Monday 18 July 2016

Harvest Monday - 18 July 2016

My Broad Bean harvest is coming to an end. I picked a batch of 450g on Monday this week, and another 350g on Friday.

Broad Bean "Masterpiece Green Longpod" - 450g


The Monday batch finished up in a Spanish-inspired dish which I made with potatoes, chorizo and tomato sauce with plenty of paprika.



That dish was accompanied by a lettuce salad, made from this "Ice Queen" lettuce:


It's basically an Iceberg-style lettuce with frilly edges. It has a nice crunchy heart.



This is the Friday batch of beans. It was the very last, because after picking it I cut down the plants!

Broad Bean "Masterpiece Green Longpod", 350g


This week I upended another of my pots of potatoes. These are "Charlotte".


This was two plants in one 35-lite pot. Jointly they yielded 1.21kgs, which is more than the last pot, but leaving them in the soil for that much longer has meant that the skins are not quite as blemish-free. One or two of them have quite rough skins, though to be honest I'm probably being too picky here; they were lovely potatoes!



The peas are still trickling in...



I never get many at a time (that batch was 345g), but overall, the yield has been very good - much better than I had dared to hope for, given my previous lack of success. By the way, a few days ago the pea plants started to develop mildew, so I sprayed them with a milk and water solution (50:50), and it seems to have stopped the mildew spreading. Our current weather conditions are unfortunately very conducive to fungal diseases like this.


I picked the first of my climbing French Beans this morning. This is 146g of "Cobra".



I think you will understand why this is an old favourite of mine. It produces early crops of lovely big, tender, straight pods, and it has a long season.




As usual, I'm linking this "Harvest Monday" post to the weekly linkup hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

8 comments:

  1. With home-grown produce, your Spanish-inspired dish looks so delicious!! Beautiful produce, as always!

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  2. As usual those peas and beans look excellent :) I wasn't overly impressed with Charlotte potatoes, various things ate them, holes all over them and this year opted for Maris Piper and Bard. The Bards have been fantastic taste and number of tubers.

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    1. I think location can be important with potatoes. Charlotte just seem to do brilliantly in pots, but maybe they're too delicate to survive the rigours of the plot? I always try a few new ones each year, so maybe next year I'll try Maris Bard.

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  3. Those Cobra beans do look lovely. I'm growing one called Climbing French but it is supposed to have flattened pods. And my Ice Queen lettuce never looks as pretty as yours!

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  4. The Cobra beans look very nice, I can understand why you grow them. Some years I grow Fortex, another French bean available here that grows long, round, straight pods. And your Charlotte potatoes look pretty good to me. What do you do with the 35 liters of soil from the pot?

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    1. Currently I am growing a second veg crop in the containers that had the potatoes in - Leeks, Carrots, Peas, Cucumber etc. At the end of the year I will probably put the soil / compost into my compost bins or onto a raised bed.

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  5. Your Spanish inspired dish looks absolutely delicious. Ice Queen doesn't seem to have resented your wet weather. I find that the Iceberg lettuces can develop rot if it gets too wet. And I would be very happy to harvest those potatoes, they look beautiful to me. Cobra looks like a wonderful bean, I can see why you stay with it.

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  6. Your potato chorizo dish looks so good and that is a perfect head of lettuce. I really want to try growing potatoes in containers next year, yours just do so well.

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