Sweet potatoes, mandarin oranges

Grew three species of sweet potatoes last April...
The racoons got the better of the potatoes, but luckily they left some behind...
The above potatoes are called 'Anno'...
The flesh is orange in color and is extremely smooth, moist, and sweet...
We take them simply baked, with no additives of any sort...

We have a few types of oranges in the orchard...
These mandarin oranges are fruiting on their first season with us...
The tree is still rather short, yet it produced six fruits...
The 'proper' way is actually to remove all the fruits so as to channel the nutrients to make the tree larger...
As such, the tree will be stronger and its produce, better...
Oh well, let us see...

Wild grapes, Swiss chard...

We are very lucky to have several wild grape plants in our property...
They are very capable of taking care of themselves, which means zero attention from me...
I just prune them and position their canes in such a way so as to provide easy harvesting...

We used to make preserves out of the wild grapes, which we consume with yoghurt...
But lately, I decided to make grape juice...
We managed to get about 1.5 liters of the juice last season...
No sugar added, and they tasted so natural and refreshing...

My missus wanted to have some color in the potager...
So, I purchased some swiss chard seeds from the internet...
The reds are good to look at, but not so good in taste...

The green swiss chard taste very good, and they have excellent texture which is pleasant for the tongue...
The leaves are huge, and we get a plateful with about just three leaves...
We pluck off the large leaves from the outside and they keep growing and growing, thus providing a long harvest...
They are beautiful to look at and good to eat... urrmmm...

Mini radishes

Mini radish is quite fun to grow...
I put one seed in one hole amongst other vegetables...
The instructions say that they can be harvested in about 20 days...
But I normally harvest them in about 30 days...
This red radish was about 10 centimeters long...

The white icicle radish is delicious when freshly picked, just like the red radish above...
The larger one measured about 13 centimeters, while the shorter one, about 8 centimeters...

Angled loofah

We were growing the smooth loofah (aka Egyptian loofah) for sometime now...
My missus initially bought a seedling and we have been using the seeds for several seasons now...
It taste a bit like eggplant...
Then, I bought some angled loofah seeds from Bangkok...
And woah, we are blessed with a constant supply of loofahs...
Except for the people of Okinawa, the Japanese people apparently do not eat them...
However, I gave them to several of my neighbors to try...
I think the angled ones taste a little sweeter than the egyptian ones...
They can measure up to 50 centimeters, and weigh up to 200 grams...
I love them in soups or stir fry...
Tonight, we are going to sink our teeth into this lovely vegetable...

Beets and cucumbers...

Harvested quite a bit of beets this season...
They belong to the 'goose-foot' family, as does the spinach...
My missus slices them and have them cooked lightly in vinegar...
Lovely vegetable, I must say...

Here is a sample of the cucumbers we harvested last summer...
I normally harvest them early in the morning and bring them straight to the breakfast table...
They are super crisp, and very good to chew on...
Whatever that we could not eat that day, we pickled them for a later day...