Busy with harvest time at the moment.
Tomatoes - loving the cherry tomatoes, and the green zebras (as always). Not so much in love with the Purple Calabash (these don't make good 'eating' tomatoes, and seemed extra attractive to snails and the like so suffered a fair bit of damage) or the yellow plum (which turned out to be cherry-sized, and are good cooked or in sauces but not so tasty to eat fresh), so I probably won't bother with those ones again. I must confess that although I started the season dutifully removing the laterals my routine slipped at some point in December and the tomato patch quickly became an overgrown forest that collapsed in upon itself in places. This was obviously Not A Good Thing, and I had powdery mildew on the branches for the first time. On the plus side, we did grab a couple of triple-stake triangular frames and these gave those couple of plants much more support, so I'll definitely be picking up more and doing all my tomatoes like that next year.
Tomatillos - went in a bit late but are now doing beautifully. A very photogenic plant! Looking forward to them ripening, so we can see what they taste like.
Also in the Mexican garden went some chilli seedlings, but they haven't really grown that much. Now that I have a decent mini-greenhouse I'll be sure to get these started earlier next year. I also planted jamaica flowers - these are used to make a drink. I think these went in a little late as they are only just starting to show the first signs of buds, and again I'll try harder next year to sow these earlier.
Cape Gooseberry - similar lanterns to the tomatillos but much smaller. The first few of these are ripening up now, and we love them - so tasty! A definite to keep in the garden.
Courgettes - the year of the marrowing. This year's variety seemed particularly sneaky and quick!
Herbs - coriander went to seed quite quickly so I've managed to save a lot of seed for next year. Dill and chives were direct-sown in late December, took a long time to germinate and are only now starting to be recognisable. The parsley is doing well (not as over-the-top as last year, thank goodness). The existing plot of sage is continuing to be thick and lush, and one branch of my rosemary has been successfully bent over to grow its own roots so we can now get rid of the giant woody mass that is the old bush. This frees up the corner that I want to be my entire herb garden, not just my rosemary garden.
Carrots - fresh from the soil this morning was this funky fellow. He was a decent size, almost 200grams. Now he's carrot cake :)
I'll also share with you one of my neighbour's sunflowers, which we could see back in December waving at us across the fences.
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