Summer's Bountiful Harvest

Beautiful Summer Produce

When Summer arrives so too does the fresh sun-ripened produce that is just delightful to behold and taste. Juicy, flavoursome vine fresh tomatoes bursting with goodness.  Especially those grown against a north facing brick wall.  The heat from both the sun and the warmth of the red bricks combine to ensure optimum  flavour.  We grow many varieties from San Marzano which are suitable for bottling to cherry tomatoes just perfect for lunch boxes, Tigerellas, Heirlooms and everyone's favourite, the Grosse Lisse. 

Lovely red peppers, long cayennes, bell peppers and capsicums all create an amazing burst of colour and pure enjoyment in picking them from their bushes.  Peppers are a vegetable we cannot grow over the coldest winter months so the pure delight when they burst forth is indescrible.
I make a gorgeous roasted red chilli jam which I will post on a later date.  Making this from the wonderfully hot peppers is a pleasure and we relish the jam throughout the course of the calendar year.

With the long days of summer come my very favourite fruit - figs.  Fresh figs, opening on the tree with their ripeness is a gift.  The wonderfully heady sweet scent of the tree and the sublime flavour of the figs is what epitomises Summer to me.  They fruit for about four months, slowly ripening in a long and delightful season.
Fresh, roasted with blue vein cheese and balsamic, fig jam, semi dried or fully dried figs to keep for baking, figs are bliss, even better than the juicy peaches which abundantly riped in January and February.  Peaches too are a perfect summer explosion, peach tart, peach melba - clafoutis or simply, fresh peaches are a treat.