Harvest Thursday 12 November

 We are still harvesting some things from the allotment, so I am very pleased about that.

leaf beet - there is much less but still enough to have some a couple of times a week.
courgettes - I have picked the very last two finger size courgettes this week so they are finished now
cabbages - there are still several cabbages left, both red and green
asparagus kale - we had lots of volunteers of this around the plot and we transplanted them into one area and they have thrived. I have dried and powdered a jar full of this so that I can add a spoonful of kale to every soup through the winter/ It has a much milder flavour than the more usual curly kale and I really like it. It is an old heritage plant and I was given a few seeds years ago and it spreads volunteer plants every year. So I am hoping that I have it for life now. 

There is also purple sprouting broccoli which is coming on nicely and I can look forward to that in the spring. The above little list is getting really short now but I am pleased that it is as long as it is given that we are now well into November. And we haven't finished eating the potatoes yet. Nor have we started on anything that got stowed in the freezer. 

And a kind fellow plotholder gave me some wonderfully big and flavourful cooking apples and I have made the French apple jam from Thrifty Lesley's website. I have been drying the peel from the oranges that we have eaten and powdering it in my coffee grinder so I used that in the jam instead of the orange peel puree in the recipe and it has worked well. We have been eating it on our breakfast toast and I think I will be making it again next year : )

French apple jam recipe:

https://thriftylesley.com/home-made-french-apple-jam/

Harvest Sunday 27 September

leaf beet - I am still eating spinach as a veg frequently but I have also chopped up lots and wilted it slightly to put in the freezer for the winter. 

raspberries - there are a few raspberries and we have had a few puddings of raspberries with greek yoghurt, sometimes with blackberries too.

courgettes - they are still growing nicely. Enough to eat and give to my family too. I have been eating lots of carrot sticks and courgette sticks for my lunchtime salad. Lovely. We also have one or two marrows which will end up in soup and with some as "pudding" for the hens

runner beans -  I picked the last two beans yesterday : ( No more now until next year.
blackberries - We must have picked over 40 lbs in August and September. I have made blackberry and apple jam mostly for Christmas hampers  and also blackberry chutney this year for the first time. And there are lots of bags of frozen berries for the winter. Just a very few berries left to ripen now - if they ripen, although with warmer weather forecast for next week, I might be lucky.
potatoes - We have had a good harvest off the the potatoes this year. We only planted a few but we had several "volunteers" that we had missed last year.
cucumbers - we have just the one plant that is producing a few cucumbers. They do need peeled but the plant was given to me so I am just pleased with quite a few free cucumbers : )
tomatoes - we had quite a good crop this year but sadly have lost half of them to blight again. The ones I have eaten do taste wonderful, though. And we have had fried green tomatoes several times now - yum!
cabbages - we have had several very nice cabbages, lovely and firm

Harvest Saturday 29 August

My goodness, where did August go? It seems to have whizzed by without me noticing and I have been no busier than I normally am in these post-lockdown days.

So what have we been harvesting? More of the same really and happy to have all this fresh food. We can share our surplus with our family so there is no problem with gluts here. My friend's family all live over 100 miles away, so she gives me lots of surplus goodies to pass on to my family who are very pleased.

leaf beet - there are no small leaves to use in a salad at the moment and I miss them. We have lots of large leaves from this year's plants so I am eating lots of spinach as a veg, which I love. I have some leaves sitting in the kitchen which I want to chop up and wilt slightly to put in the freezer for the winter. 

raspberries - there are a few of the autumn raspberries now. the start of things to come, I hope.

courgettes - they are growing nicely. Enough to eat and give to my family too. I have been eating lots of carrot sticks and courgette sticks for my lunchtime salad. Lovely. 

french beans - these are still producing a few steadily at a nice rate so that we are eating them frequently but not every day.
runner beans - just one plant but it is producing very well for us.
blackberries - I am still having blackberries with yoghurt every night for pudding. There is a fabulous harvest of these berries this year. We must have picked over 30 lbs this month. I have made 20 lbs of blackberry and apple jam to put in Christmas hampers this year and also I have made blackberry chutney this year for the first time. And still they grow....
potatoes - these are waiting to be dug now. We have had a couple of meals off them but we need to get at them soon
cucumbers - we have one plant that is producing a few cucumbers. They do need peeled but the plant was given to me so I am just pleased with a few free cucumbers : )

Harvest Friday 31 July

leaf beet - all the big plants from last year have gone to the hens now

leaf beet - small leaves to use in a salad from volunteer plants. We have replanted some and they are growing fine

raspberries - waiting for the autumn raspberries now

strawberries - no more left. I was thinking about buying a few plants new year for some fresh stock

mixed baby lettuce leaves - all gone. Just a few stubby bits that will go to the hens.
courgettes - they are growing nicely. Enough to eat and give to my family but not inundated yet
peas - not a great success this year but there have been a few to add to my lunchtime salads
french beans - just a few ready but they are lovely
blackberries - I have had blackberries with yoghurt every night this week for pudding. I can't believe how many there are that are ready to eat this early. It is going to be a bumper blackberry harvest this year. Yum!
potatoes - haven't dug any more yet but it won't be long now...

My friend, who also has an allotment, has been passing along her surplus lettuce and courgettes and I have been sharing them with the family. And the blackberries - the grandchildren just love blackberries. I shall have to find my jamming mojo soon because they will all expect a jar of jam in their Christmas stockings. The problem with early blackberries is that the apples are not ready yet to provide the pectin to set the jam.

My job at the allotment is weeding and my husband does everything else. Every time we go down there, I fill a large bucket with weeds for the hens to pick through. They get so excited when they see me coming with the bucket which makes me laugh. And I always bring back some of the rabbit's favourite plants too. He is such a fussy old thing and won't eat so many things that I always hunt for the ones that he will eat. He is an old boy now and deserves a few goodies.

Harvest Saturday 18 July

Leaf beet -         most of the big plants have gone to the hens now.

Baby leaf beet - there are just two left from last year to provide me with baby leaves for my                                          lunchtime salads.

New leaf beet - this year's self sown plants are popping up all over the place. I am letting them grow                            a bit and then picking the whole plant to eat as spinach for dinner. Yum.

Rhubarb -         there are a few new stems growing and I am looking forward to them stewed and                                 served with greek yoghurt

Raspberries -    very few raspberries around now until the autumn ones start fruiting.

Strawberries -   just literally one or two stragglers and that is it until next summer.

Mixed baby lettuce leaves - I have eaten the last of those little leaves this week so it is a good thing                             that my friend has too many lettuce all coming together and is very happy to share.
Gooseberries - We did not have a very good crop this year and ate the entire harvest for pudding last                           night. They were very tasty but I was hoping for more than one pudding : (
Courgettes -     I ate our first courgette in my lunchtime salad yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.                              The flavour is fabulous compared to the shop ones.
Potatoes -         We dug up one volunteer potato plant yesterday. It has yielded enough potatoes to do                           our dinner today. The plant was growing a bit close to some of the things we had                                   planted so we felt it was time to pull it up before it interfered with the "real" plants.

I am quite pleased with the quantity of things we have harvested this year so far. It has certainly made a noticeable difference to our grocery budget. And I love the feeling of satisfaction that I get from eating things that we have grown. We have not bought any seeds this year other than one pack of seed potatoes that my daughter spotted and brought us. Compost is made from trimmings and from rabbit and chicken poop (and also leave/bark mould from the leaves and bark that I put in the hens' runs to keep their feet out of the mud in wet weather and which needs scraped out of the runs every so often) and so is free. In fact our son and both daughters have all requested bags of compost this year and we have been able to supply eveybody's needs. I am looking forward to the next offerings from the allotment!

Harvest Sunday 5 July

leaf beet - larger leaves for cooking as spinach

leaf beet - small leaves to use in a salad (just me as my husband won't eat it raw)

rhubarb

raspberries

strawberries

mixed baby lettuce leaves

Our leaf beet is still hanging in there and has not yet gone to the hens. If there is people food then the hen food has to wait. My friend who has an allotment near ours, gave me two of her beetroot this week. She had planted them quite close together and was thinning them out. I was happy to help! My husband does not like eating beetroot so they are both mine : ) We cut the beetroot leaves off and chopped them up with a couple of cauliflower leaves and three lone cabbage leaves and had them for dinner the night we got them. They taste just like spinach. Yum. I cook the beetroot in the microwave in the same way as potato and they are lovely. I like them as a veg with dinner or in a salad but they are also great in a cheese sandwich, especially with homemade wholemeal bread.

Things harvested Sat 27 June

leaf beet - larger leaves for cooking as spinach

leaf beet - small leaves to use in a salad (just me as my husband won't eat it raw)

leaf beet flowers (cooked like purple sprouting broccoli)

rhubarb

raspberries

strawberries

Update

The leaf beet has been so good. Only six plants but I am still eating it every day for my lunch and about three times a week as part of dinner. There is still enough to keep me going for another week. One plant had finished giving me useful leaves so we gave that to the hens. they loved it and within ten minutes, there was nothing useful left on the plant. Then it moves to the compost heap. Another plant has very little to offer so it will be going to the hens soon.

The rhubarb is just about finished. I would some new crowns as this variety  does not keep going very well. It does not seem to grow any new stems once the first ones are picked. There are a few feeble stems left so I shall pick a few more. We have thoughts about a rhubarb crumble : ) We have no idea which variety of rhubarb it is  as it was given to us originally by somebody who didn't know either as it was given to them. When we divided the crowns up, we gave some to our son and he finds exactly the same problem. 

The strawberries and raspberries are not prolific but there are enough for a couple of desserts in a week. They taste fabulous! I would like some new strawberry plants too as these much be getting on a bit. the berries are quite small which is a sign of old age in a strawberry.

The Worcester berries and gooseberries will be ready soon - yum! Worcester berries are a cross between gooseberries and blackcurrants or so I was told by the elderly chap at the allotments who gave us our first sticks. They are the colour and flavour of a blackcurrant but the size of a medium gooseberry, if that makes sense.

The longest day

Today has been the longest day of the year. I love summer (so long as it is not too hot) but the one disadvantage is that the hens have not gone to bed until after I feel like I should be asleep. It always surprises me how quickly the days seem to shorten a bit after the end of June so that I can go to bed when I am feeling tired and without the aid of matchsticks to keep my eyes open until the hens have stopped partying.

The hens are still laying well. earlier this last week, I had ten and a half dozen eggs and was wondering what to do with them all. Since Wednesday, I have had so many friends requesting eggs (socially distanced doorstep visits) that I now have barely two dozen left. Although I have put six bags each containing four beaten eggs in the freezer for the winter when I will be complaining that I have lots of hens all eating their little heads off whilst laying very few eggs. At least I know that we will be having six farmhouse omelettes over the winter months : )

My leaf beet (perpetual spinach) is slowly coming to an end. One plant which had totally finished giving us any leaves was brought home and given to the hens. Within a quarter of an hour, there was only the thick main stem left. Everything else had been scoffed completely.

Today is not just the longest day but also Fathers' Day. We had a special delivery from Postman Pat alias our grandson and his mum. We had a socially distanced chat on the doorstep. Three passers by stopped to say hello to a rather shy Postman Pat. He did look so lovely in his outfit : )

After lunch we went for afternoon tea to our son's house down the road. We ate our tea in the garden with us on one side and the rest of them on the other side. Very nice too and with homemade chocolate buns : ) And when we got back to our house, we found that our other daughter had been and left a tray of not-hot-cross buns in the hall with dad written across them all in the paste that the crosses are made from. We had one each after tea and they were lovely : )

It has been a lovely day but I am ready for bed now and the hens are all still up and doing   : (

Things harvested.

We have been back to the allotment today. We have had a few days off while my husband's sciatica eased off a bit. We didn't stay long today but put a few stakes in and I hoed a few rows of the brassicas. One of the other blogs I read has a list of the things that she has harvested and I thought I might find it of interest next year if I did the same. So far this year, we have had the biggest harvest off the leaf beet. We have had dozens of meals from it so far.

leaf beet - larger leaves for cooking as spinach
leaf beet - small leaves to use in a salad (just me as my husband won't eat it raw)
leaf beet flowers (cooked like purple sprouting broccoli)
rhubarb
raspberries
strawberries

And every time we go to the allotment, I bring a mixed salad home for the rabbit's dinner too. Usually there are things I can bring home for the hens too. They all like fresh greens, just like us : )

I have now lost four hens since the lockdown started, including my all time favourite. We don't usually lose so many close together like that but they were all older girls.

Back to work on the allotment

Now that we are fairly back to normal after the coronavirus and have a little bit of energy, we are concentrating on the allotment so that we can have some harvest from it. We have the potatoes in, various brassicas and some sweetcorn. At home we have lots of tomato seedlings, more brassica seedlings, both green beans and runner beans, chard and spring onions. I want a wigwam of runner beans here at the house so that I can ensure that I can pick some young and tender runner beans, just the way I like them. I also want the spring onions here in a big pot so that I can pick them one at a time to go on my salads. My husband doesn't like them so I only have a few planted and they are all for me : ).

We have done well with the seeds. They are all from last year or the year before or the year before that and I was not at all sure how many would germinate but I have been surprised and really pleased by the number that are growing.

We have been eating lots of leaf beet (perpetual spinach) these last two weeks. The season for it is over and it is trying to flower and I have been picking and eating the stems with the flower buds on. After all, broccoli is a stem with flower buds on. They have been lovely - so tasty. I do love spinach any way I have tried it. It has nearly come to an end and I will miss it. When we have picked everything off the stems that we want, the hens will get the whole plant and there will be hardly anything left by the time they have finished pecking at it because they love anything like this too : )

Soup and Nettles

We have been having soup most days for lunch. I love soup! I have always made soup, but in the last year, leading a life that was just a little bit too busy meant that I did not always get around to making soup. So for Christmas, two of our kids clubbed together and bought me a soup maker. I have used it so much since then. All you have to do is empty some roughly chopped veg in the soupmaker, add some herbs and maybe some garlic, fill with water or last night's vegetable cooking water, turn it on - and 21 minutes later, there is soup.

The last two times, I have made nettle soup. Lovely! As a child, I remember being told that nettle soup was really good for you and in the spring, it cleansed the system after the winter. I can also remember sitting at the table for hours looking at my first bowl of nettle soup. I was told that I would be sitting at the table until such times as I finished it. The trouble is that nobody had told me that I would not get stung in the mouth by eating nettle soup. After all, every other time any part of me had touched a nettle, I had suffered afterwards. I don't remember how that incident ended but I do know that I love nettle soup now : )

Nettle soup - my way:

I used a large potato, gave it a scrub and chopped it roughly into the soupmaker. I didn't bother peeling it. I peeled an onion and chopped it into quarters and added that. I took my 2 litre measuring jug and some scissors and went into the garden and snipped off the top shoots of nettles until my measuring jug was full. Then I washed them (carefully! because I did not want my skin to touch them) and added them to the soupmaker. Then I added a half teaspoon of garlic granules, a good shake of mixed dried herbs, two vegetable stock cubes and filled the jug of the soupmaker up to the marked line with water. I turned it on and 21 minutes later, there was soup ready to eat for lunch. I did enjoy it and I hoped it was doing me some good as a bonus : )

I have several nettles growing in the garden and won't let my husband dig them up as he wants to because they are such useful plants. I take an empty and washed out milk bottle, don some gloves and take it up the garden with my kitchen scissors. I cut off the stems of nettle leaves and stuff as many as I can into the milk bottle. I use the scissors as tongs to fit the stems into the bottle. When it is as full as I can get it, I fill it with water, put the lid on and leave it in the shade around the back of the shed for a month or six weeks - and I have a nasty smelling liquid feed for my veg in pots. Free for 5-10 minutes work. It does a good job too.

A quiet life

Not a lot has happened since my last post. We have just quietly (for the most part) pottered through various jobs. Both of us have read quite a few books. My husband has been out in the garden using his chainsaw and his maul to cut up some wood. We still want the woodburner on in the evenings for a while. Our living room only gets the sun for about 45 minutes in late afternoon so we need the woodburner on to make it warm enough to sit in that room if we want the tv on. Using his chainsaw is noisy which is why we have only been quiet for the most part. He just did a bit, came and sat down for a while and then went and did another bit etc. We are much better now but still not really got our energy back.

Our daughter is still doing our shopping for us. It is so good of her because I don't think I could cope yet with queuing in a car park for ages and then walking around a shop when it was my turn to go in. We have some stuff in the freezer so we are only asking her to get some fresh stuff. She is now doing the shopping for her family, for us, her mother-in-law, another relative nearby and three elderly neighbours. That is seven households. Bless her!

We have lots of seeds sown and are waiting to see what comes up. All the seeds are from past years so the germination rate may not be as good as we would like. We are hopeful that by the time they need planted out (assuming we get something to plant out) then we will have enough energy to go to the allotment. The trouble is that the plot may have rather a lot of weed on it which we will have to clear before we can plant anything. I am starting to feel tired again just thinking about it : )

Stay healthy!

Disaster strikes

I had great plans for doing lots of things with homegrown tomatoes this year. I bought ten plants, because they were on offer and were advertised by Thompson & Morgan as being really prolific. I was given lots of plants and we also planted the first shoots to grow between the stem and the leaves and they all took and grew well.  All in all, I have 37 tomato plants. I thought it better to have them at the house rather than the allotment because it is easier to keep on top of the watering and feeding. It looks like a tomato jungle in my garden.

Or it did. I've got blight and had to pick the fruit there was and we'll have to burn the plants.

Total crop: 15.6 ozs cherry tomatoes from 37 plants. Gutted!

222 items gone

Beechgrove Garden

I've been reading Frugal in Norfolk's blog and she recommends Beechgrove Garden from BBC Scotland.  I never really took to Gardeners' World as it was never quite practical enough for me.  I've just watched last week's episode on BBC iplayer.  It was really interesting.  They publish (online) a fact sheet to go with each episode and last week there was an extra one on keeping fruit and veg fresh.

There were loads of hints and tips which I had not come across so I'm giving this Keeping it Fresh booklet a plug.  Unfortunately I haven't quite managed to work out a direct link to it.  So google Beechgrove Garden and click on the website link for episode 20 which went out on 11 September 2014. Next to the factsheet link, there is a link to this booklet.  Sorry this is long and convoluted but I promise that it is worth the search : )

Long Half Term

It feels like this half term has been going on for ever and when I counted up on the calendar, it has been 8 weeks long.  So a bit longer than usual and no wonder that we are all tired.

We had a flu jab yesterday and everybody is going round with a sore arm today.  The headmaster reckons that paying for a doctor to come in and vaccinate everybody who wants it, will save him money in terms of paying for supply teachers to cover the teaching of those who have gone down with flu.  Well I don't want the flu.  I've had so many chest infections in the last two years that I would really like a relatively healthy winter this year so a sore arm may just pay dividends.

After the £500+ that I have paid to the vet since the end of May, I was really apprehensive when Puss came into the house last night with blood all over her foot. This morning, it is still nice and clean and she is putting some weight on her foot.  Little sigh of relief.  I'll heave the big sigh when there is no sign of infection after a couple of days or so. We have also paid an Enormous Extra Bill this month and have another one to pay next month so we've been trying hard to be economical this last week - well, even harder than usual.  There is going to be a bit of a hole in our savings pot now.  At least all this being frugal meant that the money was there when we needed to spend it so we did not need to go into debt. Hurray!

Last week, my son was given 2 boxes of cauliflower leaves so the rabbits and hens have been feasting on these leaves.  They all really enjoy them and it makes a change for them too. AND in one of the boxes there was a cauliflower with beautifully white curds.  I've no idea why it was in the box as the leaves were really some shop's throwaways but I'm not complaining!  Twice we had a meal that was a cross between cauliflower cheese and macaroni cheese with lots of bits of other veg thrown in for colour and flavour.  Lovely!  I always put a bit of mustard in the cheese sauce because it not only adds flavour but also cuts down on the amount of cheese needed to make a tasty sauce.  I used spaghetti broken up into short lengths rather than macaroni because that was what I had in the cupboard and it did the job just fine.

Then my friend picked one of her big pumpkins that she had grown and she gave me a large piece of it.  I steamed some and mashed it and put it in bags in the freezer and the rest has been turned into soup. It made enough soup (with some homegrown carrots and onions and a big potato) to do us for four days.  A friend at work was talking about pumpkin soup the other day and said what a difference a pinch of nutmeg made.  I tried it and it really enhances the flavour of the pumpkin without actually tasting of nutmeg.  I'll certainly be doing that again. The first day we had it straight with a little sprinkle of parmesan-lookalike cheese and served with homemade bread; the second day we had it the same but with a big handful of cooked and mashed carrot stirred in (because we had it and it needed used up); tonight it will have a diced potato, a diced apple and a thinly sliced sausage as additions; tomorrow will be the same but with whatever is left in the fridge added as well, as one daughter is cooking on Saturday night and the other one on Sunday and anything that is languishing in the fridge won't be fit to eat by Monday.  So it has been an economical week foodwise but next week won't be - but that is a story for next time : )

Five a Day

I've just read this article on getting our five a day and thought it might be of interest:

http://www.lovefood.com/journal/features/20229/how-to-get-cheap-fruit-and-vegetables

I think we've all probably thought of the various ways they suggest but they have links in the article to growing your own and recipes for gluts too so I thought it might be interesting.

Spring onions in the spring

I was looking up something on YouTube a few weeks ago and one of the extras that appeared at the side was an article on extending the life of spring onions.  These extras are usually something vaguely associated with whatever you are looking for, which in this case was music, so what spring onions have to do with music totally escapes me.  But I was intrigued so I clicked on it to find out what it was about.

Apparently, if you use the green part of the spring onion and then pop the white part with the root still attached into a cup of water, the green part keeps on growing again. 

So when I got a bunch of spring onions (reduced, of course) I thought I would give it a go. I very rarely indulge in spring onions because my husband is convinced that they give him indigestion and so won't eat them.  One bunch is too big for me to get through on my own before they go off and I do much prefer the green part to the white.

And it works!  I put the bunch into a mug of water and keep snipping off a bit of the green to add to every salad and the bunch is still fresh as the proverbial daisy about six weeks later and lots more still to eat (and grow).  I've also tried doing what the Youtube clip said and cutting off the green part and just putting the white into water and that grew back several times although not as big as it originally was. 

So now I can buy a reduced bunch and know that I'll get more than my money's worth. So thank you to YouTube for a weird search result that has turned out great : )

(I don't usually grow them because I can't eat them fast enough on my own even if I just use cheapie Lidl packet of seeds.)

You may well all have known how to keep a bunch of spring onions going but this was news to me.

Lettuce have salad

Sorry : )

I forgot to add to the Christmas roundup that we ate the last of our salad leaves on New Year's Day.  We tried to grow salad leaves last summer as we usually do but they didn't do very well and although we had a reasonable number of meals off them, most of the plants died.  Then I was in the supermarket and bought a pack of living salad that had been reduced to 70p.  Those 8 lettuce plants (4 each of 2 different types) were transplanted into a tub and have kept us in salad ever since - with the help of a very occasional reduced to 20p bag.  We kept picking some leaves off each plant and like Topsy, they just growed and growed.

Now, we are down to two little lettuce stumps in the pot that, with the snow, I hadn't got round to removing.  Yesterday I spotted that one of them is sprouting again.  That pack of living salad was definitely a bargain!