February has flown by and the garden harvest is in full swing. The 32 (yes 32!) tomato plants that Country Boy planted are producing more tomatoes than we can ever hope to eat. Fresh tomatoes are part of every meal, and we have made jars of pasata to store up and use over the coming year.
We are also harvesting cucumbers, beans, capsicums, egg plants, and chillis. I’ve been blanching and freezing the beans to eat through out the year. This year we have been growing black capsicums – I love the colour!
The strawberry patch is full of berries. We send the kids out to it after dinner and they pick their own dessert and eat them still warm from the sun.
I asked Country Boy to grow some decorative gourds for me. They are not edible but they are interesting to look at and I like to place them along our mantel piece as an Autumn decoration.
The earwigs seem to have disappeared at last and the plants are recovering. After planting several rows of carrots, and having them eaten by the ear wigs, the carrots are sprouting. The chickens have got into the yard a few times however, and they seem to go straight to the parsley.
In the orchard, we are picking a few apples from our trees. In two or three years, there are going to be more than we can possibly eat!
In between all the harvesting, we have used the chicken tractor on a few spare rows to turn over the ground and prepare it for planting out our winter crops.
What has been growing in your garden?
Oh look at all those gorgeous colours. Oh you are going to be eating pretty xx
Our dry climate means that we don't get fruit fly as a general rule! Short (hot) summers and long cool (cold) winters.
Beautiful ,beautiful, beautiful 🙂 I love the pics, love the post. Thanks for sharing. I am looking forward to seeing what you plant for Autumn
Jo, the yellow gourd looking thing is a crook neck zucchini. Pick them when they are young and treat them like a zucchini, they have a tougher skin. I have just put in 60 tomato plants, to make up for what we lost this year to fruit fly. I am very envious of your capsicums turning red, ours generally get stung by fruit fly before they change colour. Stunning photos too.