Spring seed raising

Quite a few weeks ago now, Liz from Suburban Tomato gave us a great run down of the tomatoes she was raising. Sadly I didn't have my act together then to make a similar post, indeed, I hadn't even started to raise my tomatoes or any other seeds as I feared a late frost -  I thought it was too early for our mountain slopes climate.

But now that the weather has jumped from maximums in single digits to ones in the mid twenties in the space of two weeks I feel like I am starting too late! Ah, gardening in a new environment!

 Here is what I am currently raising.

Tomatoes
Last year my tomatoes were a complete failure, mostly becasue it was scorchingly hot and also because we only arrived at Highfield in mid-November. This year I am hoping I will have much better fortune especially seeing as I have so many wonderful varieties with different shapes and colours. All these seeds came from Yvonne - thank you so much, I hope to do them justice.

• Juane Flamme 
• Red Pear
• Yellow pear
• Verna orange
• Green grape
• Oxheart yellow
• Speckled Roman
• Peach
• Purple Cherokee

Chillies/Peppers/Capsicums
I have gone completely overboard here with the encouragement and seeds from Nina and Bek. It's just that these plants seem to be able to survive the hottest of summers, and I do like a chilli or too and I have a secret desire to hold a chilli-based food festival... one day...

• Chilli - Long Cayenne
• Chilli - Padron
• Chilli  - Jalapeno - thanks Nina
• Capsicum -  Orange Glory - thanks Bek
• Capsicum - Hungarian Wax - thanks Bek
• Capsicum - 7 colour mix
• Pepper  - Merlin - thanks Bek
• Pepper -  Chocolate - thanks Bek
• Pepper - Absa - thanks Bek

Eggplants

• Listada di Ganda -  thanks Yvonne
• Prosperosa - thanks Bek
• Rosa Bianca

Greens

• Lettuce - Salad bowl
• Lettuce - Freckels Bunte
• Pak choi
• Fennel Florence
• Rocket

Beans and Peas

• Bean - Kentucky Wonder - thanks Nina
• Bean - Sex without strings
• Peas - Snow peas
• Peas - Pigeon peas

Onions

• Spring onions

Pumpkins / Melons

• Pumpkin - seeds from Pat Murray's pumpkins (Pat is King of vegetable growing at the annual Adelong Agricultural Show)
• Melon -  Minnesota Midget

Roots

• Beetroot - Crimson Globe
• Radish - Round Red

Zucchini

I have shared with you previously my obsession to enter the Gundagai Agricultural Show in the category, Three zucchinis under 18cms. I am hoping that I can grow three great specimens of different colours just to wow the judges. So I have planted the following varieties so far - I have a few other varieties held back for planting later in the season as insurance.

• Costata - thanks Bek
• Gold Rush - thanks Bek
• Greenskin
  
  
  

Don't you think a trio of green, yellow and speckled zucchinis would be a show stopper? If I am successful, perhaps  I can share my winnings  with Bek... but I am getting ahead of myself!

Herbs
I have put these seeds in but when they are up they will join my other more perennial herbs.

• Basil
• Thai basil -  thanks Yvonne
• Dill - thanks Nina

Flowers

• Marigold - French Bonita
• Marigold - Petite Yellow -  thanks Nina
• Larkspur - thanks Diana
• Nasturtiums - Red - thanks Nina -  the leaves are stunning, I am sure the flowers will be too
• Sunflowers -  Prado Red and Evening Sun, my usuals
• Zinnia
• my beautiful purple Holbrook poppies

That's it for the moment but I will be putting in some cucumbers and other things as the season develops.
What are you putting in?

Soon I will post on all the fruit trees I have put in over winter.

Harvest Monday - 10th June '13

This week the winter produce has started to come in.  It's a great feeling. The pickings have been broccoli, chillies and some tiny capsicums picked green to beat the frost.

A little fennel - this bulb was picked as a baby fennel lightly sautéed to accompany a meal.

LOADS of parsley, loads and loads  - parsley with everything. At present I only have curled parsley.

More broccoli and the first of the cauliflower,

a rather pathetically small cauli, sigh!

A wonderful wombok,

much admired by Muriel the chicken,

Rocket, loads of rocket and a little rosemary. This rocket made a salad of rocket, shaved pecorino, garlic oil and lemon juice. It was fantastic.

It feels great to finally have so much produce. As a result, I have decided I don't need to buy any greens at all for the foreseeable. I have this produce and more coming thru. Finally after a horribly hard summer with almost no produce at all, this little pile of produce feels like true bounty.

How is your produce going? I am contributing this to Daphne's  Harvest Monday, pop over and see  the produce of others - there will be a little list of links to others' growings when the world turns a little more.

Harvest Monday on Tuesday

Kept inside by a heavy fog and warm heater I decided to document my meagre harvest of the last week and post it on Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Yes, you are right, it is Tuesday here in Australia, but I figure I am still 'legal' as it is still Monday somewhere inn the world and definitely Monday in the US where Daphne's blog is based. So here is the meagre harvest of the week just passed.

A few finger limes.  Liz recently explained what these little fruit are. These seem undersized to me but they fell off in my hand when I inspected the bush  and I figured they must have been ripe.

The finger lime I have is 'Collette' a black skinned lime with bright green citrus bubbles. Liz's finger limes are pink inside. The bubbles are highly fragrant as well as being very citrusy.

Most of the rest of the pick this week has focused on chillies and capsicums. The chillies are gradually ripening up and each day I pick about 5 -  not huge quantities but still they add to my stash which will sustain me for a year.

I also decided to beat the impending frost by picking my developing capsicums. They were meant to be large red capsicums, but I picked them green and stuffed them with a mix of feta and ricotta and pine nuts, topped them with smoked paprika and baked. Delicious.

And there has been a small pick of padron peppers as well, eaten by quickly tossing in a saucepan with olive oil and skin blistered and dashed with sea salt.

A fist full of spring onions completes the pick -  these went into my favourite eggplant dish - Spicy Eggplant - a Chinese style dish made by the Lad.

That's it really.  Head over to Daphne's for more produce.