Harvest Monday

Harvest central time on the balcony garden - it is lettuce, lettuce, lettuce leading the way. I can't tell you how many salads we've been enjoying made from this little pot of lettuce. It never seems to end. My favourite was a smoked salmon salad.

 

We also added some microgreens from this collection as well as a few stray basil leaves from the snail ravaged plants. I figured we may as well enjoy them before the snails finish them off!

Garlic too is beginning to be harvested. The first lot of heads were small, probably not quite ready, but their space was needed and they were wilting so out they came.

And here is a little hint of future harvests ...

With 28 tomato plants in the balcony garden this year, surely we will get at least one delicious little love apple!?!

More harvest posts can be found over at Daphne's Dandelions where she hosts Harvest Monday weekly.

Tomato Envy

At the IABA conference quite a number of people were interested in blogs and blogging and there were some great papers on the subject. I introduced these scholars to the term 'harvest porn' - the droolworthy pictures of harvests. Most giggled, some were academically confronted by the exact terminology, while others couldn't understand the joy of looking at someone else's garden produce. But I love these pictures, and at the moment there are so many amazing Northern Hemisphere harvests (and some pretty awesome local ones too.) What I drooled over the most were tomatoes. Delicious, homegrown, still warm from the sun tomatoes.

So I got harvest envy, or moreover tomato envy. It is a love apple seven deadly sin fest on my computer screen! Luckily I curbed this envy a little while ago when the market sold the last of the heirloom tomatoes. Similar scenarios have happened in years gone past.

This time around I got these two beauties and the pictures do not do justice to their size. The portion of slices pictured below was for one meal, and I managed to get three and a half plates of similar size out of these miraculous 'matoes!!!

 Just add some other chopped veggies and here is one wonderful meal.

The red one was a bit like a mortgage lifter, though a little mealy. The yellow was deliciously sweet but again a little mealy. Given the lateness in the season (it was winter for goodness sake) I am not surprised at their mealy interiors but both were heaven anyway.

The Vic markets and some of the Woolworths and Coles in the area (and hopefully smaller places can get in on this action, grrr to Coles and Woolies for monopolising the good stuff.) often have these medley tomatoes. They're grown in such conditions that they are available nearly all year round. They're pretty good, tasty little mouthfuls though sometimes a little insipid. Still they're much better than the cardboard tomatoes of the past!

But nothing, nothing beats the taste of a good, homegrown tomato, so until Spring hits it is tomato envy for me all the way. Keep up the good harvests.

Harvest Monday

Conference season means I've been away spreading my academic wares and absorbing the fantastic works of others. First up was the Australian Historical Association conference in Adelaide where I also caught a nasty flu, which meant the citrus drinks aided by my recent harvests were a little ineffective. Then on to Canberra for the IABA conference (international auto/biographical association) where my voice had returned but the cough had remained. Papers went well and I thoroughly enjoyed all the sessions I attended. I was particularly pleased seeing a few Melbourne colleagues giving papers (not the least of which was my lovely other half.) Being at a conference in Adelaide meant staying with the parentals, which was as lovely as always. AND I got to see the puppy dogs, who were, as always, as cute as ever.

One would also think that being away would limit the harvest - but here are a few things I harvested before I left (and since I've returned.)

Some thumbelina and purple carrots, enjoyed by me, my lovely bf and also by the bugs of the garden (tiny but super delicious, the carrots that is, not the bugs.)

 (see the big chunk taken out of the orange one!!! I can assure you that was all descendents of Sid the Snail and not me.)

Greens are a good staple on the balcony. Things such as broccoli, kale and swiss chard made a delicious stirfry along with pork mince and rice cakes.

Brocolli leaves (only) also went into a nutritious and delicious soup, that while a distinct hue of baby vomit green, have proven to be almost addictive. I've had two bowls today already. Probably the yellow curry, lentils, parsnips, carrots and potatoes I put in with it. They say that the leaves have a tonne of Vitamin A in them which is awesome, and usually I'd just chuck them out. Hooray for food scraps!

 

The garden is a little light on produce now (except for a few snow peas, some piddly little lettuce and a few bits of broccoli.) But ... in exciting news ... I spent an hour or so today cleaning up the left over pots in preparation for the spring crop which is just around the corner! Future harvests here we come. For more amazing harvests visit Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday Macarons

Harvest Monday and so much to report but virtually no photos of it. I picked so much basil, rosemary, coriander, yellow carrots, snow peas and lettuce over the past week but ate it all before photographing it. Here is a stock photo from last week to tide you all over.

The balcony garden keeps me in most of my veggie needs and added well to the things I baked for my 30ths birthday over the weekend! Indeeded almost everything listed above went into goods for the party. Coriander in the marinated chicken sticks, yellow carrots on the dip platter, rosemary and basil on the mini pizzas and more. What a great party. So sorry I don't have pictures of the harvest, but I hope the picture below of the multicoloured macarons I made to celebrate the occasion will make up for it.