Summer Harvest

G'Day,
I have spent this morning out in the yard at one of my favorite pass times with my hands in the earth. Weeding and watering and feeding and harvesting the back yard vegetable patch, and loving it.
So I am back to sharing...bragging...with my friend Tootsie on her site Tootsie time. Go have a look by clicking on her link in my favorite reads list on the sidebar.
It is high summer and this year has been a kind season in Canberra for gardeners.
So, I am here to brag about the produce I have been getting in this inherited via rental house that we are living in at the moment.
First pic above is the vege patch out the back. We planted Tomatoes, cucumbers, silver beet, butternut pumpkins, capsicums, basil, marigolds, beans and beetroot. The strawberry patch was already there, as well as the stone fruit , fig and pear trees.
These were picked this morning, we have so many cucumbers I have been sneaking them to the neighbours to get rid of them. I also made up a batch of bread and butter cucumbers to keep.There are 3 types of pears and this is the first few I picked today. I don't really know how to look after pear trees. So if you have any suggestions and tips I would be pleased to have them.
Strawberries. Bloody beautiful. These ones are small but at the beginning of the season they were much bigger, but these taste just as sweet and juicy. Also the first of the baby tomatoes.
This is a butter nut pumpkin. Many years ago I bought some of them at a fair in Tumut and the old man there gave me some of his seeds to grow. I tried them in a couple of spots in our house in Junee but they never came up. I thought that as the seeds were old it couldn't hurt to just put them up and see what happened this time. Look at the results, good size aren't they. Cool eh. I counted 8 pumpkins today and it is still flowering and fruiting so there may be more yet.
Silver beet. We have been harvesting this for a few weeks now. Nothing better than picking greens straight from the garden and putting them straight in the pot.
These are Lebanese cucumbers. Oh yum. Last night we had an antipasto platter for tea and used rings of fresh cucumbers instead of bicuits to put the cheese and bits and pieces on. On the platter: olives, cheeses, red capsicum, stuffed pepper dews, eggplant, sun dried tomatos, blue berries, cucumbers,chicken pate', fresh grain bread, pecans.
Tasty little strawberries. Quite a few of these that I picked this morning didn't make it back inside. Hehehe.


The fig tree is loaded. There were a few earlier fruits that ripened then it got a big second crop that are (as you can see) smaller and not yet ripe. I saw some black figs in the shop yesterday and they were $29.95 a kg. Bloody hell, I wonder how many kilos will come off this tree. I will be making lots of jam in a month or so.
Some of the baby tomatoes.
And the nice big tomatoes. I will go back for these in a couple of days. This is a grosse lisse tomato plant.


Green pear, might be a William pear I think.
Red pear. One of the 3 espaliered along the back fence.
Beautiful peaches. I have been eating these straight off the tree, they are the white fleshed perfumed kind. It is such a shame but a lot of these have been wasted because the stone fruit trees in the yard have brown rot. It is the wrong time of the year to treat for that but we will treat it when it is time.
This is a pic I took of my Mum yesterday afternoon. Her maiden name is Trenerry so I lined her up and captured her there to show her off. Hahahaha. This is at Weston Creek shopping area here in Canberra. When I took this she hadn't read the sign and hadn't worked out what I was doing.
As this name is spelled the same way as her family name there must be a connection somewhere along the line.
Another Canberra name "Curley" is related to my Mum via her first marriage to a Fred Curley, they were a pioneering family in the area, same family. There is a bridge in Canberra called the Sylvia Curley bridge, that was his aunt.
My maternal grandfather Joe Trenerry, was the head of the masonic lodge in Australia, so Mum thinks (hopes, surmises hahaha) that this Trenerry square has something to do with him. Who knows, but that would be nice wouldn't it?
Anyway. Enough of my gardening bragging. Must go and eat another beautiful, white fleshed, perfumed, tree ripened, to perfect sweetness Peach. hahaha.
Bye
Love Linda.