown as they came from cuttings from a plot neighbour's plants. The berries are small and a dusky, dark pink when ripe.
We picked the first few chard leaves. It's a while since we have grown chard as we found the taste rather earthy but we've decided to give it another go. It maybe that the stems are the earthy tasting part. It just seems that many people harvest chard when not much else is growing so we thought we may be missing something.
We picked our first couple of handfuls of Cobra, climbing French beans. As we have picked the last of the first lot of cauliflowers we are moving from brassicas and into beans.
We are still harvesting peas from our first sowing. These are nearly finished now but the second sowing now has pods swelling.
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| 22 July |
The courgettes haven't yet assumed unmanageable glut proportions and we have picked our first two Burpless Tasty Green cucumbers. One had been nibbled at the end and both were an appropriate C shape. Supermarket rejects for sure but certainly not rejected by us.
Last week, I posted about how we are growing watercress in our garden pond. We've been picking it as required for a while but it has never been photographed so this week I put that right.
The sweet peas are now providing armfuls of flowers. Most of the flowers are still being supported on extremely long stems. Has anyone else found this to be the case with their sweet peas this year?
For those of you who have said you enjoy watching the videos of our plot, last week I put together a film showing the fruit trees that are planted on the plot. It's about 14½ minutes long.
Your berries are always lovely! I tried Loch Ness blackberry here but I don't think our hot weather agreed with it.
ReplyDeleteIt does well for us, Dave and the fact that it is thornless is a huge plus.
DeleteThat's a shocking amount of blackcurrants you managed to pick. I imagine the strawberries are extra sweet with the dry weather you've been having.
ReplyDeleteThe variety , Malwina, has a really intense strawberry flavour, Phuong. It was the same last year too when it was wetter. It seems just a naturally flavoursome fruit.
DeleteOh what lovely fruit! I drool over everyones berries. I don't think I've ever eaten currants, or even seen them in the store. Raspberries are my fav. But it's so hot and dry here I don't think they would ever make it. And sweet peas! Oh my I can nearly get high just smelling them! Of course mine all went to seed months ago.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt you have more exotic fruits that we drool over, Mary. We all want what we can't have don't we?
DeleteAah, the smell of sweet peas and strawberries, wonderful. I am sharing the blueberries with the local blackbird family as usual. Trying to train the puppy to see them off, but so far he is failing dismally. I grew watercress in a pot once, it did brilliantly. I think it was a variety that didn't need to be in water. It's one of my favourite salad leaves so I should give it another go. My malwina strawberry plants are doing well, planted after reading about them here. We even had some fruit off of them which was a bonus for their first year. The plants look nice and healthy and are sending out runners now.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of the flavour of your strawberries, CJ? Are you going to remove the runners? I've never heard of a watercress that didn't need water!
DeleteThe strawberries had a good flavour, we really enjoyed them. I'll try and keep on top of the runners and remove them, although I wouldn't mind another couple of plants to fill the beds. I've checked my seed box but I don't have the watercress any more so I don't know what variety it was. It was happy planted in a pot and stood in a saucer of water. It might have been Greek watercress. I think you can probably grow most watercress like that though.
DeleteThat's very good harvest! Especially the berries! How you eat them? any dessert?
ReplyDeleteMainly just as they are as a fruit salad, Malar or made into a compote to eat with porridge or yoghurt
DeleteWhat a wonderful fragrance that must have been! I'm still waiting for those first cucumbers this year - so far the plants are flowering but no fruits have set yet.
ReplyDeleteNot to rub it in but I picked another cucumber today, Margaret, a straight one too.
DeleteSue, finally made it over to your blog after a busy few days. How fun that we are both growing and enjoying a great sweet pea year. Mine are wrapping up and you a re in full harvest. You might look for the Wiltshire Ripple sweet pea. From the name I am guessing it originated in your part of the world. It grew better form me that any other variety ever has in the history of my garden, And its a stunner to look at. Enjoy all of those berries too!
ReplyDeleteI'll look up that variety Lea, thanks. We will certainly enjoy the berries.
DeleteI can just imagine the scent in your car! Your harvest never fails to astonish me, all those veggies and delicious fruit! Loved the c shape cucumbers, I always grow some but never eat them. Crazy eh?xxx
ReplyDeleteBut someone eats them, don't they, Dina?
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