Harvest Monday Returnings

Sorry that it has been a little while between posts. I blame work and study commitments and the fact that I lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer. Luckily I am on holiday in Adelaide (with housesitter B looking after the balcony garden) so I have a little more time to write and in the process of packing I found my camera cord! So today's harvest Monday post will be a wrap up of the harvests from the past few weeks, including produce from my garden and generously donated produce from my Aunt's garden. I have other things to tell you about the garden, in which Spring has definitely sprung, but they can be held off for other posts.

So far I've harvested almost all the broccoli, which is pretty little now as it is only side shoots. I picked all the snow peas and promptly pulled the lot out which weren't producing. Silverbeet, I eat this almost daily. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to photograph it, though stay tuned for pictures of my Mum's rainbow silverbeet which is just huge.

My aunty supplemented my harvest with her harvest which included beetroots, brussel sprouts and broccoli. Yum

I turned them into this yummy beetroot risotto that I made to impress someone. :)

And look out for future harvests of these little yummies ... (there are 5 on the overwintered bush - 5!!!)

Harvest Monday

Two lemons, five carrots, a bowl full of lettuce, every last inch of rocket and some coriander all went into last Friday's meal. Beetroot (from my Aunt's garden), goats' cheese, rocket and pancetta risotto, served with a carrot and greens salad followed by strawberry lemon cheesecake icecream, straight from the brand new ice cream maker! And what photos do I have to show for it? NONE! But we had 5 happy dinner guests and one proud owner of an icecream machine and balcony veggie patch. Next harvest Monday I promise to photograph the produce, but in the meantime please take these recent shots of the plants for your harvest viewing pleasure, and imagine what they looked like in my harvest basket and then on the plate.

Ok so that is a golden beetroot not the large bulls blood ones that I cooked with but isn't it pretty. More of a single serve risotto size though. And for extra droolage I'll have you know that the second icecream flavour made in the icecream machine was Dulche de Leche (recipe here)

Now if you are after proper photos of harvests that aren't just substitutes for the real deal then head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for this week's harvest monday post.

Harvest Monday Happiness

A rainy Monday evening and I am just drying off after another snailageddon on the balcony garden. No matter how many I kill they just keep on coming! Still they can't get their hands on my harvest this week, well most of my harvest.

Snow peas are in at the moment, if this post at the 6 x 8 garden is to go by (and others that I have read recently but have slipped my mind.) They are in on the balcony garden too, crisp, sweet and ever so tasty. I only get three or four at a time, but once the rest of the peas grow through the harvest will increase. Yay for future stirfries!

Carrots get pulled out of the ground ever now and then. Good in salads and the vibrantly coloured ones are going to be a hit at my Casablanca 30th Birthday Party on the weekend.

Golden beetroot, pulled out, grated and placed in a beetroot and autumn veg risotto. Yum

I get a solid amount of lettuce and silverbeet eat week, probably a fistful every day. Enough for a plate of salad or an extra green sandwich.

Coriander is ready for the picking, and I had a leaf or two as a delicious garnish on my beetroot pearl couscous dish tonight (alas the beetroot was store-bought given the slowness of my purple beets in the balcony garden.)

Eggplant. Can't remember what I used it for, but whatever it was I bet it was tasty. There are even more eggplants on this hardy little plant! And it is almost winter here!!!

And these two delicious veggies, a butternut pumpkin and some cabbage, came from my cousin's garden. The pumpkin has been put in some pumpkin, pinenut and paprika filo parcels for the party this weekend (hiding in the freezer at present so they keep yummy and don't get eaten by myself before the party) and will also be cooked up to go in pumpkin coconut creme brulee. The cabbage has been added to many things including salads, a stir fry, and a corned beef.

The broccoli is budding so there might just be a new addition to the harvest post next week ... If you want to see more harvests pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions and join in the fun.

Harvests past, harvests future

I hope everyone had a happy Easter, or whatever you did over the last few days. I am in Adelaide with my lovely family for a week and a bit of rest. I just love spending this time of year with relatives even if I do need to spend half of it working on the thesis. I have left the balcony garden in the care of special housemate H. Wonder how things will go? While I haven't got a proper harvest post this monday this is an ode to future harvests and harvests past that did not go into my belly. A few weeks back I began the autumn planting, mostly broccoli, lettuce and snow peas, with a few parsnip seeds thrown in for good measure. These are some pictures of the Autumn newbies and future harvestables.

And for more future havests? I spied a possible tomato resurrection! These were written off for dead a few weeks ago, the wilt attacking even the highest of the hanging pots. Yet as I left, this one remaining pot seemed laden with green tomatoey goodness. Fingers crossed they are ready when I go home.

As for harvests past that went elsewhere, five minutes before leaving for the airport I decided to harvest the beetroots due to constant attack from pests. I left them as a pressie for special housemate H.

One other harvesterific moment happened the day before I left. With hints of orange I stripped most of the habaneroes off the laden mini bush and handed them over to friends.

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.

Balcony Garden Roast Post

Finally, after a week of cleaning and recovery, and also a week of far too much uni work, I have managed to pluck up the energy to write this post. The first ever Balcony Garden Sunday Roast was held over a week ago. It was held in lieu of another balcony garden dinner party, because the usual suspects couldn't find a single weekend evening free in common! Instead it turned into a Sunday roast, beef, yorkshire puddings (just like I used to make when I worked in the kitchens of English pubs) and all the trimmings, plus entree and dessert, all using at least one element from the balcony garden. While the balcony is big enough to host many plants, it is not an ersatz dairy and as such the cattle portion had to be obtained from the Vic markets. So too the cheese for the cheese platter was obtained at the markest, as unlike Gavin at The Greening of Gavin who seems to be a homemade cheesemaker extraordinaire, I am not quite set up to make my own cheese (but boy oh boy would I love to.) Indeed it is probably best to start the post with a look at the cheese platter. Normally something to end a dinner party this time it took the place of pre-dinner/lunch nibbles.

The garden element was multi-coloured carrot sticks taken from the pile pictured later in this post (the other half went into the salad.) So too a little sprig of indoor-grown basil added to the plate. This was to have homemade gluten free crakcers with it, which I lovingly cooked earlier in the week, adapting a recipe from here.

Probably in part due to my makeshirt wine bottle rolling pin, and the substitution of a gluten free flour to the mix difficulties arose. Alas the crackers were liable to break a tooth they were so hard, and provided a novelty factor for the day but served no real nutritional purpose. (note they were made with potato flour and the balcony garden element was rosemary)

The entree was a duo of soups. One was a potato, leek and bacon soup utlising leeks from the garden.

The other was a sweet potato, coriander, chilli and coconut cream number, which took chillis from the garden (the coriander, though also grown of the balcony garden, was taken from my cousin's garden as she had a ridiculous surplus!) It was all served with a steaming hot, homemade foccacia, same recipe as this one, just minus the leeks and bacon.

Both soups were tasty and some members of the dinner party with less dietary restrictions decided to sample a bowl of each. Then came the main course of roast beef, yorkshire puddings, roasted potatoes (four varieties), jerusalem artichokes and mushrooms, steamed snow peas, broccoli, beet leaves and silverbeet and a salad of greens, tomatoes and carrots. All steamed greens and salad elements were balcony garden grown.

The final piece-de-resistance alas comes with no photos of the final product. I blame wine induced forgetfulness. It was a deconstruction of a lemon meringue pie. I made meringue casings, and in them placed homemade lemon curd icecream (which used lemons from the balcony garden) on top of which was to be placed a nut crumble. I burned the nut crumbled in my view so declined from serving it, however most disagreed and ate it straight from the cooking dish! Raspberry sauce I got at christmas topped this little number off and it was enjoyed by all.

All in all it was a magical day. Somehow the intended afternoon meal went well into the night, with most guests staying until 9pm!!! I suspect the 12 bottles of wine and apple wine and coffee cocktail I crazily made helped in this regard. Thanks to everyone who came, and particular thanks to those who helped with the dishes, it made the hungover Monday cleanup that much easier! I will definitely have another balcony garden function once the next harvest comes in. Until then I am enjoying the remaining greens and carrots all by myself!

Monday Harvest

I am so, so, so excited, I finally had harvest worth mentioning. Ok so this is probably going to include a couple of harvests from a little over a week ago too, but it is not often in the middle of winter I get a haul such as this and I don't want things to miss out just because I pulled them out early. One such fellow was the daikon radish. He was smaller than a usual daikon but really really tender.

I also pulled out enough veggies for this salad.

Carrot thinnings, which I ate, they were like little lollies, slyly addictive! So yummy.

And some snow peas and broccoli found their way into my meal one night.

All very small harvests. I don't keep tallies or totals or anything, except for the tomatoes, and the balcony garden is not a money saving venture nor a concerted attempt at sustainable living, it is simply an adventure, an adventure in gardening. The reason I had such a large harvest this week(ish) was due to a Sunday Roast we had here yesterday, the point of which was to show off my newly harvested goodies. I had leeks for the potato and leek soup, although when cut down there wasn't really enough of them so they were topped up with a couple of others from the markets.

Some greens which included snow peas, broccoli, beetroot leaves, silverbeet of plain and rainbow varieties and rocket. These were steamed and served as is.

Carrots for the salad.

Tomatoes for the salad.

And lettuce for the salad.

Stay tuned for my post about the roast and you will see what the salad looked like before we all attacked it. I took the last two lemons off the lemon tree for the dessert, deconstructed lemon meringue pie, but more on that feast later.

So there you have it, a pretty fine harvest if I do say so myself. And I am giddily excited that I finally get to join in on Daphne's Dandelions Monday Harvest extravaganza.