Harvesting Late June Early July

Apart from the large quantities of cherry tomatoes, and the first of my peas,  I'm also still harvesting lots of chillies. The small and very hot birds eye chilli grows like a weed here. From the first plant we've been lucky enough to have them set seed again every year. In addition to these I have a chilli which isn't as spicy and a bit larger, grown from a store bought large yellow banana chilli, but not resembling the parent fruit in any way, It may be more like a Cayenne or Joe Parker chilli. Again I think the first plants descendents may have crossed with birds eye, or reverted to another former type, as the first crop was mild enough for me to nibble on raw, but subsequent generations have proven too hot. I usually try to make up some chilli jam, but any excess including this lot, I've been giving away, rather than see them wasted.

Many of my underground root vegetables are now coming into their own. We harvested most of the Jerusalem artichokes earlier in the month when there stems started to brown and die off. Last year these were a really experimental crop for me, and in fact I was so put off at the time by their weird appearance, what few tubers I harvested from the original two I'd bought and planted, were all replanted into seedling pots, probably about a dozen in total, and then planted out into the garden beds in summer. The thing with these though is even when you think you've got them all, you suddenly find more which happened when I was digging the soil over to plant something else just the other day. I've collected almost 3 shopping bags full of these and been eating them this year. They say to cook them like a potato, but my favourite is to sauté them chopped finely in butter. Yum! I've kept about 50 small tubers (just put into snap lock bags with some clean moist, but not wet potting mix in a cold dark place) for replanting come spring.

More Jerusalem Artichokes found while digging around.

Jerusalem Artichokes dug out and ready for storing.

No doubt I'll probably find more again when I start harvesting the Indian arrowroot which I'd tucked into the same garden bed, but the leaves on these haven't started to brown yet, so it may be a few more weeks.
 Its finally starting to get cold enough for the foliage on the Turmeric to start dying off, signalling that its time to harvest the roots. Not all the Turmeric is ready, it seems to just be a couple of pots, the plants in the garden beds are still very green, so they'll be a while off yet. Again I've kept some to use ourselves, and then given any excess away. I haven't yet put any aside for replanting, but I've still got a lot more plants to harvest. Also just a word of warning that yellow colour stains, so it will stain your hands and fingernails for a few days if you get it on you, and I have no doubt would definitely stain clothing or tea towels.

Freshly harvested Turmeric

And last for the moment, and most unusually, it was time to unveil the tubers from the Chinese Keys (Krachai). To say I was surprised when I dug these up was an understatement. The tubers that I had bought and planted last year were so small and fine and grew more that looked the same, so I was delighted when they were so much bigger and fleshier this year, and it looks like I've got enough that I can eat some and still store some for replanting.

Krachai tubers harvested this year, This was from just one pot.

 What have you been harvesting in your garden lately?