Harvest Monday 7.21.14

Welcome back to Harvest Monday! Many thanks to Daphne over at: Daphne's Dandelions for hosting once again. I don't know what I"d do without it, I just love being able to go see what people are harvesting all over the world. It gives me a weekly jolt of inspiration.

This weeks harvest continues the avocado fest. It will only last an other week or so because my tree didn't produce a ton this year. Instead it grew a good 15 feet. Have to trade growth for fruit production. Now that the tree is getting rather sizable next year it will be kept trimmed to promote branching and fruiting rather than growth.

These lovelies are amazingly delicious. I like a good grocery store avocado, but these are even better. Completely pesticide free, and hey! The stupid squirrels don't eat them until they start to ripen. BONUS! This means I can pull them off the tree and let them ripen indoors.

Another bonus is that the tree is rather weepy. Weeping? What is appropriate here? The boughs hang low and are difficult for animals to climb. LOVE THAT! It also supplies a nice amount of shade for my poor hot duckies. :-)

Also on this weeks harvest is truly a tropical/Floridian type delicacy. I've never seen this fruit in a grocery, but can occasionally (rather quiet rarely!) find them in a farmers market.  GUAVAS!






Here is a close up of this lovely little diddy.

Richard, the kids and I have had a massive debate on what these taste like fresh. (I've only previously had syrup & jelly) We've come up with this:
The flavor profile of a kiwi, strawberry, and banana with the acidic bite of pineapple. The texture of an overripe banana and those seeds BTW, are not edible. I was under the impression they were, but quickly learned otherwise. I thought they would be like blackberry seeds and be something you could work around once it was in your mouth. Nope. Those little suckers are like rocks. HA! Only good news is there are about 6-10 seeds in each one so not too terrible. Only bad news is these fruits are the size of a half dollar piece. Around the amount of a strawberry.

It took some doing but I finally figured out a decent way to get the seeds out. Unfortunately it requires sticky fingers and a spoon. Bright side to that is I get to lick my then sticky fingers. Win some, Lose some.

Oh, also found out the hard way that the chickens will do ANYTHING to eat them. I've found Campbells way up in the bush stealing them as soon as they blush. When I manage to get them before they do I have 2 hens that hop/fly up and me and my hands trying to get me to drop one or otherwise throw them and run.

So many lessons to learn this week.  While planting the guavas in the chicken run has worked out really well, not getting many of the fruit stinks! Good thing I've got a few more plants on the side of the fence as well. This years crop will most likely only be for fresh eating but, if I can squeeze it in I'll make some syrup as well.

That's it for me. I harvested a half dozen tomatoes which were cracked and gross looking. Only was able to use the bottom half of them so no pictures there. I also harvested 3 large carrots, but they went to the chickens. Too bitter in this 99* heat.

See you soon!

Barbie~