Harvest Time

Hmm. This post is appearing out of sequence because I lost some photos I was going to use. Read some later posts and you'll find out why!

Here's something I'm really going to miss while I'm in Australia - it is time to start harvesting our produce.

We have a little apple tree that produces masses of apples. They are only tiny, but really quite sweet. Last year the missus pruned the lower branches and I wondered if we would get bigger fruit this year.

Well the answer is No, but they do look rather pretty.

And then there are the tomatoes. Well we've been eating them until they came out our ears for the last few weeks, but now it is time to start culling the plants. Here is a small section of our tomato forest.

(I would have shown you the wheelbarrow full of fruit that got picked from 1/2 of the plants, but that photograph is I know not where).

We normally harvest the chillis in October or November. But the Medusa chillis are already ripe.

Having tasted a few of the fruits, though, I would have to say that you should only grow these as a decoration rather than for the crop - they have no heat whatsoever.

At the other extreme, though, we have our Habanero Orange chillis. Here we kept a couple of plants over winter and they have come again really beautifully.

They are dynamite!

And we also have, as described previously, masses of (mildish) Guajillo, loads of Fiestas, Black Pearl and Chinese 5 colour, and plenty of Fatalli, Tokyo Hot and Caribbean mixed hot peppers.

But what is going on here?

It is the missus's fault. She lured the little ones under the tree and then shook it to bomb them with apples! Now Little Miss is trying to bomb her brother. I only picked up all the windfall the day before and now look at it!