Fingers Crossed for a Productive Winter

All the seeds I bought back in February have been sown and are all seedlings now. To protect the mini wongbok, baby broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli from snails and slugs I've placed plastic bottle collars around them. Previously I've had great success deterring slugs and snails by spreading coffee grounds around the plants so I did the same this time as well. My local cafe saves big bags of used coffee grounds for me whenever I ask; organic and free pest control! My garlic is going well so far, unlike last years garlic that failed miserably.

I stated a tub of dwarf snow peas 7 weeks ago and there going really well. I also started a tray of dwarf snow peas, dwarf sugar snap peas and dwarf shelling peas. I know your suppose to start peas in the ground but it rained everyday for a week so I just started them in a tray, fingers crossed it won't hurt them too much in the long run.

Radishes & Turnips

My well proven theory that home grown always tastes better than store bought made me take the risk of planting something I'd never eaten before. It could have gone wrong had I disliked either of them but that couldn't be further from the truth. They do live up to there reputation of being super easy to grow! I did slightly neglect them but they still turned out well and I'm glad I took the risk. I planted Watermelon Radishes and De Nancy Turnips.

Radishes

Turnips

Using the Harvest - Oven Dried Tomatoes

With the never ending harvest of tomatoes this year I've  had to come up with more creative ways to use them up other than tomato sauce! I looked on the Internet and found a way to oven dry them. 

Ingredients

Tomatoes

Thyme/ Rosemary/ Oregano

Olive oil

Garlic

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to the lowest temperature possible; mine is 140 oC. Oil a baking tray.

2. Cut tomatoes in half and place them cut side up. Drub rosemary, thyme and oregano with oil and put them in between the tomatoes. Spray/ drizzle the top of the tomatoes with olive oil.

3. Bake for 2-6 hours. After 2 hours check cherry tomatoes to see if there done. You want them to be squishy but not brittle. 

4. Sterilize a jar and place a whole garlic clove, spring of rosemary (or other woody herb) and cooled tomatoes; fill to the top with olive oil. 

*Notes* Don't put in the fridge other wise the oil will 'set'. Use within a few weeks; but they'll be gone before you know it! Check the oven every half hour to make sure none of the tomatoes have burnt.

Using the Harvest - Basil Pesto

Home made pesto is super easy to make and it's 10x better then anything you can buy at the store. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Bunch of basil

45g of toasted pine nuts

60g of grated parmesan

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

5 tablespoons of light olive oil

Instructions
1. Combine the basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic in a food processor and wiz until finely chopped.
2. With the motor still running slowly add the olive oil in a slow but constant stream. Once all the oil has been used scrap the bottom of the food processor and wiz again to combine everything.
3. That's it! You can store it in the fridge for a couple days but if the top is left exposed it oxidises and goes brown. To counter act this either cover with oil or push glad wrap onto the top surface. If this fails the brown top can be scraped away but the bottom is still good to go!

Dwarf Peach

I received a gift card for a home improvement store for Christmas and I decided to buy a dwarf peach with the money. I'm really excited to see how it goes and fingers crossed I'll be eating peaches soon. 

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, and even more Tomatoes

The tomatoe plants are surcuming to black spot quicker than I'd like but they're still giving me lots of tomatoes from them. This morning I picked just over 1kg of tomatoes from 2 of my cherry tomato plants, the yellow pear plant, a grosse lissie plant and a Tigerella plant.

Winter Veggies

Summer is coming to an end and it felt like I was only just started to figure out what summer veggies to grow. I visited the Diggers Club today and bought up my winter veggie seeds.

Peas - I had such success with my dwarf snow peas last year that I thought I'd have a go with a climbing pea and a sugar snap variety also

• Dwarf Snow Pea 
• Dwarf Sugar Snap Pea
• Purple Podded Dutch Pea

Below Ground Crops - I was hesitant to even try growing below ground crops with the many failures I've had, but I think I've learn from last years mistakes and I'm giving it another go. 

• Turnip De Nancy 
• Watermelon Radish
• Red Marble Onion
• Mammoth Purple Garlic

I'm also super excited to see who my broccoli and cabbage so since I haven't try growing these before and they are always a luxury buy at the supermarket!

• Baby Broccoli 
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli
• Mini Wongbok Cabbage 

Mega Zucchini

I picked this zucchini off my costata zucchini zine yesterday and it weights 1kg!