July's Harvest

The past week has been very hot with not a grey cloud in sight.  I guess this is how summer days should be.  Despite fasting, we do have to make sure that we visit the garden regularly.  The plants are growing really well there and we have to make sure we water them enough to keep them growing. 

The sun would come out very early in the day and we have to either wait for evening when it's not too hot or go earlier in the morning to avoid the midday sun.  But sometimes it's very hot and the sun is still so bright at 7 or 8pm and sometimes it gets very hot so early in the morning.  On days like that, we had no choice but to stay at home.

Today, we decided to head to the garden early in the day.  Even though it was only 8am, the sun was beginning to shine and when we reached the garden, it was really hot.  So we quickly did our chores there.  Pete dug up four of the potato plants and then started watering the plants with the watering can.  Luckily, our Chinese neighbour has finished using her hose and offered it to us.  It made the watering easier since he didn't need to walk to and fro the tap which is about 15m away.

I did some weeding so that I could reach the bean plants.  The yellow beans, which was among the earlier batch of vegetables which were planted, are already producing beautiful beans.  I picked the ones that are long enough while carefully making sure I didn't disturb the flowers which will grow into beans.  I could see more tiny beans growing so I think next week would bring a bigger harvest.

The peas that were grown earlier are also producing flowers and pods.  These were the survivors after the whole patch was ravaged by rabbits.  In fact, that patch must be the rabbits' favourite since they have been spotted running from there when we visit the garden in the evenings.  I also spotted pods that had nibble marks on them.  Today, I found two pods that are swollen and fat.  I think they are full of juicy peas and should be ready to be picked.

I also checked on the peas and beans that were in the planters.  They are doing very well.  I spotted lots of pea pods and tiny beans growing.  The beans I planted there are the green variety so they are a bit different from the other bean patch.  Funnily enough, the leaves of the green beans are yellowish and while those on the yellow beans are much greener.  I think the peas and beans at the planter should be ready in one or two weeks.

The zucchini plants have already produced a few fruit.  They have started flowering late last month and earlier this month, I have seen some big ones.  However, their ends have rotted and I only managed to harvest one good one.  I had to keep a close eye on them and hope that they would grow big enough without any blemishes.  Today I was lucky to find two that were of good enough size so I harvested them.  I think they will be good in a stir fry. 

The carrots are also growing well.  In fact, I think the carrots are among my favourite vegetable to grow.  They don't take much attention, apart from regular watering.  I also had to keep thinning them but even that is fun to do.  There's something about pulling the baby carrots up that makes me feel good.  The baby carrots are also flavourful and could be used in cooking.  We've already done enough thinning and the rest are left to grow even bigger.  I needed some for a soup I would be making tonight so I pulled up two average sized carrots.

We left the garden with a couple of kilos of potatoes, two zucchini, two carrots and a handful of beans and peas.  Not bad for our first 'proper' harvest.