October harvest: week four/monthly summary

I was waiting to post this when I had a photo to attach, but at this rate it'll never get done, so here's the text-only version.

A quiet end to the month in the garden - but busier than ever indoors. Outside, the weather has been mild, with no sign of frost (we did go down to around 5ºC a couple of weeks ago), alternating sunshine and rain.

The kitchen is taking shape, at last, and just in time - I have been drying tomatoes at just over 50ºC before bottling in oil, which is a job I wanted to do but didn't expect to have the facilities for (i.e. an oven with a low heat setting) before next year. After that, I did apple slices, which I'm filling a large jar with - a great way of using up two bags of fruit that I'd bought reduced and had sitting around for a couple of weeks. They're chewy and intensely sweet and apply - a great snack. I've also commenced a couple of projects that will keep me busy in the absence of daily gardening tasks - I've started curing bacon, using maple syrup, juniper berries, and salt, which I will then smoke, slice, and freeze, and I have a batch of ale (from a kit, as I'm a beginner) bubbling away upstairs. I'll also be making sausages, smoking more food, baking lots of bread, and making yoghurt and cheese, in addition to bottling more fruits and vegetables (mostly bought).

Totals for week 22nd-31st October:
28th: 268g stem lettuce (two plants; I forgot to weight the leaves and stems separately).
30th: 37g carrots, 17g carrot tops, 33g turnip, 71g black radish, 55g chard (day total: 213g)
Total for week: 481g
October total: 11.289kg
Year to date total: 38.372kg

The highlight of the final week of October was pulling the first carrots and black radish, which went with homegrown tomatoes, chard, and turnip in a Tuscan-style bread soup, made with leftover home-baked bread roll chunks (they had stuck to the greaseproof paper I baked them on, so I had to find a use for the tops I salvaged). The carrots were small, but bigger than any I've managed to grow before, and so fragrant - and totally perfect and unblemished. I used the tops as well.

I haven't yet picked the last tomatoes. Dozens of red 'Gardener's delight' are glowing at me from across the garden when I look out the (old) kitchen window, which is quite remarkable, given it's November. I must gather them in soon, however, and get my seed-grown onions out, along with broad beans and peas, to overwinter for an early crop next year.

I have a lot more to do indoors just now, however, so I don't know when I'll get round to it...

October harvest: week three

I started clearing the last of the tomatoes. I picked all the remaining fruit in the front garden first, and pulled up the plants from the ground, gathering those in grow bags together, ready to be taken round to the compost bins. A couple of days later, I stripped all the fruits from half the varieties in the back garden, and the rest I'll do in the next couple of days (I did it that way so I didn't get confused between similar-looking varieties, given they're mostly all green).

I also picked the first stem lettuce (celtuce). I was impressed - it was exactly what I was expecting. It turns out I planted them too close together - they were tiny when I put them in, but they swelled and are pressed together now they're getting mature. But they are perfectly healthy, and that's really encouraged me for next year - the oriental greens can be sown early in the spring as well as after midsummer. I need to harvest the rest of them soon, because I don't think they are frost hardy (and I need the space for other crops). I prepared the first one by discarding the lower leaves, then taking off the upper ones, washing and chopping, peeling the stem, and chopping that into matchsticks. I stir fried it with lime juice, fish sauce, and Shaoxing wine, and sprinkled with (shichimi) tōgarashi (Japanese seven spice). Despite being a mature lettuce, it was very mild with almost no bitterness.

Totals for week 15th-21st October:
19th: 205g stem lettuce (comprising 88g stem and 117g leaves), 1.984kg tomatoes (comprising 22 'Risentraube' at 130g, 63 'Jaune flammée' at 1.185kg, 1 'Super marmande' at 24g, 1 'Cherokee purple' at 171g, 6 'Costoluto fiorentino' at 140g, 7 'Sub arctic plenty' at 176g, and 19 'Cream sausage' at 158g; day total: 2.189kg)
21st: 137g baby pumpkins, 293g 'Uchiki kuri' pumpkins (largest 153g), 1.434kg tomatoes (comprising 7 'Snowberry' at 32g, 15 'Costoluto fiorentino' at 821g, 18 'Jaune flammée' at 306g, 67 'Sun belle' at 275g; day total: 1.864kg)
Total for week: 4.053kg
Year to date total: 37.891kg

The pumpkins were a writeoff. Of the two plants that I got into final positions (out of several dozen sown into pots), one produced nothing, and the other didn't have time once it had recovered from snail attacks to produce full-sized fruit. The baby fruits I took from a vine that grew of its own accord from homemade compost. It germinated in July, I think, but has spread along the whole depth of the front garden - I'll measure it before I pull it up. Sadly, the fruits were bitter. Squash cross-fertilise easily, so if you plant seeds you've saved (or allow seeds to germinate from home-grown or shop-bought fruit), they might have crossed with something inedible, like an ornamental gourd. In any case, that's probably why they tasted so bad. Never again!

I will be able to post my roundup of the tomato season in the next week or so, once all the fruit is in. Meanwhile, I've been doing a bit more preserving - pickling beetroots, and bottling tomato sauce, so I can savour my harvest into the winter.

October harvest: week two

These grapes are small, but oh so delicious.

Little has changed outside. Sunshine is a memory, and the world is grey. We've had a lot of rain, and a powerful storm, followed by a day or two of calm, then another storm. Darkness comes at half past six, dawn at half past seven; the light has gone (though it will get a lot darker in the next ten weeks, leading up to the solstice).

All this means I've had to swallow my delusion and sacrifice most of the tomatoes. All the sickly plants, those with no change of setting more fruit, and any which have been damaged by the weather will have to go - and the enormity of composting sixty plants struck me yesterday (it should yield a lot of good stuff for the spring though). The contents of the grow-bags most of them have lived in over the summer will be spread over the garden, filling new beds, and providing low nutrient, organic conditioning, which should lighten the heavy clay, improve structure, and produce better crops next year. I'll use some for planting tulips in pots, too - I want lots more of them next year.

The temptation is to leave them, because they are still flowering, and most are covered with green fruit. But with no sunshine, mediocre temperatures, and lots of rain, the chances are they will rot on the vine. And Monty Don (my hero) made a good point on Gardeners' World: the space they're taking up could now be better used. A salad or herb crop sown now, especially under cover in the greenhouse, will provide some food over the next few months. The tomatoes, like it or not, will die.

Totals for week 8th-14th October:
10th: 456g tomatoes (comprising 8 'Summer cider' at 155g and 21 'Sub arctic plenty' at 301g)
13th: 3.097kg tomatoes (comprising 1 'German orange strawberry' at 212g, 8 'Super marmande' at 1.090kg, 15 'Cream sausage' at 247g, 25 'Jaune flammée' at 707g, 5 'Great white' at 196g, 5 'Green zebra' at 77g, 9 'Costoluto fiorentino' at 207g, 25 'Sun belle' at 92g, 5 'Black cherry' at 35g, 5 'Snowberry' at 19g, 26 'Gardener's delight' at 136g, 1 'Sub arctic plenty' at 26g, 1 unidentified at 53g), 396g grapes (day total: 3.493kg)
14th: 225g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Jaune flammée' at 141g, 1 'Costoluto fiorentino' at 72g, and 1 'Cream sausage' at 12g).
Total for week: 4.174kg
Year to date total: 33.838kg

So the harvest is heavy, but this is an ending. Much of the fruit has been taken green, to ripen indoors if I do it right. There are still many outdoors, because it's such a big job, and because some plants are simply too healthy-looking to kill yet. The smaller fruits have a chance of ripening naturally before the frosts, if they come late. In any case, I always check the weather forecast, so I can keep an eye on it.

Update: I wrote the preceding paragraphs earlier in the week. By the end of it, I noticed a great many plants with what I can only assume is blight - great patches of stem and leaf brown, shrivelled, and exuding clouds of spores at the lightest touch. It's very late - for the third year I've been paying attention, blight hasn't struck here before mid-autumn - and for that I'm lucky. And in a way, it's good - it means I can no longer afford to be sentimental. The plants must go. (What's interesting is how patchy it is - not just on individual plants, but some plants are still bright green, healthy, and growing, among their withering brethren - varietal resistance?)

October harvest: week one

Your eyes are not deceiving you - this is a strawberry, ripe, in October. I tore out the fruit patch, but the strawberries have spread around the rest of the garden. They're covered with flowers.

I had labelled this as a 'German Orange Strawberry', but I was suspicious when the fruits started forming. Its identity is now secure - 'Black Cherry'.

The heat has gone, and autumn has returned. But autumn means different things to different people, and varies a lot by location, so what do I mean by that?

Well, I live near the coast, as I may have mentioned in the past. That means it is, at all times of year, less extreme in temperature, but more so in wind, than much of the country. Autumn does not mean clear light, crisp mornings, the first frosts. No, it is more a matter of regular storms, lots of rain, and only slightly lower temperatures than the season preceding it. This year's heatwave was brief and exceptional - early September was much more typical. This blasts the leaves off the trees, brown, and turns them to mush underfoot, treacherous and unlovely. There's not much yellow, gold, red, on the trees - they don't get the chance, for one thing, nor is it hot or dry enough here in the average summer to promote the bright colours' formation in the first place.

The herbaceous plants - the shrubs, vegetables, annuals - continue, a little slower, shaggier, tireder, but little changed from July and August. My Cosmos plants have finally started flowering in earnest - they spent the summer growing to five or six feet, monsters that overfilled the space I'd allotted them. The Calendula, also grown from seed, are having a marvellous time - they've filled the garden with gold and shocking yellows and oranges for months now, and hopefully will self-sow profusely. Verbena bonariensis, which grows of its own accord every year - each time in different locations - is doing its lovely thing. The same goes for the tomatoes, beans, and pumpkins, which are all blissfully unaware of the oncoming darkness and cold. But frosts here come late, and are infrequent - I've had tomatoes fruiting outdoors well into November the past two years, although they look rather forlorn by that point. So I am not worried about the winter just yet - like the plants, I can afford to pretend everything's going on as before, though the early, more sudden, sunsets are rather cutting off my options for outdoor work in the evenings now.

Totals for week 1st-7th October:
1st: 32g chard, 10g pumpkin flowers (day total: 42g)
3rd: 139g tomatoes (comprising 3 'Jaune Flammée' at 94g, 1 'Summer Cider' at 45g)
4th: 17g runner beans, 32g strawberries, 1.01kg tomatoes (comprising 2 'Super Marmande' at 107g, 1 'Summer Cider' at 117g, 1 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 35g, 2 'Great White' at 11g, 2 'Snowberry' at 11g, 11 'Sun Belle' at 54g, 12 'Gardener's Delight' at 80g, 6 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 67g, 2 'Cream Sausage' at 43g, 5 'Green Zebra' at 126g, 11 'Black Cherry' at 115g, 8 'Jaune Flammée' at 244g; day total: 1.059kg)
7th: 1.341kg tomatoes (comprising 5 'Green Zebra' at 223g, 1 'Summer Cider' at 61g, 6 'Cream Sausage' at 174g, 7 'Jaune Flammée' at 211g, 6 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 154g, 4 'Snowberry' at 23g, 17 'Sun Belle' at 55g, 13 'Gardener's Delight' at 77g, 3 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 47g, 4 'Super Marmande' at 131g, 3 'Great White' at 185g)
Total for week: 2.581kg
Year to date total: 29.664kg

A lot of tomatoes! If I have just one day harvesting a dozen varieties of tomato in the whole year, I will have achieved a major part of what I wanted. I now have an ongoing dilemma - do I gather in all the remaining unripe fruit, and hope to get them to colour up indoors, or do I rely on the continuing mild weather, and occasional sunshine, to do it for me? I think a bit of both; some plants look very tired, and need to be laid to rest on the compost heap, while others look as fresh as they did in June. I also need to start planning my overwintering vegetables - the onions I sowed are doing well; I will order garlic sets, and sow broad beans and peas to put out in November.

September harvest: week four/monthly summary

The greenhouse 'Jaune Flammée' has reached its end, but outdoors, several other plants have started producing even larger fruits recently. This variety continues to impress.

We've been having a heatwave, along with the rest of England and Wales. It's been perfect, with light winds, mostly clear skies, and temperatures in the mid twenties by day, mid teens at night. So the summer crops have continued to flourish - I have have left them be for now.

Totals for week 22nd-30th September:
23rd: 37g turnips, 21g turnip tops, 60g chard, 46g runner beans, 390g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 54g, 3 'Jaune Flammée' at 76g, 3 'Cream Sausage' at 74g, 14 'Gardener's Delight' at 90g, 4 'Snowberry' at 30g, 6 'Sun Belle' at 36g; day total: 554g)
24th: 1 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 17g, 2g French beans, 7g runner beans (day total: 26g)
26th: 41g turnips, 39g turnip tops, 8g pumpkin flowers, 17g runner beans, 197g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Black Cherry' at 17g, 6 'Sun Belle' at 41g, 1 'Green Zebra' at 37g, 4 'Gardener's Delight' at 19g, 3 'Snowberry' at 14g, 2 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 13g, 1 'Super Marmande' at 56g; day total: 302g)
27th: 221g tomatoes (comprising 3 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 107g, 5 'Jaune Flammée' at 114g)
28th: 24g runner beans, 290g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Summer Cider' at 146g, 3 'Green Zebra' at 69g, 2 'Jaune Flammée' at 32g, 6 'Sun Belle' at 43g; day total: 314g)
29th: 17g pumpkin flowers, 191g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Jaune Flammée' at 80g, 3 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 111g; day total: 208g)
30th: 132g mizuna, 12g runner beans, 2g French beans, 280g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 65g, 4 'Jaune Flammée' at 135g, 1 'Sub Arctic Plenty' at 12g, 12 'Gardener's Delight' at 68g; day total: 426g)
Total for 8 days: 2.051kg
September total: 5.605kg
Year to date total: 27.083kg

Two kilos in just over a week is good - the tomato harvest has accelerated. All but three varieties ('Riesentraube', 'German Orange Strawberry', and 'Great White') have produced something, and I'm confident even these will give some fruit before the end of the season. Mizuna has rebounded from its first proper cropping, and I'll let it grow back once or twice more. Stem lettuces are huge, but suffering in the heat a little; chard is growing well; swedes were thriving but have been ravaged by caterpillars; turnips likewise, but with slugs. I'll need to tidy the whole garden pretty ruthlessly as things start to wind down through the rest of autumn, but for now, I've been getting more outdoor joinery done (this time, building a shed).

Many more harvests to come!

September harvest: week three

I started taking portraits of my ripe tomatoes, one variety at a time. Sadly, I used the wrong camera settings for several, so they weren't good enough to be uploaded to Flickr, but they are alright reduced in size for use here. Clockwise, from upper left: 'Cherokee Purple', 'Gardener's Delight', 'Sun Belle', 'Jaune Flammée'.

Tomatoes are rolling in (if you'll excuse the awkward metaphor) now - a few hundred grammes every couple of days. I tend to ripen them indoors (picking them when they are ripe enough to come off the vine, but less than fully coloured), because if I don't, they get nibbled. Sadly, some have elected to go mouldy before becoming fully edible, especially 'Costoluto Fiorentino', whose ribs must provide an ideal hiding place for fungal spores. Still, their colours gladden my heart, and I've started photographing them so I have a copyright-free record (and because they are pretty).

Totals for week 15th-21st September:
15th: 1 'Jaune Flammée' tomato at 6g, 12g pumpkin flower (day total: 18g)
16th: 350g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Jaune Flammée' at 22g, 1 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 12g, 2 'Super Marmande' at 164g, 1 'Cherokee Purple' at 152g)
18th: 5g pumpkin flower, 21g runner beans, 6g French beans, 326g tomatoes (comprising 11 'Gardener's Delight' at 61g, 1 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 68g, 3 'Jaune Flammée' at 58g, 2 'Cream Sausage' at 52g, 7 'Sun Belle' at 52g, 5 'Snowberry' at 35g; day total: 358g)
20th: 4g French beans, 2g runner beans, 426g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Cherokee Purple' at 180g, 1 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 28g, 4 'Jaune Flammée' at 47g, 4 'Gardener's Delight' at 28g, 8 'Sun Belle' at 60g, 1 'Snowberry' at 11g, 4 'Green Zebra' at 172g; day total: 432g)
Week total: 1.158kg
Year to date total: 25.032kg

More than a kilo is respectable, and passing the 25kg mark is pleasing, if not especially significant. As a spoiler to the following week's harvest, I've got chard, turnips, and many more tomatoes and beans, so I'm pretty happy with where the garden is right now.

September harvest: week two

Tomatoes, large and small, ripe and unripe. A good impression of the range of colours and forms the varieties I've been growing have taken.

This week was all about tomatoes. Finally! Sadly, many of the ones I picked were not yet ripe, but I had to save them from my mollusc enemies - the recent wet weather hasn't harmed the plants directly (I'd say it's been too windy for blight conditions), but has encouraged the slugs and snails to gorge - and they often take a little out of the side of an unripe tomato. They will ripen adequately indoors, though they'll lack the intensity of flavour you get when they reach full ripeness on the vine. Still, on the basis of weight alone, I should be happy.

Totals for week 8th-14th September:
8th: 12g pumpkin flower, 156g tomatoes (comprising one each 'Cream Sausage' at 21g, 'Super Marmande' at 45g, and 'Summer Cider' at 90g; day total: 168g)
9th: 74g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Super Marmande' at 67g, and 2 'Gardener's Delight' at 7g)
11th: 5g French beans, 77g tomatoes (comprising 5 'Sun Belle' at 28g, and one each 'Super Marmande' at 21g, 'Cream Sausage' at 10g, 'Jaune Flammée' at 11g, and 'Snowberry' at 7g; day total: 82g)
14th: 15g French beans, 1.083kg tomatoes (comprising 2 'Cherokee Purple' at 236g, 2 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 108g, 7 'Jaune Flammée' at 91g, 2 'Sun Belle' at 21g, 2 'Snowberry' at 12g, 12 'Gardener's Delight' at 81g, and 7 'Super Marmande' at 534g; day total: 1.098kg)
Week total: 1.422kg
Year to date total: 23.874kg

In the next couple of weeks, I'll get another picking of mizuna, possibly the first kohl rabi (some have started to swell), more runner beans (they had a second flush of flowers), and hopefully many more tomatoes. I can't say this is the harvest cornucopia I'd pictured back in the spring, but I've learned a lot through my failures - most importantly, patience.

September harvest: week one

A plate of mixed tomatoes.

Here they have been put into an ovenproof dish, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. The larger ones have been chopped.

And this is what they look like after being roasted in a medium oven for over an hour.

The weather this week has not been kind to the tomatoes, but it has suited the autumn vegetables. We've had a bit of everything - sunshine, rain, wind - alternating rapidly. Currently, I'm awaiting the second major storm of the season, this time the remnants of a hurricane, which means outdoor work (such as fencing, painting, repairing previous wind damage) is on hold. The only minor concern is the newest addition to my garden, a quince tree, which has gone in the front. It's a pretty exposed position, though very sunny and with good soil, so I need to stake the tree today to stop it rocking about in the ground, preventing the roots settling. Other than that, ripening is slow. Too little sun has made this a summer of disappointment for many - comparing notes with family who've been visiting recently, confirmed it wasn't just a northern problem. But I have successfully ripened green tomatoes indoors with a banana in a bag (a traditional method, which never ceases to amaze, despite its simplicity) - and I suspect more fruit will go through that process than will ripen on the vine.

Totals for week 1st-7th September:
1st: 11g French beans, 11g runner beans, 193g tomatoes (comprising 3 'Jaune Flammée' at 57g, 1 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 61g, 2 'Snowberry' at 8g, 6 'Gardener's Delight' at 35g*, and 5 'Sun Belle' at 32g; day total: 215g)
2nd: 28g summer squash, 2g French beans, 45g tomatoes (comprising 4 'Gardener's Delight' at 17g, 1 'Jaune Flammée' at 21g, 1 'Snowberry' at 7g; day total: 75g)
4th: 13g pumpkin flowers, 1g runner beans, 15g radish, 49g tomatoes (comprising 6 'Sun Belle' at 20g, 5 'Gardener's Delight' at 23g, 2 'Snowberry' at 6g), 483g apples (day total: 561g)
6th: 30g French beans, 30g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Snowberry' at 14g, 3 'Gardener's Delight' at 14g, 1 'Sun Belle' at 2g; day total: 60g)
7th: 2g French beans, 61g tomatoes (comprising 3 'Jaune Flammée' at 47g, 2 'Gardener's Delight' at 12g, 1 'Sun Belle' at 2g; day total: 63g)
Week total: 974g
Year to date total: 22.452kg

Still, nearly a kilo of produce in a week is not bad - around half of that apples, from the smallest 'tree' in the world (a tiny, knee-high standard my grandfather passed over to me a couple of years ago; last year it carried no fruit at all, this time it had nine, though all were very small). Enough tomatoes for a few meals, enough to gladden the heart and give me an incentive to grow more next year (as if I needed one). Their taste is incomparable.

Meanwhile, I've had a lot of bought produce to deal with. It's a time of plenty, with fruit and vegetables very cheap in all the shops, so I've been making liqueurs, and have plans for more preserves and frozen desserts. Stocking up for winter!

*I couldn't remember exactly how much, between 30 and 39g, so I split the difference.

August harvest: week four/monthly summary

Say hello to mizuna pesto. I harvested so much I had to find a recipe that required a lot. It's such a vibrant green - though I don't yet know whether it will be delicious.

I'm continuing the practice of lumping together the final part of the month, even though it exceeds seven days - it doesn't make sense to have a 'week five' post for three extra days. So the figure below can't be seen as a week's harvest, but given the low figures this month, I don't suppose it will matter. Ultimately, my totals will be for the whole year (when it's over), so there's no need to nitpick.

Growth may have slowed in some areas (the tomatoes are putting more energy into swelling existing fruit, than getting much bigger or setting a lot of new ones), but is still fast elsewhere - windowsill herbs, and autumn-cropping leaves and roots are racing ahead. However, I'm still very much waiting for the harvest. I've all but given up on my 50kg total tomato haul, although my attitude goes from positivity to pessimism almost daily. It depends largely on how much the larger fruits weigh - the 'Cherokee Purple' have grown quite fat, though ripening is nowhere to be seen. The smaller varieties are well underweight - in fact, everything I've picked so far has been less than a quarter the lower expected average weight, which means my sums will be all wrong. To put it in context, I'd assumed the average weight would be 50g per tomato, and so far only two or three fruits has exceeded that. At this rate, unless I harvest several times more fruits than I estimated, I will miss my target by an order of magnitude.

Totals for week 22nd-31st August:
22nd: 89g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Cream Sausage' at 30g*, 4 'Snowberry' at 24g, 2 'Jaune Flammée' at 23g, 2 'Gardener's Delight' at 7g, and 1 'Sun Belle' at 5g)
24th: 6g runner beans, 5g French beans, 34g tomatoes (comprising 4 'Gardener's Delight' at 24g, and 2 'Snowberry' at 10g; day total: 45g)
26th: 43g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Jaune Flammée' at 22g, 2 'Sun Belle' at 11g, and 3 'Gardener's Delight' at 10g)
27th: 6g runner beans, 2g French beans, 32g tomatoes (comprising 1 each 'Jaune Flammée' and 'Snowberry', both 5g, and 3 'Gardener's Delight' at 22g; day total: 40g)
28th: 40g mizuna, 25g radish, 3g chives, 54g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Jaune Flammée' at 11g, 2 'Snowberry' at 15g, 2 'Gardener's Delight' at 8g, and 4 'Sun Belle' at 20g; day total: 122g)
30th: 16g runner beans, 39g tomatoes (comprising 1 'Snowberry' at 9g, 1 'Jaune Flammée' at 12g, 1 'Sun Belle' at 6g, and 2 'Gardener's Delight' at 12g; day total: 55g)
31st: 3 'Cherokee Purple' tomatoes at 266g**, 408g mizuna (day total: 674g)
Total for 10 days: 1.068kg
Total for August: 2.536kg
Year to date total: 21.478kg

Over a kilogramme! Mostly tomatoes and mizuna. The latter has been an unexpected star - it was ready before I expected, based on average cropping time, and it regenerated in just a few days after its first cutting. I've had it in salad, stir fry, and will use the biggest batch for a kind of pesto.

I suppose September will be the month for tomatoes. I can see signs of ripening on dozens of fruits now, inside and out. The kohl rabi, turnips, black radish, swede, and beetroot are beginning to swell, so I might get some by the end of the month. The carrots are slower, so they may be an October crop. The stem lettuce have swollen alarmingly, but I don't know the crop well enough to know how long they will take to mature. There's still time for more sowing, so I hope to have a lot more in the ground in a few weeks - it's easy to think of September and October as autumn months, but the average temperatures aren't much lower than summer, so the harvests should continue for weeks to come.

*These were suffering from blossom end rot, but ripened regardless.
**A large truss split, and three fruits snapped off, unripe. I'm hoping to ripen them indoors with the aid of a banana.

August harvest: week three

The mizuna is ready! I snipped one third of the catch crop I sowed in the first raised bed, which was plenty! The odd tiny slug and snail were dealt with by soaking in salted water and thorough rinsing. I'll pick more in the next day or two.

Slim pickings again, but I've had a little of something more than every other day. The tomatoes are ripening gradually, giving me enough for a salad here, a pasta sauce there, but nowhere near the quantities I need for preserving. Another variety came on-stream this week: 'Sun Belle'. I'll obviously be doing full summaries of each variety later in the year, but my initial impression was, it's sweeter and less acid than its near-twin 'Snowberry' (the former not as golden as expected, the latter not quite as pale). Delicious, anyhow.

Totals for week 15th-21st August:
16th: 70g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Jaune Flammée' at 38g, 3 'Snowberry' at 15g, and 4 'Gardener's Delight' at 17g)
17th: 9g French beans
20th: 2g French beans, 34g runner beans (day total: 36g)
21st: 121g tomatoes (comprising 2 'Costoluto Fiorentino' at 76g, 3 'Gardener's Delight', 3 'Sun Belle', and 2 'Snowberry', each at 15g), 80g mizuna (day total: 201g)
Week total: 316g
Year to date total: 20.41kg

So, I didn't manage another 500g. Not to worry - I have been doing other things (including building the side gate, finally - a key step in securing the back garden, which has not had a lockable gate for two or three years, and has never been private). The raised beds in the front garden are growing so fast, it fills me with pride, and spurs me on - I want more like that! I'll do another tomato update very soon, but I will just mention here that there is a lot of fruit coming - including some rather large 'Cherokee Purple' (outside!). I might get to 21kg by the end of the month.

August harvest: week two

My camera has problems focusing in less-than-perfect light. Still, you can see the range of colours in the three varieties of tomato I picked today. The red one on the left is the mutant bloom I mentioned two months ago.

Another light week. There a lot of variety, but not much substance. The tomatoes are delicious, at least, and everything is brightly coloured. I'm a little concerned by the continuing paucity of tomatoes and beans, but I'm comforted by thriving autumn crops, which are germinating all over the place.

Totals for week 8th-14th August:
8g French beans, 54g tomatoes (4x'Gardener's Delight': 21g; 2x 'Jaune Flammée': 33g; day total: 62g)
12th: 121g beetroot, 87g beet tops (day total: 208g)
14th: 4g French beans, 164g tomatoes (2x'Costoluto Fiorentino': 79g; 4x'Jaune Flammée': 66g; 3x'Snowberry': 19g), 537g shallots (day total: 705g)
Week total: 975g
Year to date total: 20.094kg

My informal goal this week was 20kg, but I knew it was unlikely. In fact, until I cleaned, trimmed, and weighed the shallots, I thought I'd missed it. It may seem convenient that I harvested them this week, but in fact they were as ready as they'd ever be - their leaves had mostly died back, although the bulbs were pretty small. Still, for an old recycling box of unimproved compost, it's not bad. Most of them have gone into a batch of marrow chutney I'm just making.

I suppose, to be realistic, I can't expect more than 500g this coming week, but we'll see.

August harvest: week one

I already posted a picture of the week's harvest in this entry, so here's a pretty shot of the French bean blossom - they are so ornamental, any crop is a bonus!

It wasn't a heavy week's harvest, but there was more out there than before. A few tomatoes, French beans, blackberries. Enough to brighten my plate here and there, but not enough to subsist on.

Totals for week 1st-7th August:
5th: 6g French beans, 80g 'Jaune Flammée' tomatoes (5 fruits), 42g 'Costoluto Fiorentino' tomatoes (1 fruit; tomato total: 122g), 32g blackberries, 3g nasturtium flowers, 3g Calendula flowers (edible flower total: 6g), 11g mesclun (day total: 177g)
Week total: 177g
Year to date total: 19.119kg

Meanwhile, the next door garden (belonging to my grandfather) was the star. He has a double plum tree (i.e. two varieties grafted onto one rootstock, though they have grown into effectively two separate trees), and the large, yellow-green variety (the other is a mirabelle, I believe - cherry-sized, red fruits, but it has never given a large crop) has cropped heavily again this year. I can't include them in my totals above, but the first picking (he'd already picked a lot, and some had fallen to the ground, yet there were as many again still on the tree) yielded just over 12kg. That was more than enough to occupy my kitchen for now. I made a batch of wine, reluctantly, as the last one (I made it two years ago) wasn't very nice, but there were so many, I needed to find some way of processing a lot in one go. The most delicious product so far has been plum sauce - the fragrant yellow fruits being converted into a rich, complex, satisfyingly balanced brown purée, with onion (or homegrown shallots in this case), garlic, vinegar, honey, brown sugar, five spice (home-blended and -ground), soy sauce, and sherry. Really delicious, which is excellent as it transforms the plums into something much nicer, and I've been converted to the stuff, having never much enjoyed commercial plum sauce in the past.

I also bought a few bits from the allotments on Sunday, including a 4.5kg marrow. I haven't yet done anything with it, but again it will require some ingenuity!

An August day

A few photos I took today sum up the day so well, I decided to do a quick photo post:

Trusses of 'Jaune Flammée', some ready to pick, and to the left, 'Snowberry', still green.

Everything I picked today was orange or purple! Blackberries, purple French beans (the first of the year), edible flowers (nasturtium and Calendula), tomatoes ('Jaune Flammée' and 'Costoluto Fiorentino')

And where some of that produce ended up. Millet, served with tomatoes, mesclun, French beans, and edible flowers.

It was a pretty good day - what I hoped, but didn't dare expect of this time of year: picking homegrown fruit and vegetables at their peak, and eating them for dinner. The more I do it, the more I am inspired to try. The icing on the cake? I sold my first plant! I'd like to do this a lot more, supplementing my partial self-sufficiency with a moderate income from selling spare plants. Enough to cover my costs would be a good start!

July harvest: weeks three and four

A little out of focus, but there it is - the first 'Jaune Flammée', and the third tomato harvested*. The skin was thick, and maybe it was a day or two too early (note the green tinges) - but it was delicious! Intense, sweet, fragrant, rich. The best reward, small though it is. Many more to come!

Another hungry gap! Usually, that phrase refers to the period at the beginning of the year, up to around April or May, when the overwintering veg (like cabbages and sprouting broccoli) is mostly harvested, and the spring stuff (peas, broad beans, potatoes, asparagus, salad leaves) isn't yet ready. Well, I've hit another one here in late July - but although it means my totals are well down right now, I can avoid it next year if I sow the right crops.

Simply put, the first flush of summer fruit and vegetables have been gathered and preserved or used. Meanwhile, the late summer harvest is still unripe. As I picked pretty much nothing in the first week, I decided to swap back to a fortnightly harvest update, but I'm hoping that I can revert to a weekly format soon. There were some things to be picked; spinach still provides - although I pulled up one plant that was being encroached by a lavender that's grown a lot since they were all planted in March, the remaining two are producing fairly tender flower spikes with small leaves that go nicely with pasta. The grape vines have grown rampantly for the most part (I need to control them at some point), which is excellent for stuffed vine leaves - something I made a lot of last year, but not as much as I wanted. The leaves are mostly a little smaller than I'd like, but it's not too hard to use two or three per roll. You can buy the leaves in specialist shops or some supermarkets, of course, but how much better to gather them from your own garden - so exotic for these climes. They are simply trimmed of their stalks, blanched in boiling water for a minute or so, and left to drain. Once you get the hang of wrapping them round rice (with various seasonings), or minced meat, or a combination of both, it's quite easy, and they have a lovely, distinctive, sharp taste from the tartaric acid they contain. Delicious.

The blackberries are early this year, like everything else. I left some to grow on an otherwise uncultivable patch of ground at the side of the back garden, but I will probably not leave them next year, as they always try to spread. I reclaimed much of the back from brambles over the past few years, but they are tenacious - they still sprout here and there (the trick is to dig them out, and keep attacking them whenever they appear). For now, though, the dark, soft, ripe fruit is very sweet, and ideal for a late batch of jam.

The highlight of this week, however, was the smallest harvest of all: the first tomatoes! The first of all was indoors, on the windowsill. The second was from a plant that had formed fruits similarly in response to stress, but that I'd planted up on the terrace, so it counted as the first outdoor tomato. Both were 'Gardener's Delight', a variety not known for being especially early, but which deals with adverse conditions better than most. The final one was 'Jaune Flammée', from the greenhouse plant that went in first. It has many fruits on several trusses, which are now taking on colour, but it's nearly five weeks late (based on the number of days this variety ought to take from final planting to harvest), so it's not perfect. Still, all were indescribably intensely flavoured and delicious, and the ultimate reward for all the work I've devoted to them so far. Just another 50-100kg would be nice now!

Totals for week 15th-31st July:
26th: 4g tomato
28th: 278g turnip tops, 35g shallot (day total: 313g)
30th: 3g tomato, 312g vine leaves**, 48g spinach, 478g blackberries*** (day total: 841g)
31st: 14g tomato, 72g spinach (day total: 86g)
Total for fortnight: 1.244kg
Total for July: 7.351kg
Year to date total: 18.942kg

Over a kilogramme isn't bad, I suppose, and I'm heading towards 20kg, which is another milestone. I just need more tomatoes to ripen! I'll continue to harvest vine leaves (another few in the coming week, probably, and then a second flush before they turn at the end of the summer) and blackberries - they ripen over a period of weeks. There are also saladings coming - a tray of mesclun (mixed leaves), and then the kailaan (which I've already potted on) and seedling thinnings. And more spinach I expect.

*In the last entry I asked of a tomato "how long before this is ready to pick?". This is the very same - so the answer is five days!
**I only include those from my garden; I will also harvest some from next door (my granddad's), but since I didn't grow them, they can't count towards the total.
***These grow unfettered on a strip between my garden and next door's fence. I didn't plant them, but allowed them to grow there, so I count them in my total.

July harvest: week two

Shallots, laid out in the sun to "cure"

It had to happen, though when it came, it was more sudden than I expected: the end of the soft fruit harvest. I lost a fair amount to laziness - some shrivelled berries dropped to the ground, some were too far gone to use. But most - well over 75% - have been harvested, I'd say, and I don't begrudge the earth taking back some of what it gave me. There was far more than I needed anyway.

The sun has shone rather a lot in the past couple of weeks. The temperatures have been pleasant, the wind light. Evenings and nights have been cool, which may suit some plants more than others. In general, it's a "normal" English summer I suppose - though it's been so long since we had one (last year there was a hosepipe ban here, the last few years have seen prolonged heavy rain), it's hard to tell. I suppose what I mean is this is what I hope for in the summer - it's not Mediterranean, let alone subtropical, but it's nice. Ideal for spending time outside, which encourages me to tend to plants, pull up weeds, and do general building work and maintenance, which I might otherwise neglect.

For the first time in weeks, the harvest is dominated by vegetables again. Just as the broad beans were a blip when they finally matured, so this time it is with the shallots. I had two varieties, in three locations - "Red Sun" and "Golden Gourmet". They were purchased on a whim, reduced, from Wilkinson (a general store, very useful for those of us in the town centre without a car, as they sell lots of gardening and DIY products). They cost around £1.30 a bag, with 40-50 sets in each one. I had a main bed, on the lower part of the sloped part of the back garden (around 2 metres by half a metre), in an old recycling box, and in the front, in a corner. The main bed thrived, the box shallots have done okay, but are quite small, and those in the front got overshadowed by weeds and other vegetables, and have shrivelled, though survived. This week I picked all the main bed, and acidentally pulled up one cluster in the front. They range in size from similar to a clove of garlic, up to the size of a golfball, though most are about halfway between these two extremes. The main bed yielded a large weight (see below), which for reference is about 125-130 separate bulbs. I am really impressed by that - they were cheap, easy, and I only fed them once, at the start, by enriching the soil with a little compost, and a sprinkling of blood, fish, and bone. They were not watered after the initial planting. So they epitomise the ideal small garden crop: low-maintenance, cheap, and providing a large crop in a small space. They will be a fixture in my garden forever more.

Totals for week 8th-14th July:
10th: 461g raspberries*, 21g spinach (day total: 482g)
11th: 50g shallots
13th: 2.574kg shallots**, 84g strawberries, 16g blackcurrants, 367g raspberries (day total: 3.041kg)
14th: 12g beetroot, 31g beetroot tops, 59g turnip (day total: 102g)
Total for week: 3.675kg
Year to date total: 17.698kg

As you can see, I beat my informal target this week, which was 16.5kg. I must say, I'm becoming rather blasé about it - but I ought to remember how ecstatic I was with a few tens of grammes per week back in the spring. July to October is the heavy cropping season, of course, when the garden has the most sunshine to convert into produce, and where the work of the spring bears literal fruit. However, this is also a time to be planning for the next six to nine months - as there is a great deal that can be sown into the spaces left by beans, peas, and shallots.

So what's the plan? Well, the tomatoes and summer beans are mostly self-sufficient, needing just occasional tying in, pinching out, feeding, watering, and inspecting. Pleasant tasks, especially in the summer sunshine. What really needs my attention is sowing and preparing ground. At this time of year, seeds germinate very quickly - in days in many cases - so it won't be long before fresh greenery appears around the place, which mitigates a little the feeling of sadness as the summer turns into autumn.

A few conventional British crops can be sown now, just: beetroots, summer spinach, spring onions, radish, and lettuces, and even late peas. I'll try to make room for all those, but I'm really concentrating on "oriental vegetables", of which a great range is now available, and which have the advantages of varying hardiness (so some will go right through the winter, especially under cover), novelty (shapes, flavours, and textures that will liven up the garden and the kitchen), and speed (some will be ready in four to six weeks). I've got pak choi, tsoi sim (choy sum), kailaan, komatsuna, mustard greens, mizuna, mibuna, mispoona, and a few more whose names I haven't yet learned. And a few random crops: amaranth, orach, kohl rabi, radicchio, and black winter radish. Making room for all of these will be a challenge, but I will be creative. If all goes to plan, September and October will be fruitful times indeed!

*includes 100g estimate, fruit I picked and immediately gave to my granddad without weighing.
**picked 11th, left to cure in the sun until the 13th, when they were cleaned and weighed.

July harvest: week one

No pictures this week, I'm afraid.

Totals for week 1st-7th July:
3rd: 2.090kg raspberries, 82g shallots, 250g strawberries, 10g gooseberries (day total: 2.432kg)
Total for week: 2.432kg
Year to date total: 14.023kg

The shallots weren't planned. Most of the plants in the main bed have started falling over, which is a sign they're getting ready for dormancy (which is the time to harvest them), but I was clearing some raspberry canes that had infiltrated them, and some of the smaller bulbs lifted out accidentally. They are really good - intensely flavoured. These were the variety 'Red Sun', with a pinkish tinge under the skin.

I set another mini goal for this week, of reaching 15kg. Again, it was possible, but not guaranteed, which is what these things are for - to motivate me, and make me feel good about what I've achieved. The larger goals - for my tomatoes, for example - are based more on what I think I can practically expect. Shorter-term targets are easier to set high, because I can judge how much the garden is producing now. A month down the line is still beyond me.

Well, if I'd gone out yesterday and picked some more fruit, no doubt I would have found more than a kilo to make up the total, but the weather has been mixed recently, and I have been concentrating on the new kitchen (it's edging closer!). Still, over 14kg is great, and as I'm likely to pick a lot more in the next week, I'll set a new total of 16.5kg for seven days' time.

June harvest: week four/monthly summary

The end of the month meant the peak of the strawberries - mostly intact, a good colour, and intensely fragrant!

Instead of doing my harvest update on Tuesday, I decided to wait till the last day of the month, and round up all that's happened. First of all, the daily totals:

Totals for nine days 22nd-30th June:
27th: 825g raspberries, 7g wild strawberries, 5g strawberries (day total: 837g)
29th: 1.225kg strawberries, 182g gooseberries, 1.83kg raspberries (day total: 3.237kg)
30th: 746g broad beans, 94g spinach (day total: 840g)
Total for period: 4.914kg

Yes, I wasn't out there so much this past week. I've been quite busy, and to be honest, I like to pick large amounts at once, rather than little and often, at least where the fruit is concerned (you need a certain base amount for most recipes, usually a pound). Still, the totals are impressive - and it's largely soft fruit. The vegetables put in a late showing, but are now mostly over, and I'm still waiting for their replacements (I warn you now: there aren't going to be any squashes for a long time - more on that in a future post). There are quite a few baby tomatoes in the greenhouse now, but I have no idea how long they'll take (the date for the theoretical first fruit has passed, unsurprisingly without ripening, as I've not been quite conscientious enough about the plants' welfare).

A little of the fruit has been discarded. I refuse to store fruit in the fridge unless absolutely necessary, and that's usually fine, but I was distracted by a number of other things going on (such as a friend's barbecue), so some of the strawberries went mouldy. A tragedy, but what can you do? Better than throwing away shop-bought food, and it all gets composted anyhow.

As far as June is concerned, however, it's been a raging success. I had harvested just over half a kilogramme of produce up to the end of May, which I was proud of, but seems pitiful now, after so many days with more than that in a single bowlful. As I keep saying, the soft fruit season is finite, and will soon end, so this is the first of two major harvest periods in the year (the other, I imagine, will be towards the end of August through September, when the tomatoes and other late things will be ready). I am enjoying it while it lasts. As if to confirm this, yesterday's prodigious strawberry harvest was almost the end - very few fruits remain, although a second flowering is not out of the question (last year they didn't have time to ripen the second crop, however). Raspberries have another week at least.

What else has been successful? The spinach, although that goes for the whole year - it has kept producing endlessly, and I haven't bought any for months. What hasn't? The peas were a writeoff, the beans were just so-so until the very end. They weren't so delicious as to justify the time and space devoted to them (let alone the price; bean seeds are quite expensive), but I will plant some again next year (or in the autumn for an early spring crop). I may revert to more productive, less unusual varieties, though - three beds have given around a kilogramme in total, which simply isn't enough. The gooseberry was a failure - for the fourth or fifth year in a row. It didn't lose all its leaves to sawfly this year, and the fruits ripened - they were meant to be deep red, but have never had the chance to get that far in the past. I will be ripping it out, and I doubt I'll grow them again - they take up too much space, only produce one crop a year (whereas that ground could provide a succession of vegetables), and it's not as though I'm crazy about gooseberries anyway. The currants didn't provide a mass of fruit, but I do adore them, so I'll buy new plants and try again somewhere else.

Total for June: 11.081kg

I had the idea last week, looking at the figures, that I'd set a final personal goal this month - of 10kg total harvest. A bit ambitious, but just possible. Well as you can see I beat it by some margin. Which means:

Year to date total: 11.591kg

Which is respectable, I think, and satisfies me for now. But the sooner my front garden is stuffed with lettuces, spinach, beetroot, turnips, and tomatoes, the sooner I can relax again!

Finally, what do I have to look forward to in July? Well, hopefully more settled, sunny conditions! We're in the middle of just such a period, and it's just what the garden needs (especially the tomatoes). I will be harvesting the shallots this month - the best have really swollen, each bulb now several, each larger than the original. Most will be stored for later use, some kept for planting next year. The first tomato! I am confident the largest 'Jaune Flammée', which is now around the size of a large cherry tomato (it may grow a little more, it may not) will ripen in the next two to three weeks, although I doubt I'll be harvesting very many until August. I'm determined to sow salads, and oriental greens for the autumn - hopefully, the first leaves will be ready in a few weeks.

June harvest: week three

My harvest on the 17th: a bowlful of summer.

And not to be outdone, the front garden has been producing vegetables.

The fruit just keeps coming! The strawberries are ripening all over the place, and not getting too nibbled before I catch them (the ones I miss end up hollow and full of woodlice - seems to be their favourite food! Except wood, of course)*. And now, the raspberries are doing the same - and being held high off the ground, they tend to avoid any problems (the birds round here, which may have noticed my cherries, seem to ignore these equally delicious fruits). The strawberries weigh more, of course, the largest so far being 30g, so they still account for the bulk of the total. But in numbers, the raspberries are probably winning by this point. I actually prefer raspberries, so I'm perfectly happy with that.

Meanwhile, in the front, there is still spinach - what stars they've been (living up to their name 'perpetual'). The broad beans are swelling at last, and as you can see, the turnips that took (a handful) have got to a good size (they say pick them at golfball size, but I've had them nearer a tennis-ball and they aren't woody). So as you can see from the pictures, June is red and green, with just a touch of white.

Totals for week 15th-21st June:
15th: 98g turnip, 244g turnip tops (day total 342g)
17th: 323g raspberries, 774g strawberries, 6g cherry (day total 1103g)
18th: 1g wild strawberry
21st: 73g broad beans, 693g strawberries, 1049g raspberries, 159g redcurrants, 210g whitecurrants (day total 2184g)
Total for week: 3.630kg
Year to date total: 6.677kg

The exponential growth continues! Once again, a week's harvest has exceeded the year's total to date. I suspect this will be the last time - at least until tomatoes and winter squash are ripe. It seems appropriate that the largest haul I've had so far came on Midsummer's Day - the high point of the year for me, I think. Not that it's all downhill just yet - warmth and light can be counted on (to a point) for a couple more months.

So much fruit! It actually took ages to pick all this today, but in the peaceful sunshine, it was no chore.

I used the previous batch of strawberries to make jam, but despite following the recipe closely, and using proprietary pectin stock, it didn't set. That's a problem I always have with strawberry jam, so I need to work on it. The taste was great, though - perfect, light but intense, if that's not contradictory. The raspberries will be split between jam, syrup, and whatever fancy recipes that catch my eye in the next couple of weeks. The turnip and broad bean tops made a passable soup, but it was a bit fibrous, even after prolonged blending. Maybe not worth the effort.

*Picking strawberries this damp evening, it turns out the holes are made initially by tiny slugs. Thankfully, the damage has remained lighter than in previous years.

June harvest: week two

Today it is sunny, and noticeably warm. Sadly, that's a rarity. It was similar on Saturday, but the breeze got up later in the day, and in any case I spent the afternoon and evening away from home (helping my friend with her tomatoes - well, giving her some plants, installing them in her greenhouse, showing her the ropes). So today I must make the most of a dry spell - Sunday was the opposite, cold and rainy, but most days are cool to mild, with showers. Not good for cementing, painting, or using powertools outdoors! I'm hoping to get the final roof panel on the greenhouse today, and maybe the door.

I pulled up the peas. I had one large container (almost a raised bed) of them, and although they'd persevered through everything we've had this spring, the snails didn't relent, and I decided to pull them up, releasing space for probably a couple of pumpkin plants. The broad beans similarly, have produced little - tiny beans, smallish pods, and not many of them. I will probably pull them up wholesale over the next week or so.

My pitiful harvest - this is all the peas I got, plus some broad beans.

I wrote the paragraph above before I went into the front garden a little earlier. In fact, patience has paid off there - the chest-high bean plants have fat pods hidden at the base of their stems. I still won't have a glut, but it's not a disaster - enough to encourage me to try again next year, with more plants, earlier sowing, and more discipline. I will leave the existing plants until the pods are ripe, rather than ripping them up.

However, there's been no shortage of strawberries, as I mentioned in my last post, and the raspberries are ripening too. I'll give the currants a few more days, and what gooseberries there are are starting to blush (they're a red variety), so I'll wait until they're ready. Otherwise, there's not much to have - the shallots are fattening, but the leaves are still green, so I expect it'll be a month before I can harvest them. The tomatoes are flowering left, right, and centre, but no fruit has set as yet (I'm starting to get concerned). Everything else is either too small, or I haven't sown it yet. Damn.

Totals for week 8th-14th June:
8th: 190g strawberries
10th: 4g raspberries and alpine (wild) strawberries, 274g strawberries, 22g snap peas, 20g broad beans, 28g peas (day total: 348g)
12th: 330g strawberries, 3g raspberries, 2g cherries (day total: 335g)
13th: 7g broad beans, 5g alpine strawberries, 43g raspberries, 172g strawberries (day total: 227g)
14th: 30g raspberries, 305g strawberries, 39g spinach, 50g broad beans, 87g turnip, 31 broad bean tops, 245g turnip tops (day total: 787g)
Total for week: 1.897kg (once again, more than the whole year to date!)
Year to date total: 3.047kg

So, not a bad week, statistically. In fact, the stuff I gathered just today amounts to more than one-and-a-half times the weight of everything I harvested up to the end of May! Clearly, June is a season of mellow fruitfulness - I just hope this isn't a peak, but more a sign of the bounty yet to come.

And what did I do with all that produce? Well, the strawberries went into a batch of syrup, and I'll make another one with some of the rest (the syrup really is divine - I'll post a recipe soon). I'll look through my recipe books for the small batch of raspberries I have so far - maybe a mousse, tart, or jelly. The spinach, peas, beans and turnip go into my dinners (usually rice), and their tops will make a soup (a bit of an experiment!).

June harvest: week one

Two exciting things make this first June harvest particularly special. My first-ever home-grown cherry ripened a few days ago. I have two trees, which I planted two years ago. One I've trained as a fan against the top fence (a south-facing fence that runs along the terrace, higher than the house), and the other is planted on the opposite side of the terrace, and left to its own devices. I expected no fruit the first year (two or three flowers on one of the trees fell off), but last year there was some blossom, but no fruit either. The freestanding tree got infested both years by blackfly, making its new growth twisted and discoloured. This year, the fan-trained tree (which is much larger, whether due to the variety, the soil, position, or having its growth forced into a few strong branches) got the blackfly, but at least has set a couple of dozen fruits, but it was the other one that produced the first ripe fruit (of only three full-sized cherries on the whole tree).

Totals for week 1st-7th June:
1st: 8g chard (the last of last summer's rainbow chard - I need to re-sow), 40g spinach, 73g mint
2nd: 23g strawberries, 3g cherry
3rd: 62g strawberries, 33g spinach
5th: 30g peas + pea pods (I had to harvest some early, because one plant was looking sickly, so I stripped what was there, and cooked the whole lot as there wasn't much - the pods were tough), 53g broad bean tops (more on this below), 158g strawberries, and a negligible weight of (but big taste hit from) tarragon and parsley
6th: 128g strawberries
7th: 37g strawberries, 2g broad beans (I tried a large pod)
Total for week: 650g (more than the whole year to date!)
Year to date total: 1.16kg

Which means I beat my target a week early! (That's the second special thing, in case you were wondering). I'd hoped to harvest 500g in the first two weeks of June. Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'll revise it to 800g - I can't guarantee the strawberries will continue producing consistently (there's a mass of green fruit, but I suspect the weather has an effect on when they ripen). Second, I've harvested my first kilogramme of produce! Compared to Annie's Granny, it's small beer indeed, but it's a nice figure, and the heavy stuff comes later in the season (pumpkins, squash, tomatoes).

As you can see from the figures above, the vast majority of the weight is soft fruit, but I suppose it's slightly unfair since leaves don't weigh much (I've had lots of spinach, but even a large handful amounts to a few tens of grammes). If I was feeling uncharitable, I could also mention how most of it comes from perennials, rather than stuff I sowed/planted in the past few months. But produce is produce! And I think it's good to have a balance between crops that largely look after themselves with minimal intervention (mint is a prime example), and those that need more care, last a much shorter time, but allow for more experimentation year on year.

Now, a note on peas and beans, pre-empting the next couple of harvest totals. I planted two beds of broad beans in the front garden. One has been rather swamped by surrounding plants (mostly weeds), so I expect little from it; the other has grown luxuriantly - they are chest-high, with not a blackfly amongst them. But, there's part of the problem. I got it into my head that pinching out the tops was only necessary if they became infested, so I left them. They flowered their heads off, but the pods are small and few. The rule is, pinch out to allow the energy to go into the fruit - just like tomatoes. Second, the winds here in May have blasted the plants, stripping a lot of flowers. So, I don't expect much from them. In the back garden, I have two large planters, one with more broad beans, the other with peas. Incidentally, the two varieties of broad beans I planted were 'Karmazyn', a pink-fruited kind, and 'Red Epicure', with even darker pink/red beans (I have a batch of young crimson-flowered plants ready to go somewhere); the peas are 'Serpette Guillotteau'. Well, both have been attacked by snails relentlessly - even now they are large, the lower leaves are stripped, and even the pods have been nibbled.

So I don't expect much from my legumes this season. I've never done terribly well with peas, so maybe I should give up on them. I had high hopes for a glut of beans, but it seems it's not to be. At least the French and runner beans are looking healthy - for now!