First Major Harvest of the Season

So far this year I have been able to harvest a small amout of produce from the garden - there have been a small handful of strawberries and raspberries, a couple of tomatoes, six potatoes, six sticks of rhubarb and a couple of pea pods

With all the sun we have had recently the chard in the front garden has started to bolt and has thrown out huge flower spikes.

Bolting Chard

The flowers themselves are nowhere as colourful as the plant, simply being a mass of tiny green petals.

I decided to harvest some of the plants tonight as we will be making a chick pea and spinach soup tomorrow, using the chard in place of the spinach.

We also had a handful of leaves braised in stock to go with tonight's tea.  I wanted to have a taste test just in case the leaves had become too bitter to use, which is what I have read happens once the plant bolts.

Fortunately they weren't too bad, so there is now a colander full of large leaves plus a nice pile of smaller, hopefully more tender leaves and some stalks - about 350g in total from 2 plants.

There are a further three much larger plants still awaiting harvest - I will probably lift them tomorrow and put something like beets in their place.

Bountiful Harvest

I have planted another Bright Lights Chard at the allotment which is a few weeks behind those in the raised bed at home.

I am hoping to be able to harvest some of the smaller young leaves from that plant on Saturday as well as some of the leef beet we planted last weekend to give Will his first ever produce to take home.

That will be a great milestone for him - the next will be when his seeds start showing, followed by harvesting from the plants he has sown himself.