Winter is here

It's nice and cold here at the moment and it can be hard getting motivated sometimes.
The winter produce is coming along pretty good. I'm a bit worried about the horseradish as something keeps eating the tops so I'll have to wait and see how it  goes.
Some more pictures of what is currently growing.

Garlic. Sourced from locally grown product.

The brassicas are growing well. I hope they produce.

Spinach

Silverbeet

 Leeks

 Lettuce and endive

Carrots

And finally for a bit of red a picture of a giant aconcagua taken about two weeks ago.Most of these peppers were picked last week and stuffed. These will definitely be on my growing list next season.

Not too much happening this time of the year in the garden.
The asparagus ferns were cut down and cleaned up. Here's hoping that there is some good eating in a few months time. This is about the fourth year they have been growing so production is expected.

Most of the garlic has also popped up as well.

I harvested the smaller of the pumpkins  as we needed a good variety veges for our roast. The vine had died right of. Actually I'm sure that I have mentioned in an earlier post how the vine for this one was cut accidently. Nevertheless it still took weeks for the vine to totally die down.

The first thing I noticed when it was finally cut open was the smell. It was a beautiful fresh smell that I have never before smelt.

It was great to get such a bright colour on a late autumn day. Once it was finally cooked it also tasted really good.
I believe there is pumpkin soup on the menu tomorrow night. Not the biggest fan of this soup but always have at least one bowl when prepared previously.

Late April days

It is mid autumn here and as many years before us the weather has been divine for this time of the year.. Typical sunny days and cooler nights.
I'm waiting for the winter veggies to grow and that will be some time away.

Bees are still enjoying whatever flowers they can find in the sunshine. In this case it is an African blue basil plant. It is great having this plant around as we can get fresh basil all year round.

The spinach is starting to come on.

As is the silver beet.

Our beautiful chickens continue to provide us with fresh eggs. Some very nice pasta was made yesterday. I was not quick enough to take a picture of it before it was turned into the most scrumptious pasta bake. The baby pumpkins are from another self sown plant that was very late producing so it got pulled out.

And here are the girls on another one of their free range forays. You can also see here another one of the self sown pumpkins. The kind posters at Ozgrow have identified it as a Jarradahle.

Long weekend

We are enjoying the Easter long weekend here now and I am trying to catch up with the garden chores.
Growing stuff to eat always keeps you busy.

Yesterday I picked some more beans as I cleared about one third of the beans up. These are now not as crispy fresh as when they are younger but still make good eating nevertheless.

The beans that have dried out on the plant are saved so they can be eaten at a later date. These are Blue Lake variety and I'm not even sure if they are any good dried. I will find out I suppose, and they seem pretty good for drying anyway. I am not the biggest fan of dried bean dishes and I eat them here or there. Added to soup they should be ok. Maybe some baked beans.

Dried 

The brassicas that I planted a while ago are doing ok.

Capsicums and hot peppers are still growing in the main patch. Soon they will have to be taken out. I may try and over-winter the Hungarian hot wax in amongst them. You can see the baby spinach in the forefront center.

And finally two pumpkins of an unknown variety. I'm waiting for them to mature a bit more before they are harvested.

Picked some more peppers today. All except the 2 jalapeños on the left were sweet. Even the jalapeños were not very hot but very tasty.

A lot of them ended up on our pizzas.

And finally. The view from my bedroom window as it currently is.

Fresh plantings

I planted out some new stuff today. Here's hoping there is a lot of good eating coming up in the next few months.
Not everything was planted but I made a good start.
Cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts that has been started from seed were transplanted into the main bed. I've only tried growing these ones from seed once before and i was not successful so here is hoping they work out. I have had a lot of success with seedlings purchased from the store.

Here are some of the brassicas. Tiny as they are.

Snow peas and silverbeet that were planted about 2 weeks ago.

I also planted some spinach and leek seed today. 

And the egg layers ate lots of goodies again today.

How do i get to the other side of the fence?

More autumn days

I've been trying to prepare for some autumn plantings and in the process harvesting the summers leftovers.

I started by pulling out the last of the cucumber plants and harvested the cucumbers. There were another three that had started to yellow so I left them out of the picture. These ones will be good to eat. The worms can have the yellow ones.

I was also going to pull all the butternut pumpkin plants then found a couple more immature pumpkins so I left the plants and harvested the pumpkins. Hopefully there will be a couple more pumpkins in the next few weeks. We have already eaten about five of these and they are superbly delicious.

The beans are still going great. These are Blue Lake. Some were picked for last nights dinner.

Looks like it is the end of the potatoes. It is sad as they taste so good. We have been eating them for nearly three months now. It will be store bought ones from now on.

Of course our beautiful chooks gave us some more eggs.

All together now.

And some red to offset the other colours. This is a Jimmy Nardello in a pot. There are still plenty of chillies and capsicums around.

Picked a nice variety of chillies and peppers today. Most of these will be given away tomorrow.
I will hopefully make some sauce this coming weekend with the remainder that are on the plants.
I do have an unknown one in this bunch. It was supposed to be a 7 pot but what i think has happened is that it has cross bred. It does not surprise me as chillies and capsicums apparently cross very easily.

Below is todays pickings.
Top left is Naga Morich, top right 7 pot. In the middle is Thai. bottom left is the unknown ones and bottom right are the sweet capsicum looking peppers.
Due to my poor record keeping skills I do not know what variety the orange ones are. But I have kept seed as it is a good producer.

And a close up of the unknown one on the right and the 7 pot on the left. as you can see there is quite a difference. 

Update on taste test of the unknown one. One of them was cut in half and a taste test conducted. It is very worthy of an ultra hot chilli status, whatever it is. I'm hoping it is a 7 pot, Naga cross but I have no way of knowing.

Horseradish

Today I was given some horseradish by a good friend. The discussion came up yesterday and they said they did grow it.
How good was it this morning when I was given some rhizome. I cannot wait to get some good nose itching heat in the months to come.

I'm dreaming of a horseradish sauce smothered over roast beef. Here's hoping the planting has been successful.

Time will tell.

Todays stuff

I promise this will be the absolute last picture freshly harvested of tomatoes for this season. I finally got a chance to pull the last two plants out late this afternoon. There are no more.

Surprisingly I still have a few more smallish cucumbers around. Every other year they would barely last till late February. I knew this and one more were about but I found about three more today. It was yummy to eat.

Of course there was a mini harvest for part of tonights dinner. The bulb is from a spring onion.

One of my 7 pot chilli plants. You may have noticed by now how much I like chillies.

And finally. The bug eaters were let out for their daily scrounge. I know they found lot of yummy things to eat.

Slowing down

The days are moving fast and the summer produce is starting to slow down. The tomato plants are all gone. We are still eating tomatoes though as I let the green ones ripen up. Not long before they are all gone as well and I will be waiting impatiently for next season.

There are still mini harvests going on and every main meal of the day that is cooked will have something from the garden in it.

This lot were used in a chilled couscous salad yesterday. Not sure what the mini capsicums are due to my poor record keeping skills but they are sweet.

Today I pulled the rest of the carrots. I do not seem to have much luck with them every year. They were cooked with the beans of which there are still plenty of in a garlic, butter, olive oil and sesame seed mix. And had with tonights dinner. The taste can not be compared with what is purchased at the store. 

Busy day

It has been a busy day in the yard today. Picked 95% of all the tomatoes. There are 2 more plants left that should get pulled out tomorrow.

The cherry tomatoes took a long time to pick as there were so many of them. Have a look at this plant.
I think I picked about 150 cherry tomatoes of it.

More potatoes were dug up for dinner as I forgot to get some at the store. I was secretly happy I forgot the store ones as these ones taste so much better.

All these delicious veggies were cooked with our dinner tonight.

And finally a picture of everything harvested today. I will really miss my tomatoes when they are all gone. At least there is always next season.