Harvest Monday and a trip to South Yorkshire

This week I thought I'd expand my foraging to include plantain from the allotment. I also picked the last of the PSB (purple sprouting broccoli - the plant which I'd moved recently), a few leeks (three of which had self-sown from plants I'd let seed previously), some corn salad which had started to go to seed, plus I lifted a couple of garlic plants to see how they were getting on.

First the plantain....I'd read it's full of nutrients and that you can boil it. I have it all over the allotment so thought I'd give it a go. Well, unfortunately it was rather grim, even with a bit of added butter! I've since read that broadleaf plantain is better (I had ribwort plantain) and that after boiling, you can sauté it and add other stuff to make it more palatable. This time though, it was far too bitter. Eugh.

My second fail of the week was an attempt at corn salad soup - there's a very basic recipe in a Wild Food book I have (can't remember the author right now). After the fail with the plantain I thought I'd cook it up with some other bits and bobs (chickpeas, onion, potato). Well, it turned out really bitter aswell, oops! I should have suspected this before as I knew that the plants turn bitter when they go to seed, sigh.

But some tasty harvests have been the PSB, which basically was a bonus crop as the plant had been going a couple of years

The garlic was also really good - I chopped it up with scrambled egg and other leftover veggies. Dave used some green garlic last week on his blog (link below) and as I was out of dried garlic I thought I'd try some too. I used the whole length of it except any yellowy bits of leaf. It was interesting to see that the clove shape had completely gone. I harvested alternate plants from the row so that it would give the others more space to grow. (I haven't used the leeks up yet, they're in the fridge).

But the best 'harvest' from the week was the strawberries I defrosted from the freezer. Yum. Before freezing strawbs, I heat them a little in a pan which releases some of the juices. (And I did add milk to my breakfast, I can't imagine dried muesli is very nice on its own).

A trip to South Yorkshire

We're visiting Jan's folks at the moment....how nice of them to arrange the Tour de Yorkshire to pass by whilst we're here. It literally went past a few metres from their house so it would have been daft not to watch.

 

Women's race in the morning

Men's stage 2 in the afternoon. We even managed to get on TV for a fraction of a second (I shan't be signing autographs)

We've been for some lovely walks, dipping into other nearby counties too

 

Down by the river for an evening stroll, where we heard our first yellowhammer of the year in the farmland nearby (their characteristic call of 'a little bit of bread and no cheeeeeese') and saw incredibly cute ducklings on an adjacent dyke. Skylarks trilled away and lapwings peewited.

As is tradition, we went to Clumber Park but tried a new route this time (where we heard our first cuckoo of the year, hurray)

And we visited the village of Laxton, which still has a traditional medieval field system (you can just make out some of the field strips here, which was the view from the top of the site of a motte and baily castle).

It's a nice place to walk around, with three main route options.

It's been very cold at times over the weekend but jan's mum risked putting out her peas and beans (protected by fleece) and they've been ok so far. Apparently it's going to get warmer aswell so I might direct-sow my runner beans when I get back. It does feel like spring though....the bright green leaves are pushing through on the tips of branches, and we've been treated to some beautiful bluebells (pic by Jan).

Back in Norwich, before we came up here, we'd also seen our first swifts of the year (whizzing around over the broad at Whitlingham Country Park on the 28th April, the earliest I've ever seen them I think), along with swallows and house martins, vacuuming up all the little insects to refuel after their long migration. So, yes, I think spring is properly here at last.

 

Thanks for reading this week. I'm linking up with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

 

Posted with Blogsy