Ow how it love when the plans come together and everything is in full blown strong growing modus. This week it has been peak heat again in the Netherlands which also means that some fruits and veggies stop growing or turning color because it is so hot, and they are just on survival modus asking for a lot of water.
But still there was enough to find in the garden plant wise, and maybe these 'hand full' small harvests on the daily are even more convenient than having a bulk harvest where you have to start grinding to get everything processed or eaten all at once.
Looking at the harvest of the daily here I have a couple of cherry tomatoes which are perfect for adding onto a sandwich or running them into an omelet or something. There was also one bigger tomato but that one was already eaten within the second, so no snaps of it because he lives in my tummy now ;)
Also some of the 40K Thunder Mountain Longhorn chillies were ready as well, and these are so mild that you can toss them in literally everything without being on fire instantly.
And what about this odd sized looking zucchini. I guess the pollination moment wasn't the best here or that the watering situation is also having some issues with this heat, but hey...Who cares if it looks like this, it feels juicy enough to make into something nice!
Almost ready to rumble
Another one of the pepper that seems ready is the 'Aji Angelo' which is also supposed to be one of the mild peppers but I haven't tried it as yet. This is also one of the peppers where I am not sure of how the skin should turn out. With that I mean that if it has to end up wrinkly like the super hot peppers eventually always do, or that this is a shiny smooth skin in the end.
Here below you can see that there is a difference in texture but not for the good way. To me the one of the left is the perfect skin at the moment, it just needs to soak up some more sun and then it will be good to go.
The one on the right has some issues. Sure it looks like a nice habanero kind of texture, but the reality is that this one had a cracked stem that had turned brown, which I also saw when I was taking the pepper off.
Unfortunately, that one will end up in the bin as these wrinkles are not a good sign for this one.
Next week is going to be sunny again, so I will leave the remaining shiny ones on the tree for the week for ripen there for a bit more
Single zucchini
In zucchini land I have been having the issue that the male flowers and the female flowers are not opening up at the same time, which is making pollination a bit annoying at the moment.
The female flowers already have the perfect shaped fruit on there and they are just waiting for the pollen so they can continue to grow. But when the are no male flowers open at that same time it can be a bit challenging.
A couple days later I had 5 male flowers open at the same time, but the the female flower had already closed. We need a bit of synchronity to get more of these.
So this one also was with an old male flowers which had some pollen on there still and I swiped it through the female already wondering if this would be enough.
As you can see, something is off with the growth of the fruit. But on the other hand, considering it was 35 degrees celsius out here all week...I could imagine that would also have something to do with the growth over there.
Victory
Seeing everything together makes this a very successful day in the garden again. Sure...these are not grande stashes that can feed the family year long, I know.
I haven't bought any tomatoes in weeks, haven't bought any form of berries for in the yoghurt in weeks because the blackberry bush is still giving, and haven't bought and peppers in weeks because the stash from dried peppers from last year is still going strong. But also because these new peppers are the addition to the dish, and there are still a lot more of them coming up.
The summer harvest is still a small victory, but for sure it is a victory!!
