Tiny strawberry
It was 37C here in Sydney over the weekend. That means it’s officially summer and just like that, optimal hiking season is over. Even walks with spectacular ocean views don’t offer enough to offset the discomfort of hiking in sticky heat under a broiling sun.
But with the advent of summer, there are more exciting things happening closer to home. It’s the start of strawberry season and this year, we get to enjoy some homegrown delights, even if they are tiny. The first one was only as big as the nail on my pinky finger. Nowadays, our strawberries are a little bigger, but still only just large enough to compete with the size of my thumbnail.
Tomatoes
The tomatoes are also growing, although these are looking too big to be cherry tomatoes like the person at the farmers’ market promised me they would be. Nevertheless, it looks like I might have a good harvest this year – fingers crossed.
Chilli plant
We’re also experimenting with a chilli plant we bought at the farmers’ market. These ones are supposed to be hot, just as we like them to be, but considering that the tomatoes are either going to be full sized or giant cherries, we’ll reserve judgment until we taste them.
And finally, we have high hopes for our dwarf lime tree – it’s growing happily in its giant container, and is bearing lots of flowers, although at the moment, none of them actually look like they’ll be turning into fruit any time soon.
Dwarf lime
This post was inspired by Photo Challenge: Tiny
Some of my favourite posts on this theme include:
Psychology to Motivate | Inspire | Uplift
Travel Tips & Advice For Travellers Old & New
Eye Catching Photography
Nature's nuances in a nutshell
sharing recipes from one generation to the next
The beats to my life
exploring the world
Hi Penne – thanks for mentioning my post, appreciate it! I envy you your lime tree, and your climate…I have growing various chilis for years, but living as I do in Switzerland, it’s not the best climate fro them – this is my harvest from 3 years approx ago:https://polianthus.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/pineapple-sage-and-chocolate-habaneros-bolivian-rainbow-jalapenos-assorted-appulian-chilis-the-joy-of-plants-in-november/
I mixed some into honey and made habanero honey, I love it with cheese, it’s hot but also sweet obviously and habaneros have a beautiful floral note to them. If you like hot food you might like that too. Have a lovely Wednesday Poli
Great post! I’m very jealous of all your exotic chillis. I grew a ghost chilli last year that was so hot I couldn’t do anything with it. Habanero honey with cheese sounds awesome though.
Hiya thanks so much! I have NEVER heard of a ghost chili, reminds me of the Ghost Tribe in the new version of Westworld (which you probably have not heard of..) – I will need to search for it now – the hab honey with cheese is in fact awesome. I brought some to a party, with some chili jam for good measure and someone asked me if I sell the stuff for a living (made me think about it for about 5 minutes, but the margins are too small :)) Poli
Haha maybe not if you can do it in scale…
Ghost chillis are the second hottest chillis in the world. Much too hot to do anything with, really. Unless you have a couple of elephants you want to keep away from your garden. That’s what they do with it in India.
Well you could feed the birds, they don’t have a capsaicin receptor so they can eat them with no problems which is how the seeds get disseminated http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1857/are-birds-immune-to-hot-pepper-enabling-them-to-eat-vast-amounts-and-spread-the-seeds
Definitely not! I already have a pair of myna birds that attack the dog food we leave out for our dog and let’s just say they are not very tidy and definitely don’t clean up after themselves.
thats birds for you – remember that passage in the bible: cannot quote verbatim but it was something about emulating the birds in the field they don’t sow they don’t reap but still they are provided for. And there you are – you put out your garbage, they are happy, and you tidy up! all good in the great scheme of things (for the birds anyway..)
Lol. Yes, for the birds. Definitely not for me! And the dog is too generous – he doesn’t care if they steal some of his food.
good for the dog – !!! He has enough then – my cats of course would immediately sort out the birds. although Mynas are quite big aren’t they?
No they’re not very big, but for some reason, very attracted to dog food!
Ah I was thinking about Kookaburras, or are they small too? LOL – only thing I know about Australian birds is what I learned at school and in songs 🙂 – never been there myself yet, which I have been told I should rectify ! Well any kind of food is good for wild animals really isn’t it. We adopted a stray, his stomach is like a bottomless pit, whenever there is any food, including the other cat’s he eats every single last bit, even when his tummy is bulging. I guess because he never knows when the food will run out…
Ah, I’m so jealous! The temperature over here is dropping rapidly and I can only dream of pulling strawberries out of my garden now.
It’s still spring here, but it feels like summer. That means our summer will be a really hot one! It gets up to 40C in Sydney, so I wouldn’t get too jealous…