I've taken a week off work to get stuck into my garden. At least, that was the plan. Instead I've found myself watching Food TV obsessively. Today I watched an American bloke make the most delicious-looking pork roast with an apple cider gravy and braised cabbage. I have apple cider! I have cabbage! That alone made it justifiable to watch, even though I hate pork more than anything except roast pumpkin and shellfish. Hmmm. Luckily, I can also justify my newfound obsession for watching Food TV as research of the culinary kind. As it lurches towards the end of summer, my garden is producing a generous glut of produce. Since Good Friday I've harvested:
* 1kg of green tomatoes (to make green tomato & mint relish)
* 2.5kg of red tomatoes
* 2kg of rhubarb (the plant got so big it fell over)
* 5.7kg of courgettes (easily achieved as one marrow alone weighed in at 2.25kg)
* 1.25kg of cucumbers (my 'Diva' plant is now up to 54 cucumbers!)
* 200g of kohlrabi (my very first. I grated it to make coleslaw)
* 1kg of green capsicums
* 2kg of 'Supreme' beans (I'm pulling the plants out now though, they're exhausted)
* 6kg of potatoes (about 2000 tiny tubers - it's the worst crop I've ever had)
* 2kg of apples (to eat in crumbles and casseroles)
* 3.5kg of 'Marina di Chioggia' pumpkin (just the one off the vine)
Total: 27.15kg of fresh food. And that means I need to find at least 27 new recipes to eat it all!
On the planting front, I've put in rows of rocket, chinese cabbages, leeks, red bunching spring onions and two rows of cauliflowers, plus a hedge of 'Blueberry Muffin' blueberries, some lemon grass, a new kaffir lime (killed the first plant) and an ice cream bean tree. And as soon as I pull out the tomatoes out front, I'm going to put in a crop of 'Ilam Hardy' spuds to see if I have better luck leading into winter.
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