Monday, November 16, 2009

Harvest Monday

I've wondered long and hard about why I have trouble having good posts for harvest Mondays. I actually use a lot of produce from my balcony garden at certain times of the year but I never seem to have a lot when I photograph it. Then I realised I only pick what I need when I need it. Some gardeners are far away from their gardens, mine is literally at the doorstep. It takes only minutes to get stuff from the garden into the pan and only rarely do I remember to photograph it along the way. So I will do my best to show you what has been harvested and eaten from the garden this week.

Zucchini has been an interesting producer. I have eaten 3 or 4 large ones any many more smaller ones. It seems to produce many more female flowers to male flowers, and with only one plant at present it has trouble pollinating. In fact at the moment it has 7 flowering female zukes and NO male flowers. Still I managed to harvest four small and rapidly deteriorating zucchinis which I will put into a curry tomorrow night.

Strawberries have been a winner. I eat one of two a day. Problem is they are rotting so shortly after ripening (some even while ripening) so the harvest isn't as big as it could be. Now for the piece de resistance, and I will do a seperate post on these gems also, but in tonight's harvest I included the first of the cherry tomatoes!!!

They were sweet and tasty. I mixed them in with some lettuce, a beet leaf and a very small daikon radish (I had to thin the radishes) as a base for a small smoked salmon salad.


Very delicious. Hopefully I remember to get the camera out a bit more often when I grab the produce for the garden. There should be a lot more coming in the future weeks, despite the major bug and other problems.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

Good looking salad. Congrats on your first cherry tomatoes. That's really the only tomatoes left in my garden now and for not much longer...

Kalena Michele said...

You actually seem to have success with your summer squash. My zuke plant actually had way more male flowers that female flowers on both plants. They produced one zucchini that was quickly eaten by slugs and rolly pollies. Then they got some sort of fungus :(. Weird. Glad to see yours are doing well!

Daphne Gould said...

I know what you mean about forgetting to photograph your harvest. However I don't eat it right after harvest. I usually put it in the fridge as I tend to harvest in the mornings. So when I remember about photos I can drag it all back out. I have gotten better over the year. Now I'm much better about bringing my camera.

Love your harvest. Maybe on the days that there are no male blossoms you can pick the females as blossoms. A lot of gourmet chefs love to cook with the female blossoms with the little zuke attached.