Saturday 16 June 2018

Getting Fruity!





Laburnum in the mist.

Chores've slowed down in the garden, but the lack of rain means walking slowly among my plant buddies on a daily basis to give them a drink. 

A great time of year for this, with everything coming into bloom, then blooms turning to fruit.  I love my ornamentals, but man, I adore my edibles.

Take a look at them all.




1.  The race is on.

I bought 3 berry plants last year, the labels of which have walked off into the sunset.  None of them bore fruit last summer, but this year, 2 of them are popping out red all over.

So on the race to fruition, who will get there first - us or the birds?


Breakfast waiting to happen.


2.  Peas in various finery.

It's our first year for blauwchokker peas & I'm loving them in all their stages.  We grew ours from seed planted in April.  They now stand taller'n myself & have great broadly veined leaves on nicely thick stems.

The flower is originally 2 tones of purply pink but then go blue as they wither.


Rampaging pea plants.

Then the blue tissue falls away & these black-purple pods slip out.


Pods jumping the fence.


3.  Today's flowers are tomorrow's sauce.

Slightly behind their pea friends are our rosella cherry tomato plants, but we got flowers!


Looks like a good crop coming.

I'm a fiend for eating most of our cherry maters before I make it back to the house from the garden, but these are feted for having a smoky flavour, so we're hoping to experiment with cooking a few.  Too bad for future sauces that our onions did feck-al this year, but we've got plenty of . . .


4. Garlic, garlic & more garlic!


Inviting vampires to dinner.

Our early purple Wights didn't clove, but these fellas . . . well, you can see it yourself.  Smashing. 


5.  Bean brigade.

We've 2 varieties of dwarf French this year - yin yang & fire tongue.  The yin yangs went in first & so, of course, are the first to bean up.


Yin yang beanies.

As you can see from the smudge in the photo, these guys have a white blossom.  The fire tongues have small pink flowers that hopefully will produce red speckled pods.


6.  Happy surprise.

You may remember my spring angst over my Louis Bonne pear tree.  While it bloomed to high heaven & beyond, its mate, the Asian pear, had no blossom.  Since I'd been told by the nursery that my bloomin' pear didn't self pollinate, I feared no fruit.

The Asian pear, which'd been given to me by the nursery to replace its dead predecessor, gave us great foliage then died.  Louis Bonne did this:


How'd it do that?

Such a shame that I'm the only pear eater in the house (har har har).  Do you know how many amazing pear recipes there are out there?  Come on, Louis!



Rebel Woody.
So while I'm dreaming of fruits to come, take a gander at my woodwardia. 

It was supposed to frond out scarlet, unfurl bronze, then green.  The colour in this photo is pretty accurate, so not what advertised, but I'm not complaining.  Loving this fern.

There's my #SixonSaturday.  Make sure you drop by The Propagator who's our meme host.  You'll get a gander at his six, & links to SoS-ers from all over the globe.

See you soon!

20 comments:

  1. What a delicious Six! Loving all your unusuals. Just in case you feel like sharing, I am rather fond of pears ......

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  2. The caption for the garlic made my day....

    "Inviting the vampures for dinner"

    �������� love it.

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    1. Ironically, my son's PhD dissertation is on vampires. We need all the garlic we can get.

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  3. Ooo those berries look tasty! My raspberries will be a long way behind, as mine are Autumn fruiting ones (after three years, someone mentioned to Mum that we should be cutting the stems down to ground level after they'd fruited - up to then we had no idea!).... oddly enough, the birds don't seem to have discovered them, although the deer like to shelter in the raspberry patch, going on the deer-shaped flattened area in the middle of the patch.

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    1. I had 2 this morning & they are very yummy. Nothing like freshly picked.

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  4. So many things to do with pears....compote, pies, jams, pears in syrup, dehydrated pears for an aperitif, "Douillon aux poires" = pears baked with a puff pastry like croissants (I will give you the recipe if you want because I probably don't explain it good ...)

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  5. Nice harvest coming on there, L. I picked some strawberries, raspberries ,redcurrants, kale and chard this morning. Yum!

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  6. Your garlic looks so much better than mine. I got some scapes to put in stir fry, but the bulbs that I have dug up so far were barely larger than my thumb. Leaving the rest in the ground for now in hope that they'll get better.

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    1. Mine've been mixed - some small ones, but for the most part, a happy crop.

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  7. I love your drying method for the garlic. Great use of a wheelie bin!

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  8. Nice work on the fruit and veg there!how have you got all that organised having moved house? Did you have it all in pots?

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    1. Only the garlic. The rest was either planted from seed in April or bought as plugs in May.

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  9. I love those purple peas. I know they change colour when cooked, but they make a dramatic splash in the garden. I think you can do pears in a Tarte Tatin, which would be nice.

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  10. Tarte tatin, excellent idea. As to the peas, our front garden gets more sun than the back, so we hoped to appease our neighbours by growing coloured veg.

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  11. Those raspberries have me drooling. I hope that you win the race. I never seem to make it to my blueberries in time. It got to the point where I'd just eat them off the bush anytime I was outside. Of course, no one else in the fam got any. Such is life, ha!

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    Replies
    1. I do seem to be winning the berry race - have had several breakfasts so far. Does netting work w/your blueberries?

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