Till Valentine End Summer Harvest

The cherry tomatoes did much better than the other tomato varieties this summer season. We were lucky to  be able to harvested some round eggplants last week.

We harvested our first time home-grown potato onions. Should have reduced the watering when it was ready to be harvested. But I was relying on dear hubby with the watering so I let him do whatever he wants as long as the plants were watered during peak summer.

Brought in some garlic into the kitchen that we left curing in the shed.

Challenger tomato variety but it got scorched badly by the sun. 

I was cleaning up some part of the garden last weekend because it look so shabby after the scorching weather cause during mid-summer and I was surprised to find some cucumbers. It looks misshapen but I never expected to get any cucumbers this summer. First time we harvested a broccoli in end summer that was grown/sowed from last autumn. Another unexpected surprise that the broccoli plant manage to form a curd and not bolt in hot weather. Possibly the cool weather we had a few weeks helped. We also harvested a few root vegetables; carrots, turnip, beetroots and volunteer  potatoes. Some hot red sexy chillies for valentine were harvested as well. Will be making some sambal sauce stock this afternoon with mama after we buy some lemon/lime this afternoon.

With the love valentine theme, some red harvest; strawberries, chillies, tigerella tomato, challenger and cherry tomato.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to share and enjoy together what other gardeners has been harvesting all over the world.

Harvest during Christmas week till before New Year

I had to decide to harvest many of our vegetables the day before we have extreme weather so that it won't be much a waste especially the leafy green ones. Well the fruits can be affected as well if left hanging on the plants. For example, it does not surprise me to see burn tomatoes or dehydrated wrinkled chillies on the plant. Sadly many of our tomatoes has been dropping from the stem before it turns red in this hot weather. Even the carrot root top that is exposed are all wrinkly and dehydrated. Not as juicy as the ones we grow in our cool season. Our Lebanese zucchini has started to produce male and female flower nicely but with this hot weather it won't set fruit well. Fortunately, the bonica eggplant that we grow in partial shade has managed to produce some fruit. We harvested our first medium size Challenger tomato before Christmas, although some were effected by the scorching sun. We also harvested several varieties of cherry tomatoes these past week.

Harvested all of our hon tsai tai greens.

Had to harvest some of the leek which is still 'baby' cause they are showing the tell-tale sign of forming the flower stalk. The environment stress has probably cause those leeks to produce flower quickly to reproduce. After the extreme weather passed, we probably have to pull out many baby leek. At the moment, I am keeping cool in the house and will access the damage after the weather cools down a bit. I am being pampered at the moment cause dear hubby waters the plants in the evening.

There were several potato plants that had dried long time, so harvested some potatoes.

I just remembered that I planted some 'Ruby Lou' or was it called 'Ruby Red' potatoes a few months ago after I dug out those potatoes.

Surprisingly, our last Italian Sprouting Broccoli  plant still produce some broccoli shoots to harvest in warm weather. Pick the largest Pak choi to harvest before their leaves were burned. The younger Pak Choi leaves growing in the garden has been burned now. Don't know whether pruning them later is worth the try but there are always hope.

On Christmas day, we went fishing at Moonta and the weather was very windy. Not a very calm day, we left early but hubby caught some crabs to bring back.

I wonder whether we have anything to harvest this week after extreme hot weather. 

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Saraba Summer Sweet Corn (さらば夏のトウモロコシ)

Strangely this warm season we have many self-seeded tomato plants growing in containers by itself. A lazy gardener that I am, I did not weed them and I just let them grow in the container. So this week some of the self-seeded tomato fruit had ripen like the yellow pear cherry tomatoes. Not sure what variety the red tomatoes is. The yellow currant cherry tomatoes harvest is more than 1kg every week. 

I thinned out some purple top turnip yesterday as its foliage was shadowing our capsicum plants. We also harvested some beetroots and a Lebanese zucchini before our night visitors enjoyed them. Some of our flowering capsicum and beetroot leaves has completely became bald each day last week. I have not encountered yet "our night visitor" that is enjoying our plants at the back of our backyard fence (council reserve land). But judging on how the plants were attacked it looks like the work of a big animal like possum. In one night, this visitor managed to eat 2 green capsicum fruit and the whole plant leaves. Furthermore, it also enjoyed many of our carrot blossoms that were planned for collecting seeds. Sadly, most of our young capsicum plants has gone missing or without leaves. A new challenge.

We harvested some self-seeded Chinese spinach,a kohlrabi, some baby leeks, eggplants and a sweet corn. I think this is the only decent looking sweet corn that we are able to harvest for this summer. Its hard to grow sweet corn which is a heavy drinker here in the driest city in Australia in summer. After 3 consecutive summer growing sweet corn with unsatisfactory results, its time for me to give up on them. Better to grow sweet corn at the end of summer and early fall which we had good harvest this year.

Therefore, farewell (saraba/sayonara) summer sweet corn.

I sowed sweet corn at the end of August this year and it managed only to grow about 30cm until now. I think it such a waste of water to grow them. Might as well grow other drought tolerant edible plants that does not required too much water. Too much stress for the sweet corn to grow in summer season here.

Visit Daphne's Dandelion Harvest Monday.

Rigatoni with Zucchini, Lemon and Mint

We have started to harvest some of our topweight carrots that were sowed end winter (August) on the sunniest patch in the garden. It is grown on hard clay soil. So we got a funny looking roots but the roots are strong enough to grow through hard soil. Before we have some several days of hot weather it will be best  to harvest all those carrots before it become bake carrot in the soil. The exposed carrot root are becoming blackish instead of normal greenish. We harvested our last florence fennel as it is not growing that much due to the warm weather we have during the day. The location that I planted them was too sunny and dry for them I reckoned. Contemplating at the moment to try growing them in container during this summer.

Yellow currant tomatoes are still very prolific. It takes a long time to harvest them. There are also many self-sowed yellow currant tomatoes near this plants. Our volunteer yellow pear cherry tomato plants also has some ripen fruits. But it did not make it to the harvest basket as it is consider as rare item in the garden at the moment. So it is always pick and pop in the mouth.

Harvested some Lebanese zucchines and Lebanese eggplants last week.

Just for fun, the total cost for us to make this dish is less than AUD5.00. It says that it is for 4 servings. But it was quite a lot that it was for lunch and dinner for us. This is the first time we tried zucchini with pasta.

Rigatoni with Zucchini, Lemon and Mint ( The Australian Women's Weekly-The $ Smart Cook)

Ingredients:
500gram rigatoni pasta (coles brand AUD1.00)
60ml olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed (home-grown)
3 medium zucchini (~360gram), grated coarsely (home-grown Lebanese zucchini)
180 gram ricotta cheese (I used less from leftovers for leek and fetta triangles)
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint (home-grown used less 1/2 cup cos not many leaves at the moment)
70gram roasted slivered almonds, if desired ( in a rush I forgot about them)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (from neighbour)

(1) Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until just tender; drain.
(2) Meanwhile, heat oil in large frying pan; cook garlic and zucchini, stirring, 2 minutes. Add cheese; cook, stirring, until just heated through.
(3) Combine zucchini mixture and pasta in serving bowl with remaining ingredients.

We harvested all our Nero Black kale and Red Russian kale leaves last week as I wanted to clear some patch for warm loving vegetables. My husband seems to be allergic eating Red Russian kale but not Nero Black kale. Do you know whether this allergy to particular kale is common? My hand itch too when I harvest Red Russian Kale especially at the part that has been cut probably from the oozing liquidy thing.

I am only successful at growing small cabbage head. 

Some potatoes, leeks and kohlrabi harvested yesterday.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see different kind of harvest from different season such as winter or summer and the all year round tropical climate.

Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake

We harvested our first Lebanese zucchini for this summer. This is our first time growing 'Lebanese zucchini', so I was not sure what size is perfect to harvest this variety. Did not want it to get too mature or it will stop other fruits to develop. A few leeks and another one kohlrabi harvested this week. 

Our Lebanese brinjal plant that has now experience 3 summers did not disappoint us. We just enter summer and that old brinjal plant has given us roughly 10 eggplants for us. We had endless supply of yellow currant cherry tomatoes last week.

What did we do with the cherry tomatoes?

The second recipe that I enjoyed from this recipe book.

 Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake (The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins & Bake recipe book)

Ingredients:
250g spaghetti
1 cup (70g) stale breadcrumbs
1/3 finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (used curly ones)
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
318g canned sardines in oil, drained
250g cherry tomatoes, chopped coarsely (did not chopped)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

(1) Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender; drain and reserved 1/3 cup (80ml) cooking liquid.
(2) Preheat oven to 220 degree Celsius.
(3) Combine breadcrumbs, parsley and 1 tablespoon of the oil in medium bowl.
(4) Heat remaining oil in same pan; cook sardines, tomato, garlic and chilli, stirring, until tomato begins to soften. Stir in pasta; season to taste.
(5) Spoon mixture into 1litre (8cup) ovenproof dish; pour reserved cooking liquid. Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until browned lightly.

Sardines and this yellow cherry tomatoes goes well together.

Rayyan enjoying the pasta.

One funny-looking purple savoy cabbage was harvested.

Two of our 3.5 months grown Royal Blue potato plant were all dried up due to the hot weather. It was a trial to plant potato on our most sunny patch at the end of winter. It grows really fast but the soil is too hot now. Touching the soil on that area is very hot during mid-day. I won't be able to walk on it barefoot. So I have to reluctantly dig the spud out early cause it was supposed to be medium-late variety. There still supposingly  in their baby stage. The trial is half-successful since there were at least 12 medium~large size spuds from each plants. Not bad considering it just been 3.5 months since I planted the seed potatoes. I probably grow this potato variety again because the yield is good even on shorter growing time.

Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

Nero Black Kale (Chervil seeds give-away Winners)

We have many variety of vegetables that we grow for the first time last cool season and some were introduced by our local seed-savers group. One of the vegetables that we tried growing for the first time during last cool season was Nero Black Kale. Although it was a new plant in the garden, I totally neglected it and was growing on one of the shades part of the garden in winter. It did not get any special treatment and exposed to pest. This is one plant you can experiment to try growing in partial shade~shade if you want to fully utilised your gardening space.

Nero Black Kale seedlings.

In winter growing so slowly in shade.

It will be lucky if it received 1 hour direct sunlight during sunny days at this corner.  Nero Black kale growing along with cineraria.

Spring came with more light and those kale pick up growth very quickly.

Totally growing in shade.

Did not want to waste the extra seedlings we had.

They do grow albeit rather slowly like my thesis writing.

At least they do provide some harvest for our kitchen harvest.

We don't have fresh harvest much this week.

Probably will be relying on frozen veggie stock now.

Nero Black kale came to rescue with fresh harvest.

The first time we harvest those leaves.

Yellow currant cherry tomatoes still plenty to harvest.

Mark ask me several time about this yellow currant cherry tomato.

I found that the skin thickness of this yellow currant cherry tomatoes varies in cool and warm season. During the warm season, this variety of cherry tomatoes is more acidic and skin are much thicker. However, in cool season this tomato skin is very thin and less acidic or more sweeter. We enjoyed the flavour of this tomato more during cooler months/weeks. It starting to be over 30 degree Celsius during the day now. I have noticed that suddenly this tomato skin become much thicker the same as last summer experience. So as a student of science, my hypothesis is that temperature can be one of the main factor that influence the thickness of this tomato skin. Adaptation to different temperatures in different season makes this tomato very draught and cold hardy compared to other varieties of cherry tomatoes that we grow. If I remember correctly, tomatoes were originally yellow in colour. So it is one of the tomatoes you might want to keep over winter as the flavour is best in cooler weather. I think last winter, that plant has gone through at least 2 degree Celsius. It does reallyX3 well in partial shade. So don't have to sacrifice your sunny spot for this tomato plant.

How did we enjoyed our first Nero Black Kale?

I was introduced to enjoy it with polenta by Mark.

In case you are wondering, did not have problem with lumps.

My cousin made it and follow the recipe accordingly.

Now, Rayyan been eating polenta occasionally.

We will be sending chervil seeds to author of these wonderful blogs:

MyJourney (Rainfield61)

Half A Pound Of Treacle (Sean L)

Mark's Veg Plot (Mark)

Hope to receive your postbox mail address (diana.demiyah@gmail.com)

Have a great weekend!

Container garden (Mid-Winter)

Last warm season most of our harvest were from our container garden. But this cool season in the middle of winter, not much to harvest from our container garden since most of the plants are growing very slowly. Most of our plants are grown in containers at our backyard. When we first started growing our food in containers there were only about 5 polystyrene containers . However, we keep on expanding after we got more and more experience growing food in containers.Not everything goes well it is all about trial and error, and not following many rules written in some gardening books. I think it keep on expanding is because we run out space to grow things at the front yard. Moreover dear husband sometimes find some polystyrene containers for me after he finished work when he knows that I was very stress with my studies and Rayyan's health at one stage that I need to grow things during weekend as it helps clear up my mind. At the moment, I am not sure how many polystyrene containers we have. A very short tour this middle of winter of what is growing in some part of our container garden.

Ranunculus and pansy seedlings in the round plastic pots. Giant purple mustard and pest-ravished komatsuna seedlings growing together in the same containers. Planning to harvest those mustards soon as the bigger they grow will taste more bitter and hot.

Leeks and root vegetables growing at this corner.

We were rearranging the container garden 2 weeks ago, and move many of the containers around. The yellow cherry tomatoes that look so healthy before got very sad after we moved it to another spot. I think roots that had creep out from the holes were uprooted and cause the yellow cherry tomato plants to look like this now with all the leaves dying. Not sure whether this plant will recover but it will be nice to continue to harvest cherry tomatoes when we finally have some baby lettuce to harvest and make salad together. We still managed to harvest a bowl of yellow cherry tomatoes once a week. Not many tomato blooms anymore but there are still many green tomatoes taking it sweet time to mature which is good because we won't have a glut.

Hope you got most of the gardening tasks set out this weekend done!

We hope for more strawberries next warm seasons, so transplanted runners and some self-sowed alpine strawberries on Saturday.

Sunday was too cold for my bones and had to accompany dear hubby for shopping.

Yellow Currant Cherry Tomatoes

Last spring, I bought a packet of 7 mixture of cherry tomatoes from Green Harvest 'Tomato Cherry Rainbow'. From this seed packet the only cherry tomato variety that sprouted for us was yellow pear, yellow currant and green grape. Among these 3 cherry tomatoes, green grape was the sweetest. Although, it is winter now, spring sprouted tomato seeds that continue to produce in our garden are yellow currant and yellow pear cherry tomatoes. Yellow currant is 1/3 size of the usual cherry tomatoes.

Yellow currant cherry tomatoes are very hardy, it can endure harsh weather like heat waves and cold. They are also very prolific, never seems to stop producing even in harsh weather. During heat waves, it did not suffer as much like bigger size tomatoes. We pruned the burnt leaves and it does not notably reduce the yields.

This is how our yellow currant cherry tomato look like in winter. It has more foliage now than summer and shockingly it still keep on producing sweet tomatoes for the kitchen. Moreover, it is now in a shady area. We thought as it is now cold and it is not receiving any sun it will stop producing and sooner or later that we have to clear this area. However, it is determined to keep on producing. The staking is pretty bad we know but who have thought it grow like this in winter and that is one big tomato plant for a cherry variety.

Grape-like bunches of tomatoes hidden in the foliage.

Yellow currant does grow well in container as well. We have 2 plants still producing in containers. You will need to stake a tall trellis for this plant.We have total of 4 plants in our small garden still going strong although average day maximum temperature is 15 degree Celsius and night about 5 degree Celsius this month. We still in early winter, will be interesting to observe how it will fare in the coldest month of the year later on. Yellow currant is good for salad. I like to add these tomatoes into our fried rice when it is almost done.

Pumpkin Rice and Pumpkin Soup

Although I harvested a pumpkin last weekend, I still have not use it. I am trying to finish up pumpkins that I got from our local fruit and veggie swap earlier this month. It was cold and raining heavily yesterday so I had some time in my hand to search for pumpkin recipes that I can make with things that I have in my fridge and pantry. It has been such a long time that I have not spent much time in the kitchen experimenting, all thanks to the rain yesterday.

Our weekend harvest were sweet corns, chilies, beans, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, baby beetroot, snow peas, first harvest of snowball turnips and might be the last okra burgundy for this year. See what other gardeners from all over the worlds are harvesting this week in Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's Dandelions.

With all those chilies and tomato harvest, we had sambal belacan everyday. Hope it keeps the flu bug away from this cold weather.

I have to say that I don't grow up eating pumpkin that much. I rarely saw pumpkin in my mama kitchen. I know she probably used a lot of pumpkin for puree and feeding me when I was a baby like I do with my sons. But other than that it is very rare that we have any dishes with pumpkin on it or I was not fond of pumpkin during my childhood and teens. I gave some pumpkin to my vegetarian friend and she said she used them for pumpkin soup. She says her mom used to make pumpkin rice. So I decided to have a go of making pumpkin rice when I remember that A Nyonya' s Kitchen...for all seasons blog shared her pumpkin rice recipe, end last month. This is not vegetarian dish but Ilhan likes to eat chicken nowadays so perhaps I can coax him to have a taste and he won't have a big fuss. Petite nyonya used dried scallops, shitake mushrooms and teriyaki sauce but I don't include this because it was not available in our pantry. Furthermore, we used 2 cups of rice instead of 3/4cup rice .This is because instead of small bowl diced chicken meat, someone use big bowl. I skipped the 'small" when I was reading the ingredients. We add in sliced capsicum, turnips and snow peas into this dish. I like this dish it was easy and did not take much time prepare because the rice cooker will help with the cooking afterwards.

I have always wanted to make western style vegetable soups but I always don't have some of the ingredients in our kitchen when I have the time. For example, for a South-East Asia kitchen any kind of cream, sour or full or light is not a common thing that I would have in the fridge except if I have been planning ahead for some certain dish, this include natural yogurt for cooking too. Sometime I buy them on impulse, maybe this weekend thinking I can try new dish...most of the time it got expired. While waiting for Ilhan selecting his books at the local library, I saw one of Masterchef judge new book~ Gary Mehigan's Comfort Food. I borrowed it for Lenay because she likes to watch Masterchef. I took a peek when we are back at home, Gary's pumpkin soup recipe ingredient are things that we have in the kitchen. So my mission for Sunday dinner preparation was making pumpkin soup.

Gary's pumpkin soup is for 4servings (I only made for 2 serving half of the ingredient below. But it was still too much and we even freeze half of the cooked soup).

Ingredients:

~1X1.6 kg jap pumpkin, peeled, seeded, cut into manageable chunk for grating (I used 3 different type of pumpkin because I am trying to finish off the pumpkin we got from the swap JAP, butternut and that giant pumpkin. Moreover I cut it into small chunks and did not grate.)

~125 g unsalted butter, chopped.

~50ml vegetable oil

~1 teaspoon table salt

~1 litre milk

~Freshly ground black pepper, crusty bread or garlic toasts to serve.

Heat butter and oil over medium heat. Add the pumpkin and sprinkle with salt. Cook the pumpkin, covered, gently over low heat for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally until it is soft. Stir in the milk and bring to boil.

Blend the pumpkin mixture in a food processor or blender until creamy and smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

My first home-made pumpkin soup. I am participating Wendy's Garden to Table Challenge.

Another few days, it will be officially winter here. Do you think two of our pumpkins down here will make it until they are mature enough to harvest?

I don't like or hate pumpkin. I don't know much about cooking pumpkin. So I need some motivation and learn more about pumpkin. I know it is a very healthy and nutritious food. Any advice on pumpkin?

First 2011 Pumpkin Harvest and Saturday Dinner

We had our first pumpkin harvest for this year yesterday. Hazel Dene had such a fantastic pumpkin harvest this year and so colourful too, very inspiring. Other vegetables that we managed to harvest on Saturday are Leeks, Lebanese eggplants, Lemon grasses, beans, corianders, snow peas, chilies, tomatoes, radish thinnings and 4 different variety of capsicum. The rain keep us indoors so I decided to cook and cook, gave me a chance to try many new recipes that I have been keeping in my favourites. Wendy's Garden to Table Challenge has also motivated me to fully appreciate our harvest and the way we used them in the kitchen.

The pumpkin that we harvested was growing vertically (photo taken in March) and in container. I almost forgot about that pumpkin because tomato foliage were covering it from view. I have to admit it is not easy to grow rambling pumpkin on a small limited space. We had to train the pumpkin veins so it won't annoyed other neighbouring plants. During rainy weeks or high humidity, have to make sure there is lot of space for air circulation so the plants are not succeptible to powdery mildew. I tried to grow bush pumpkin but birds keep on uprooting young seedlings that it was too late anymore to grow them.  In 2010, we only harvested one pumpkin. Hopefully this year will be a bit of improvement. Does anyone know the reason or how to avoid when your pumpkin is growing the size bigger than a tennis ball suddenly it become rotten and died? We have this problem every year.

Our main dishes with warm rice for Saturday night are P.F.Chang's Stir-Fried Spicy Eggplants from Joyce recipe and Cencalok Prawn from CikManggis kitchen recipe. Together with the Labanese Eggplants are beans and leeks used for P.F. Chang's Stir-Fries Spicy Eggplants. Joyce told me that snake bean is also good for this dish but I don't have any fresh snake bean in our garden substitute it with french bean.

This was the first time I tried making this exotic Cencalok (cincalok) prawn cuisine as we have a lot of home-grown chilies and lemon grass to use. This dish is an instant hit on the dinner table. My husband had 3rd helpings.

On Sunday morning, with the help of tomatoes, radish thinnings, capsicum, coriander, chili and leek , I made Mee Goreng (Fried Noodles) before we went off to the state museum for the kids.

No gardening this weekend due to heavy rain and strong wind.