Last harvest for 2011

Am not sure what this plant is... 

Shall have to look the references up one day...

I supposed the fruits must be quite tasty as the birds do come for them...

Update: Thanks to Debra for suggesting that this could be 'bittersweet'. Did a search on the net and indeed, this plant belongs to the bittersweet family. The bittersweet in Debra's write-out looks like a climber but not this one in our garden. I think this plant we have is called Japanese Spindle. It is not a climber but an ever green shrub with shiny leaves.

Harvested some round daikons today for my suweeto haato to make a new year dish with carrots...

Also harvested the butter scotch pumpkins... 

All six of them, including the one that was harvested some time ago...

In total, they weighed about 4.9 kilograms...

As we retire for the night, my missus is about to put one pumpkin into a dutch oven and placing the dutch oven inside our wood-stove...

We are experimenting to see if the pumpkin gets cooked with the remaining heat from the wood-stove... 

Plus, harvested the last of the sweet potatoes...

The purple-flesh murasaki sweet potatoes were the most productive of the four types... 

All in all, they weighed in at about 15.2 kilograms...

Very good by my standards...

Our favorite sweet potato however, is the orange-flesh An-no...

They are super sweet, almost like honey...

Rather unfortunately, productivity was low...

We could manage only about 2.9 kilograms of this delicious sweet potato...

And to close the 2011 chapter is this little camellia...

Ok folks, looking forward to the new year when we get up next morning...

Tomatoes, daikon, beans, malabar spinach

A friend of my wife sent us some seeds of this Sicilian Rouge tomato...
Tried planting it very late in the season...
Not too bad in that we get to harvest some fruits just before the cold came in...

Planted daikon (radish) for the first time...
Been harvesting them for some time now...
While they are not the biggest daikons around, they are very tender and good to eat...
The leaves, supposedly vitamin-packed, go very well with tofu, sauteed that is...

We like fava beans very much...
So much so that we decided to plant plenty of them this season...
We have about 30 plants, compared to only four last season...
I understand from a blog that the leaves taste good, so we might try to cook some this time around...

Snap peas are crunchy compared to snow peas or silk field peas...
We had all three types last season, but we are planting only snap peas this time...
Reason? Wife's request...

Ceylon or Malabar spinach (not related to the 'normal' spinach) is high in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium.
It is low in calories, but high in protein... just what we need...
Leaves are thick and succulent...
Seeds remind us of the corals in the sea...

Greens growing well...

Due to the unexpectedly constant rain for the past few weeks

The greens in our potager have been flourishing...

Bayam or amaranth(green pointed leaves)...
red ladies finger, nasturtium...

Parsnip... seeds from Cairns...
trying it for the first time...

Daikon (Japanese radish)...
First time to grow this crop...

Korean perilla amongst komatsu-na...
The perilla self-seeded and they grow faster than the weeds...
Good for us as we love the taste of it...

Komatsu-na... aka mustard greens...
A patch of moroheya...

Am not sure of the name of this vegetable....
Got the seeds from my mum...
in the village, we call it 'mak choy'...
I like its plain taste... excellent as a soup...

Red amaranth...
bought the seeds from Malaysia...
The taste is as good as the green version...

Planted swede for the first time...
also called rutabaga or yellow turnip...
supposedly a cross between cabbage and turnip...
Bought the seeds from Cairns...

Some folks say swedes do not like transplanting...
I did, un-knowingly...
And it is looking surprisingly good...