Harvest updates

This summer continues in its strange way - the really hot weather which usually lasts two to three months has lasted only about six weeks. This week we've had thunderstorms, heavy rain, drizzle and now a cold north wind. Maybe summer will return, but at the moment it feels like autumn. The tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are still giving us more than we can eat - one day last weekend we picked our biggest ever single day's harvest of tomatoes:

We're unlikely to pick this many in one day again this year, but we have plenty to fill the store cupboard with jars of passata for winter and to make fresh sauces and salads. One Coeur de boeuf tomato made carpaccio of tomato (thinly sliced tomato drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and basil) for two:


Today I picked the first haricots verts (French green beans) from the plants which I sowed around the terracotta pots - there are plenty more to come! Thanks for this watering idea, Kate! It has worked very well.


In spite of the rain we've had since I hung up the strings in the garden, the aubergine slices have dried and are ready to store. I shall use them in sauces during the winter.


And the grapes are ripening. Ours are quite small, but sweet. The variety is Cardinale which is grown here as a table grape and is perfumed as well as very sweet.


The wine grapes are ripening too and soon the vendange (grape harvest) of the white grapes will begin, at night to keep the grapes cool. The red grapes will be harvested at the beginning of September. This strange summer which seems to have delayed vegetable harvests doesn't seem to have had any effect on the grapes, which are ripening as usual at this time.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day


Lantana montevidensis

I've noticed other bloggers celebrate Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day with a flower picture on the 15th of each month, so this is my contribution, from a pot outside our front door. All the garden bloggers' bloom posts are listed each month on Carol's blog at May Dreams Gardens