This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Monday, 7 September 2015

Harvesting Tasty Salads

I've had great salad crops all summer long. Grown from seed, the lettuces have been relatively pest free - however strange it seems! The slugs, snails, caterpillars and other pests have affected other plants (kale, beans, etc) but they've left most of the lettuces alone, which has been great.
Pictured is an organic mixed salad made up of: lettuce leaves (salad bowl red and green); onion; shredded carrot (the carrot is underneath so its difficult to see); cucumber and cherry tomatoes from the community garden; and coriander sprinkled on top for added flavour. I'll serve with olive oil or red wine vinegar.
Grown from seed, I harvested 'Chantenay Red Cored 2' carrots for the weekend. More of these to pull but I tend to leave them in the ground until needed.

I ate my first home-grown apple of the season this week from a self pollinating apple tree that grows in a large pot. I have 13 apples this year - equal to my previous record of 13 apples.

Today I'm joining Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions blog. 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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12 comments:

  1. Mark Willis7 September 2015 at 01:36

    Salads like that make it really worthwhile to grow you own - and they can be different every time. I'm surprised to hear that the slugs have not attacked your lettuces. You must have very tasty kale etc! I'm currently contemplating getting some apple trees to grow in pots. Which variety is your one, and do you recommend it?

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    1. Kelli7 September 2015 at 11:35

      Hi Mark, I bought the apple tree quite a number of years ago when I wasn't ''into'' gardening. I threw the tag away or misplaced it so I'm not sure the variety. I do know that it was a self pollinating variety. I've really enjoyed having an apple tree so I'd definitely recommend it. Growing in a pot keeps it quite contained too.

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    2. Mark Willis8 September 2015 at 09:09

      Thanks anyway, Kelli. I know the feeling... Writing my blog is a good way of recording things now, because my memory isn't what it used to be!

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  2. Sue Garrett7 September 2015 at 06:38

    The slugs seem to have been similarly picky on our plot. They too have ignored the lettuces and been eating other things instead

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  3. Jo@awholeplotoflove7 September 2015 at 07:12

    My lettuce have been full of bugs this year, so much so I'm thinking of growing them under mesh next year. Your salad looks delicious x

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  4. Susie7 September 2015 at 12:02

    I had a hard time with greens this year but mostly just bolting from the heat. That's a lovely fresh looking salad! Those stubby carrots look wonderful ... mine are still far too small and thin to harvest yet (mostly because I seeded them too close and never really got around to thinning them).

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  5. Eight Gate Farm NH7 September 2015 at 13:13

    I'm glad to read your posts from Northern Ireland. It seems like your summers are much cooler than ours, and your winters much milder. Please keep giving us updates!

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  6. Margaret7 September 2015 at 13:17

    What a beautiful salad and that apple looks delicious! It will be some time until I harvest any apples as I only planted my trees this year - I can't wait for that first juicy bite!

    I'm glad you joined in on Harvest Monday this week!

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  7. Daphne Gould8 September 2015 at 04:54

    Such a gorgeous salad. I miss eating salads right now. Well I eat cucumber salads everyday, but I mean lettuce salads. It just got too hot this summer. And it still is so far this September. I'm hoping it cools down soon, if not for the lettuce, at least for me.

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  8. Michelle8 September 2015 at 19:32

    Your salad looks so beautiful and refreshing (it's hot here at the moment). Believe it or not, there are virtually no slugs in my garden to bother my vegetables. The birds do a good stand in for them though, I have to grow my lettuce in mesh tunnels to keep the birds from eating it. Now I'm hoping that the current heatwave doesn't do it in like the last round that I tried to grow. It's been a few months since I had a green salad... What a beautiful apple!

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  9. Ann Rasmussen9 September 2015 at 05:20

    Fabulous. Your food always looks fresh and good. The apple is perfect. I still can't get over the fact that you grow it in a pot. Here, our apple trees froze early last spring, so no apples this year.

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  10. Lou@RainbowChard16 September 2015 at 08:18

    Mmm, nice salad - lettuce was a big fail for me this year but luckily the organic veg stall on the market sells huge ones at a very reasonable price.
    The apple is lovely - it's so nice having your own. My dwarf trees seem to have settled in a bit now are are starting to produce well, a few years after planting.
    The carrots are very nice too - I'm still waiting for my few to be ready to pull. They've probably split anyway with all the rain that's decided to come recently! Hope the rest of yours are just as good as the ones this week.

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