Monday, January 4, 2010

Harvest Monday

A new year and two new additions to the harvest, cucumber and nectarine! The cucumber was so delicious, I put it on my salad took a picture and sent the picture to my Mum!




Miss J also got to try the cucmber and she gave it two thumbs up. I still have no idea how the cucumber came to exist, due to the long running problems with pollination but who am I to complain. Now to wait for the L-shaped one to ripen and I can go in for round 2.

The nectarine tree had three nectarines on it this season (its first season) and I got to try one the other night. It was so delicate and sweet. Unforuntately I think the other two are suffering from sunscald and won't be as yummy, or possibly even edible, but we will see.





I also harvested from drawrf bush beans. The beans went in with some other greens and accompanied a veggie roast. Very tasty and not at all stringy. The spanish black radish and spring onion also went along with the roast.




As usual there were tomatoes, but not the same as before. Some were pictured above with the cucumber but there were many others harvested that were not as colourful. You see the rest of these were pretty much all picked green, in an effort to minimise wilt and sunscald damage. The wilt defoliates the bush leaving the tomatoes exposed to the dangers of the hot Australian sun. Indeed I am about to pull out half the tomato bushes for this season due to the wilt, with the others following very soon. Many of these will not have even produced a single tomato. Here's a picture to show the you damage I am contending with.



But with this difficulty there is always hope - here is a sneak preview of what probably will be in next week's harvest post - Eggplant!!!

3 comments:

Funkbunny said...

Oh dear, your poor tomatoes! Have you tried shadecloth? I've been using it over lettuce this year and it's been working really well. The rest of your produce looks fantastic, and an eggplant! My flowers keep falling off so I'm not sure how well they will do this year...

Daphne Gould said...

Oh no! I always cry over the death of tomatoes the most. They are the queens of the harvest. Though this week it seems your nectarines are taking that spot. I love nectarines.

PJ said...

Funkbunny - if only the wilt were merely sunscald I'd be a happy girl. Shadecloth would help keep the tomtoes less blistery but it wouldn't help the poor defoliated plant much beyond that. Plus body corporates always have a thing or two to say about shadecloth in big apartments. I'll just have to plant resistant varieties next year and look longingly at your lovely haul of tomatoes this year!

Daphne - it's pretty sad but looks like people your way had huge blight problems so it seems endemic. Nectarine was so lovey, about 1 minute of pure eating pleasure, which really is all we ask for right?