Most Anticipated 2012 Harvest

I would like to introduce you to our anticipated harvest of this year Abbiyana Ariel born on 9th August 2012 at 2 PM through waterbirth normal delivery. She is our biggest harvest for this year but she only weight 2.99kg at birth. Four hours after birth we went home. Abby face resembles her brothers when they were babies. She is the reason why there are no posting in this blog for a while. Her father wanted to name her Abigail which means a father joy but I was not keen on it. Because my husband hometown family will pronounce the name different as suppose to be due to the dialect going to sound very weird. Abbi means a father's joy. Yes, Abby father is really happy now he has a baby girl. Her middlename is Ariel is not because she was born under water and related to Disney little mermaid is just a coincidence. But Ariel was chosen as her middlename from one of the archangels. Her brothers middlename are also from one of the archangels ~ Mikhail and Haniel. According to Chinese calendar this is the year of water dragon, born in water she enjoys her bath very much.When she demands for her feed she sounds like a little dragon as well ...hehehe...

September is really a busy month for harvesting and sowing seeds. I am very behind with the sowing schedule due to postnatal birth confinement and care and could not keep up with edibles need to harvest ASAP. 

Main harvest for this early spring month from our garden are broccoli and carrot. I am hoping now that we entered spring this year carrot won't flower that quickly for us to enjoy them.

Although, we have only one Italian sprouting broccoli plant, I cannot keep up harvesting the shoots. The plant is very generous providing so many shoots to harvest continuously through this month.  I keep on giving-away the harvested broccoli shoots because we can't finish them and I can't managed time to blanch and freeze them. While I am writing this I think maybe I should make broccoli puree and frozen them for Abby when she starts to try solid food. A few of chillies were picked half ripe and brought inside to ripen them up.

Totally forgotten to harvest one Kent pumpkin last autumn. I found the pumpkin amidst the weeds at the back of our backyard fence last week. Fortunately, it was in good shape. Kohlrabi also needs to be harvested this month before it starts to flower. Noticed how long the grass on our backyard.

Autumn-sown radishes need to be pick quick this month as many of them are starting to give the sign of going to flower soon, Peas are also one of the main harvest this month, a luxurious fresh snack while in the garden. Self-sowed celery plants are abundant for picking as well.

Cherrytime capsicum and self-sowed yellow currant cherry tomato are also available from the garden.

We also have spinach and Touchstone Gold beetroot readily available from the garden this month.

This early spring is our chamomile peak harvest season. Nice to have fresh chamomile tea to make us feel more relax. I am just a bit concern whether chamomile tea is fine for breastfeeding mother.

Last Saturday, while cleaning up one of the neglected patch fill with weeds at the back of our backyard fence found some potatoes and leek. I was pruning some of our over-wintered bonica brinjal plants, surprisingly found some small fruits on the plant. We were also clearing up some containers and harvested some unnoticed bush peas and cape gooseberries. Its like treasure hunting for goodies this month with the weeds going wild everywhere.

Another face of a month old Abbiyana Ariel.

I am enjoying motherhood at the moment.
Thinking whether I should give her a first hair cut now that her hair is passed her shoulders.
Join in Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

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.

Welcome Back Home Harvest

It has been almost a week since we have been back from Melbourne. The recently discharged patient is recovering well. He starts to climb and making mischief which shows he is feeling better and is his usual self again. I am breathless to catch up with him. We were surprised when we reached home how much growth the plants in the garden had. The next day after back from home, me and Rayyan spent time in the morning in the garden harvesting while dear papa cleaned the house and let the air in after a long time away from home.

Our more than one year old an Italian sprouting broccoli plant made Rayyan happy with so many sprouts to pick. He is spoil rotten, he does not want to eat any broccoli or any other veggies in the hospital or Japanese bento take out, although it looks prettier than the one we pick in our garden. He prefers home-grown vegetables so mama has to make sure there is a supply of veggies for him. His older brother Ilhan who is now living in Malaysia at the moment has been reported to be very fussy and refusing to eat vegetables as well since its not mama veggies maybe. I have pampered my children with organic goodies, lucky boys. Rayyan was happy with the broccoli harvest as he keep asking for more in his meal.

We had one small snowball cauliflower and green dragon broccoli harvested.

Some alpine strawberry fruits treat for Rayyan.

Cut some Rainbow chard stems and some Pak choi for our kind neighbours looking after our home and keeping our mails.

We had some capsicums and chillies ready to be harvested. Carrots that was left after Rayyan kept on shouting in my ears he wanted some carrots to munch while following me around the garden. I think he ate at least 5 medium size carrots freshly harvested in the garden.

Red Choi needed to be pick quickly before it flowers.

Pak choi, tatsoi and lettuce.

I did not realised that some pink radish was ready to be pick in one of the containers as it was covered with weeds. Some turn woody or split.

Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

I have not been a good blogger friend these past few weeks, hopefully I will be able to catch up soon. Thank you so much for all your support and good wishes.

Mid-Autumn pickings

This month harvest is all rather quick process of picking what I needed while cooking so did not taken many photos of our harvest this month. This month available harvest in our kebun (garden) are mainly consist of...

Some of our banana capsicum is ripening at the moment. Banana capsicum is not a hot but sweet variety type so Rayyan can enjoy it as well. He won't eat spicy food yet. Brought in our last batch of home-grown onion that were hanging out at the shed. Cut some Chinese celery stalk. It was growing under the canopy of our tree dahlia plants that I almost forget I have them in the garden. It does not received much direct sunlight at the moment. Harvested our first 'bari' cucumber. Its actually a melon and very mini size type. I did not realised that it is actually a 'heirloom' cucumber that is not available in catalogues. I got it from our local seed-saver group. 

With the warm mild weather, the garden is producing eggplants, cucumbers and okras. I tried to grow several variety of beans in the shade during summer as they still get indirect light. We did get some produce though not as prolific as the ones that are growing in sunny position during spring/autumn. In the basket, bean harvest from shade position.

Pull out some of our summer growing parsnips to see how they are growing under the soil, glad that they are roots to enjoy. But I will leave some for winter harvest. 'Cherokee Wax' and 'Redland Pioneer' bush bean has been the main bean that we harvested this month. I am excited with the 'Redland Pioneer' harvest because it was my first time growing home saved-seeds of this bean. The bush bean 'Redland Pioneer' produces the first batch of bean to harvest the same as the fast growth of Pak chois for fast crop. Everyweek we have some kangkung to harvest.

What amazed me is how tolerant the savoy cabbage and Italian sprouting broccoli withstand our extreme summer weather. I have one neglected happy Italian sprouting broccoli plant and still producing shoots for us at the back of our backyard fence. It only gets water 3-4 times a week during the warm season. It is already a year old.

We caught many bream fish but there are still small (mostly almost 20cm) not legal size. So have to be released back into the water. The only legal size catch that we had is whiting.

See harvest all around the world at Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Broccoli and Cheese Penne with Garlic and Lemon Crumbs

We have the longest harvest season for broccoli and cauliflower this year. We have been continuously harvesting them since July this year up till now. We still have many plants growing in our garden and hopefully broccoli and cauliflower supply keep on flowing into the kitchen each week. This is our third year growing them. We finally managed this year avoiding a glutton of broccoli and cauliflower to harvest at the same moment. We practice succession sowing for this vegetable and sowing usually begin from mid-March till May. I like this recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins and Bakes recipe book that I tried. The taste of crunchy breadcrumbs with creamy garlic and lemony flavour mix on the penne was so good.

Broccoli and Cheese Penne with Garlic and Lemon Crumbs

Ingredients:

500gram broccoli ( I only used 250gram mix of broccoli and cauliflowers)

200g penne pasta
3 eggs
1 cup (250ml) pouring cream
1/3 cup (80ml) milk
2/3 cup (80g) coarsely grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup (35g) stale breadcrumbs
1 cup (80g) finely grated parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1)Preheat oven to 220Celsius. Oil deep 2 litre (8-cup) ovenproof dish.
2)Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender. Add broccoli for last 5 minutes of pasta cooking time; drain. Rinse pasta and broccoli under cold water; drain,cool.
3)Combine pasta, broccoli, eggs, cream, milk and cheddar in large bowl; season. Spoon mixture into dish; sprinkle with combined breadcrumbs, parmesan, garlic, lemon rind and parsley.

4) Bake, uncovered, about 40 minutes or until brown lightly and set. Stand 10 minutes before serving.

Finally transplanted some tomato seedlings this week. 

A few challenger tomato variety and self-sowed tomatoes start to set some flower this week.

First Spring Harvest Monday

Last week my little garden helper has been following me around the garden to help with the harvest. He seems to know that our sprouting broccoli side-shoots need to be frequently cut as we have been experiencing many days above 20degree Celsius these days and wants me to follow him at that corner on the right side of this photo.

Its difficult for me to keep up with sprouting broccoli before they flower at the moment. This unusual warm weather early spring is making them flower easily. We had some tomatoes to harvest. My little helper keeps on stealing those yellow cherry tomatoes before we can snap some photos.

Our awaited Violet Sicilian cauliflower turn out to be green like broccoli (which I think it is broccoli). We freeze this "cauliflower" since we had enough for the kitchen. One red capsicum which is a treasure as it takes more than 3 months to wait for it to turn red. We harvested kohlrabi and dice it to make mini murtabak with mini cabbage. Kohlrabi was also grated for Sambal Salad with green mango.

Beetroots.

Due to warm weather our first cauliflower for this year did not form proper head, it looks very ugly and smallish. I am hoping for some rain and cool weather so the rest of our cauliflowers will have the chance to develop nice curds. The soil is so dry. Due to this not so early spring weather, I did not realised that our bonica eggplants which I have neglected this winter but let it survive by its own surprisingly produce fruits. I was pulling out a dead tomato plant beside this eggplant and by chance found some eggplants. The colour is odd though, instead of the usual dark purple. The first time, that we actually harvested an eggplant in early spring.

Our purple-podded pea plants are dying. Peas planting on our garden this year look very miserable compared with previous years. Today, we also harvested some lettuce, Florence Fennel and Snowball cauliflower.

Join in Daphne's Harvest Monday.

End Winter Month Harvest Monday

We entered end winter season here in Adelaide already. We have to quickly harvest some vegetables now to prevent it from flower as spring comes and the weather warms. Biennial plants like carrots or onions from last warm season will start to produce flowers. We harvested Afghanistan carrots last week and select a few big plants to produce flower and seeds. Italian sprouting broccoli plants produces many side-shoots to harvest. Our first batch snow peas plants look sickly but still managed to produce some for the kitchen. Pak choi were also harvested before it starts to bolt.

We sowed too many rainbow chard seeds last fall. Maybe because it was our first time at growing them and got too excited. Well I think 4 plants of rainbow chards should be enough for us but someone planted at least 10 plants. Shared those rainbow chard stems with my neighbour and friends. Some chillies and capsicum were harvested. Komatsuna were about to bolt so we had to harvest them. 

We had several days of 20 degree Celsius last week which made some tomatoes from self-sowed tomato plants to turn red. Some of our green tatsoi were badly munched by pest and beginning to show the sign to bolt.

We harvested our first home-grown Florence fennel last weekend. Beetroots were harvested for Rayyan since he likes the sweetness of beetroot.

Usually, we harvested our first cauliflower every year in the early month of August. But this year, I transplanted cauliflower seedlings late. So we have not harvested any cauliflower yet. Hopefully not too late for the plants to mature before the weather becomes too warm for it to produce curd.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Beginning of cool season veggies...hopefully

We started to harvest cool season vegetables this week. A lot of first harvest for this year! Harvested our first Italian sprouting broccoli for this year.  We just steamed the broccoli and season it with salt and pepper, even the big stem under the broccoli curd was sweet and tender. First baby lettuce of 2011 which is not pretty because we had to share it with slugs but was welcome since we have not eaten any since last year. Our first home-grown purple vienna kohlrabi, never tasted one but I have not eaten it yet to comment about it. We harvested our first home-grown beetroot which is medium size and not baby beet size anymore. Steamed the beetroot and I was so surprise by how sweet it was. My first thought was it taste almost as sweet as sweet corn. We also harvested some chillies and capsicums.

We finally harvested some Ilhan first-grown sweet corns. It takes a long time for Ilhan sweet corn to mature in winter compare to summer weather. But it was worth the wait.  I was thinning some Afghanistan carrot variety that we are trying for the first time to give more space for some to grow. I was surprise that some of the roots has already grown long and fat. I did not expect that it can grow that big since the soil is hard to break still and in this cold weather. One carrot was almost as big as the sweet corn size. Some roots were deformed but I don't mind as long as it is fresh and organically home-grown. We are lucky that some of the carrots were determined enough to grow bigger in our hard clay soil. Afghanistan carrots are a colourful mix of root.

I ate them fresh straight away like that after washing them. So sweet and crunchy. This is how the burgundy colour carrot root look inside.

I was clearing out one container that were growing okra burgundy plants for garlic planting. In that container I found a self-sowed leek, one leaf amaranth plant and 2 parsnips which the seeds that I did not sowed. I must have been careless and drop some parsnip seeds into this container. I never expected to get any roots when I pull out those parsnip tops. A nice surprise that in 3 months growing in this container, it has actually develop a root size that I can use to cook. So this make it official as our first home-grown parsnip harvest. Gardening is mysterious, the ones that you did not plan to grow on purpose always work much better than the ones you anticipated.

We also harvested some pink radish, yellow cherry tomatoes, snow peas and peas. Cut some rainbow chard stems and all were give-away to friends.

It took a bit longer to harvest last week. Not because I have that many harvest. But Tom the cat constantly wants my attention. He gets annoyed if I ignored him, he will walk over all my seedlings unless I stop and play with him. To my surprise when I turn to fill in my basket with veggies, Tom were in it and sitting on our chillies and tomato harvest. Not my cat but my neighbour's. It is a bit tricky with one hand patting and stroking the cat and the other hand weeds until Tom is satisfied and don't walk on the veggie patch. Tom is a very clever cat and keep rodents away from our garden since he visits frequently now. He only ask a little bit of love from us.

Visit Daphne our wonderful host for Harvest Monday and see other gardens all over the world is harvesting at the moment.