Shallots

I brought home a small but fine crop of shallots today, having picked them on Saturday and left them to dry in the sun, to continue drying on the windowsill for a few more days.
I thought I had ordered Red Sun shallots, but these are definitely Sante – must have got my wires crossed somewhere [...]

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Pair of Pears

Two pears made it to full size – double last year’s amount. I’m scratching my head for ways to preserve them. Pear butter, perhaps?
Otherwise, nature had it in for me today. Shortly after I arrived, I was bitten on the hand by an ant that had somehow got inside my glove (there’s a big red [...]

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Plums

We picked the plums from one of our three plum trees, harvesting roughly three times as many as we got last year. Nevertheless, the two other trees didn’t produce anything (one did, but all the plums fell off suddenly a few weeks ago).
Here’s another view of this year’s.

We also got more courgettes, the Tondo di [...]

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Onion Harvest

I harvested almost all of the onions today. They were looking ready to be picked.

I hadn’t quite anticipated how many there would be, even if some were on the small side for Stuttgart Giants – in fact, some were barely bigger than the onion sets I planted!

They are now drying on sheets of newspaper in [...]

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Beautiful Beet

We harvested the first full-sized beetroot of the Crimson King variety some three months after sowing the seed, steaming and eating both leaves and roots.

The courgette plants are back in action.

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More Late Beans

We put a second batch of late beans, borlottis this time, into the plot last night after starting them indoors a couple of weeks ago.

We also planted seeds for some greens brought back from Italy in April, Cima di rapa quarantina. Known in English as ‘broccoli rabe‘, they look like sprouting broccoli and are served [...]

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