Balcony Garden: Harvest Monday #11

Do you remember my parsley that shot to fame via our parsley(web)cam experiment?  No?  Let me refresh your memory for you...here.  Despite his celebrity status Mr Parsley has been shunted out to the balcony to live with the other greenery...and these beautiful Marigolds that the local Currawongs took exception to and uprooted from their pots one night. The trials of gardening really never end do they?

Keeping the parsley company is a pot of chives that I bought from Dov Cafe months ago. The chives are doing alright and routinely survive infestation by black aphids that just look like a heaving mass of dirt at the base of the plant.  At first I thought they were rich looking dirt...until the dirt started moving en masse.  Icky!  The chives often flower and I've been told flowers go nicely in salads, but I like to leave them in the hope of attracting some bees to the balcony.

Chives + parsley go really well in savoury dishes and in particular as garnishes for soups.  This tomato, carrot + lentil soup from the blog 84thand3rd are is now on regular rotation in our house - it's super easy and very very tasty.  I add the chives into the pot just before serving and they add a nice garlic flavour to the soup.

The soup is served with a sprinkle (or handful actually) of parsley and some lovely olive + rosemary sourdough bread from The Artisan's Apprentice in Parramatta which has now sadly closed...but never mind as we now get our sourdough hit from the newly opened Short Sweet Bakery.

You can view more Harvest Monday posts on Daphne's Dandelions blog.