Abundance

As we've mentionned in various posts, this year we planted quite a garden. Guess what... things are growing in such abundance that we can't keep up.

We planted 20 corn seeds which are yielding 4-6 ears per stalk. This must be the sweetest corn we've ever eaten. We eat as soon as it's picked. My favourite way is by leaving the last layer of leaves then cooking them on the barbie. I've even eaten them raw! Yesterday, Edith took the kernels off 11 cobs and pureed 3 for Philippe which then got put into ice cube trays for later eating and the rest ended up frozen in ziplocks for use this winter. A total of 2 kg of kernels...

Three zuchini plants which are simply out of control. We have made zuchini cake, zuchini and bacon quiche, zuchini soup, grilled zuchini. Plus we eat it raw in salads and put it on home made pizza. We've given heaps away to friends and colleagues, whoever will take them! Any other ideas of what to do with them?





Three cucumber plants which have yielded at least 15 kg so far. We've mostly eaten them raw on their own or in salads although I made a cucumber and red capsicum (Australian for Bell Pepper) relish using, get this, 3.5 kg of cucumber from a single picking! I used a recipe I found here with lots of extra spice. However, after having made it I'm afraid the vinegar content may be too high but we'll wait and see once its had a few months to rest up.


Making relish:
This gave about 3 litres of relish.










Three different patches of green beans which we just can't eat so we blanch and freeze in ziplocks. Edith also made some puree for Philippe which went into ice cube trays for freezing and use later. If we skip a day of picking they just get too big and the taste and texture is nowhere near as nice so those ones end up back in compost.




Eight tomato plants plus two which just spouted from compost added to the garden (unfortunately, we lost a large plant during a wind and rain storm). The wooden structure you see is a huge truss which I built with scrap wood. We've put runner strings up them and get the vines to grow up the strings. The first type of tomato to ripen were the cherry tomatoes - you have never tasted such fruit. We are starting to get the standard beefsteak tomatoes to ripen and next will be the roma tomatoes which we will mostly use for tomato sauce for the winter.

We planted something like 20 basil plants. Next weekend we will be making huge quantities of pesto which will then be frozen for later use. When we do this, we add only oil and garlic. When it comes time to use it, if we are after genovese pesto we add parmsan and roasted pine nuts. We also freeze them in ice cube trays so that we can have small portions if we want them.




Four aubergine plants in a hothouse which are probably going to yield around10 fruit in total. We'll be eating our first ones tonight. We've had so so success and for some reason the leaves seem to be suffering. Also, grasshoppers have been in the hothouse and chewd some leaves.

We started the spring season with 4 or 5 batches of radish, peas, and we've been eating various types of lettuce, including radichio and arugala (rocket) for months. I can't seem to find any pictures a the moment so you will just have to take our word for it.



We even had a rock melon (cantaloupe) which grew of its own accord from the compost. Its single fruit has been picked but not yet eaten.








There are also grape vines with tons of fruit, a peach tree with maybe 50 fruit, a fig tree and an apple tree.

As you can see, we have been fruitful! Please, if you are in the neighbourhood, stop by and help us eat our veggies!