The first harvest of the year

Happy 2013 readers!

 

This will be the first full year in my food garden and there's so much to look forward to. Already my fig tree has baby fruit and I'm thinking of fresh figs in March.

 

But for now the garden is all about tomatoes and corn. Yesterday I picked about 3.5kg tomatoes:
 

 

I served the corn on the bbq on New Year's Eve to a group of friends.

 

But the biggest hit was the bruschetta we served with home-grown tomatoes and basil and the toasted bread rubbed with home-grown garlic. One of our guests (a chef) said she hadn't eaten tomato for seven years. I think she had one of those epiphany moments you have when you taste a real home-grown tomato.

Simple bruschetta:

Fresh tomatoes chopped, torn basil, a pinch of salt, a dash of good olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Toast the bread and rub it with garlic. Top the bread with the tomato mixture. I like to shave a bit of Parmesan over the top, or you could use a soft goats cheese.

Perth's week-long heatwave really took its toll on our tomatoes. Many of them got sunburned and turned white. From there they seem to turn into sacks of mush. We lost whole bunches of beautiful big tomatoes. But thankfully the rest of the garden survived.

 

Here's something strange. My Black Krim tomato turned out to be not so black:

 

 

This week's task will be to turn a whole lot of those tomatoes into sauce and relish. I'll keep you posted!