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Saturday's Backyard Bounty

Each week I am going to aim to post about what we have harvested from our garden, and how we have used our harvest. I will also aim to write about a couple of things we have learnt.

Our harvest . . .

Today Dave dug up two buckets of potatoes. Elnathan enjoyed transferring them from one bucket to another!


We also harvested beetroot, carrots, lettuce, radishes, zucchini, spring onions, parsley, chives, our first tomato for the season, and basil.

Food from the garden . . .

Salads with fresh lettuce, radish, spring onion, cooked (boiled) beet, grated raw beet, carrots, and our first tomato! We are enjoying salads much more since I devoted a couple of meters exclusively to salad crops and began growing a variety of lettuces.

Risotto with beetroot and zucchini. Beet risotto is one of our favourites, and adding some zucchini was an experiment. We liked it!

Pizza with zucchini and basil as two of the toppings.

Potato salad this evening with our new potatoes, fresh eggs plus chives and parsley - yum, yum!

We also harvested some patty pan squash and enjoyed them on the braai tonight.


We planted . . . 

Seeds for carrots, turnips, spring onions and broccolini.

What we learnt . . .

Dave discovered that sunflowers are highly productive but susceptible to drought. They use water continually as they do not shut down their stomata. We must keep them well watered if we want them to be productive and produce seeds for our chickens. Our first sunflowers opened this week. They are behind the corn in a long row, so we hope it will look amazing soon.


I learnt to plait garlic and hung it on a hook near the back door.


Slugs have probably been responsible for the destruction of many of our seedlings. We laid snail bait and snared many. We thought grubs were cutting our seedlings off at the base but now think slugs may be responsible.

Faith  – (January 16, 2011 at 7:13 AM)  

~sigh~ i'm living vicariously thru your blog today! as i sit here in my living room I am looking out at 8 inches of snow, blowing snow from a bitter wind, and grey, leaden skies....and soooo thoroughly enjoying your pics of sunny weather and fresh produce. I am currently paying very high prices for fresh produce....we like zucchini on pizza as well! and that potato salad sounds scrumptious...always is better with our own produce, eh?? ENJOY!

Tallmoores  – (January 16, 2011 at 10:16 PM)  

very inspiring all of your garden veggies. am wondering if you guys just have the green thumbs, or if it is tassie weather. Maybe a bit of both, and lots of hard work. We have never gotten further than strawberries, pumpkins and tomatoes. But our fresh produce market was way under the flood water so maybe we should start following your good example.

Sherrin  – (January 17, 2011 at 8:47 PM)  

Hello Faith, thanks for taking the time to share how this post blessed you!

Hello Gayle . . . I think hard work is the answer! I spend at least 1/2 an hour out there most days and Dave's time working in the garden probably adds up to about the same. Tassie conditions are extremely variable (as I'm sure you've heard!) and sometimes damages our plants. I hope your markets will be up and running again soon!

Anna  – (January 18, 2011 at 5:53 AM)  

I agree with Faith. We have snow here as well and I loved reading this post. I'm dreaming of our summer garden and this post helped me start planning for trying out some new veggies. Highly inspiring. I'm glad you mentioned how much time you spend in your garden each day. My goal is to spend more time outside this summer taking better care of our plants this year than last. I'll be looking forward to these weekly posts if you have the time to tell us all about your garden and cooking. :)

Hannah  – (January 19, 2011 at 2:28 PM)  

I will look forward to this series...you are making me hungry. :) Sounds like you are being very creative and resourceful with your produce, and I love the garlic braid!

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