This year, and every year, I’ve been too lazy to label them properly. We are growing two varieties of vine tomatoes, ‘Gardener’s Delight’ and ‘Peacevine’, but we don’t know which is which anymore. The bigger ones may be ‘Gardener’s Delight’…? We can only imagine, but either way, they are delicious.
We had to rush to harvest the green tomatoes last year because we had our first frost before they were ripe on the branches. So this year we’ve had a huge harvest compared to that!
Freshly picked tomatoes are sweet and juicy, and that’s the most enjoyable part of having a vegetable garden.
We’ve also been able to harvest a few cucumbers every day, but they’ve been a mixture of different varieties as well. Maybe, we can be more organised next year…!
You may think several cucumbers every day are too much to eat. I thought so too, but the cucumbers from my own garden are a different story, and surprisingly we don’t get bored of eating them every day.
My favourite is pounded cucumber. The simple seasoning of garlic, salt and sesame oil is good, but marinating them in spicy vinegar and soy sauce is also delicious.
Ingredients of Tataki Cucumber with Sweet Spicy Soy sauce
cucumber: 4-5
soy sauce: 100ml
vinegar: 100ml
sugar: 4 Tbsp
sesame oil: about 1 tsp
red chillies: 1 or 2
How to make Tataki Cucumber with Sweet Spicy Soy sauce
Cut off the ends of cucumbers. Pound them with a rolling pin and then tear them into small pieces.
Put soy sauce, vinegar, sugar into a bowl and mix well until the sugar is dissolved.
Add chopped red chillies, sesame oil and cucumbers to the bowl.
Rest them for about an hour to allow the flavours to soak in.
Can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.
At the peak of the harvest, we had more vegetables than we could eat, so we gave some away to our neighbours. In return, we received these grapes.
They are small but sweet and delicious. Bartering in the countryside is a fun thing to do!
