Mid-Winter 2012 Harvest Summary

The garden has been very generous in mid-winter even without care. We even did not give any watering since June so the plants depended much on rainwater. I tried to record what we harvest each month because this give me an idea for new vegetables sowing time and how early or how much I can extend the sowing of seeds for certain vegetables. It seems that I can sow broccoli seeds a month earlier than I used too. The problem with early sowing is infested by aphids, although producing head earlier to enjoy. Washing the aphids away for cooking does take a large amount of time, of course the chef complain all the time but that the reality of home-grown ones. The broccoli harvest might look like there are no aphids, don't be fool by it cos the bottom or between the stems has tons of aphids.

Tried growing green dragon broccoli for the first time and had success. Italian sprouting broccoli never seems to stop producing new shoots to harvest. We did not plant any new plants of Italian sprouting broccoli this year. The produce that we have each month from last summer till now were solely from one very generous plant. The shoots are much bigger in mid-winter.

Tatsoi also have plenty to offer in mid-winter, usually the chef pick em' fresh because the gardener often neglect her harvesting duty. Therefore, the Asian greens has had not much chance to join photo sessions. Although, many Asian greens were harvested just to take note.

The last cauliflower and the gardener regrets that she did not plant many cauliflower this year. Well we thought I could complete my studies on time earlier this year but too many things happened so we still stuck here (over-confidant and high expectation :p ). We usually grow more than 30 plants of cauliflower each year, sigh should just planted more. Savouring last year planted leeks cause we don't grow them this year. Chinese celery volunteer abundant in the patch for cuttings. Daikon and watermelon radish is also available in the garden for picking.

We harvested our last purple skin sweet potato grown in one container.

More variety of root vegetables available in winter~ carrots, beetroot and white sweet potatoes.

Strange but true, our peak pepper harvest this year is in mid-winter compare to other season. The fruit took a long time to ripen from the flowers blooming from autumn. Actually this is a good thing, because peppers are so expensive in winter. We also give-away to friends. Picking half-ripe pepper and leave them on the counter-top for just a few days will make the fruit become ripe. We just pick how many we need and just leave the rest on the plant rather than keeping them in fridge. We left many pepper plants over-winter this year, so we hope some early harvest of capsicum next warm season. Pink radish is also filling the basket harvest in mid-winter.

Kailan (Chinese Broccoli) also one of the main dish in mid-winter. Start to harvest peas, but not many and no chance for photo shoot because it is only enough for Rayyan to pick and eat fresh in the garden or the mother will not have some peace.

Could not keep up with the red choi harvest, growing so fast. I am guilty in leaving one container full of red choi showing sign of flowering at the moment.

38th weeks now.....still waiting for the biggest harvest for this year.