2020 Winter Garden Harvest Diary

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Goodbye winter, hello summer! Thought I’d share with you my winter veggie garden harvest diary and all the fun things we tried our hand at growing in the garden this year! It was a fun winter here and lots of things were learnt.

Our favourite crops were probably:

  • bok choy, pak choy (though for some reason I haven’t a picture of any)

  • gai lan - planting more next year

  • beetroot leaves - our new favourite & beetroot

  • silverbeet - a steady and forever there for you kind of veggie

  • snow peas - straight off the vine delicious

  • cauliflower - definitely more next season please!

  • baby spinach & kale

Some things I learnt:

  • beetroot leaves & radish leaves are edible and totally delish

  • a net itself isn’t enough to protect from rats, next year I’ll have to secure them even better

  • get ahead of the slugs early (this recipe worked really well for catching them for us)

  • even though my mint started as a small stick it spread like wildfire - this summer I’m moving it to a pot so it doesn’t take over the garden bed

  • pickled beetroot is super easy to make - don’t fear growing more beetroot next year

  • borage, nasturtiums & calendula are going out of the garden beds next season - they can really take over

  • I could probably go away no problems during winter, I barely had to water the garden all season and just relied on the rain

  • wouldn’t mind a few more garden beds!

  • more organised succession planting and more Asian greens

  • eating seasonally isn’t all that hard. We barely ate a tomato all winter long but recently I have been craving them again!

Our winter garden harvest diary below: enjoy!

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Making pickled beetroot

Spinach, snow peas, lettuce

Snow peas, cauliflower, lemons,

Borage, broad beans, snow peas,

Garlic, snow peas, calendula

Snow peas, jalapeño, mint

Sage, cauliflower, harvest basket,

Beetroot, Tahitian lime, radish

Edible flowers: nasturtiums, borage, pansies, sage flowers & some mint

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The most beautiful veggie I ever did see - growing an entire patch next year I swear

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Behold, the gorgeous purple cauliflower

Harvest basket (parsley, cauli, broccolini), tung ho greens, our first strawberry

green podded peas, beetroot, beetroot leaves

silverbeet, beetroot leaves, beetroots (including a yellow one!)

white cauli, herbs (lemon balm, mint, vietnamese mint), broad beans

parsley, oregano, sage flowers & lemon balm

beetroot, broad beans and cauliflower