We've had a lovely sunny autumn day today....hopefully this is a trend for the rest of October (bit of wishful thinking there but you never know). The evenings are chilly, but that's what I like about this time of year, it's nice to start wrapping up. I've actually got socks on for the first time in months, gasp.
I've had a steady trickle of harvests this week...the summer crops are hanging on in there. We were also lucky enough to be given 10 eggs from our friends who've recently got some new hens....they're good layers (the hens that is, not my friends).
Yesterday I spotted some quite long beans in the back garden
And got a decent harvest from a quick trip to the plot too
Plus some reasonable toms from the lean-to today. It was quite warm in there with the sun out.
I've made this spiced apple cake a couple of times this week, with apples from my allotment (and in the second cake I used the gifted eggs). The recipe uses two cups of sugar, but that's way too sweet, so I actually use just-under one cup. I also replace the oil with room temperature butter, which is soft enough to mix in ok.
I didn't have chance to take any nice pictures of it dished out, but got good reports from everybody who had a slice. I expect I'll be making more because lucky me, I got this huge bag of apples this afternoon after helping in a friend's garden...
I volunteered at another gleaning day this weekend, returning to the organic farm in west Norfolk. There were only seven of us but we harvested masses of food.
Broccoli / calabrese field
Big ol' field - looking back the other direction
You can see the stumps where the farm workers had already been through harvesting the main crop. We were getting the smaller heads that had been left behind, but still lovely veggies. It's quite fun spotting the heads, in a sea of leaves. There must've been about 30-40 trays worth that we found.
We also harvested about 70 trays of caulis...some were too small for the farmer to harvest, or they had a slight discoloration or a spot or two of black, but nothing that couldn't be easily cut out.
The morning was beautifully sunny but then rain set in, so the afternoon turned out rather soggy, harvesting trays of Savoy cabbage and onions. Still good fun though. Goodness knows how much we saved from being wasted but it was several van loads altogether over the course of the day....and once again we could've harvested more if there'd been more of us. But word is getting round, with new people taking part each time. Hopefully I can make the next one, in a couple of weeks. The gleaning days are organised by Feedback and the food is distributed by FareShare, do get involved if you can.
Thanks for reading this week. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.
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I just love the idea of gleaning ... I am about to google to see if there are any in my area (never heard of it before). Your tomatoes are always such a lovely uniform red. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Susie, yes I'm enjoying the gleaning. I guess that even if there's not an official gleaning network round your way there might be a group of active local people. Or it might be a good time for someone to start one....back in the day gleaning just used to be people who lived nearby going through the crops getting any leftovers for their own use. Hope you find something useful :)
DeleteIt's amazing what gets left behind in a field because it's not the right size, color, shape, whatever, but it's perfectly edible. We gladly overlook those "flaws" when we grow our own. Those runner beans and tomatoes sure are beautiful, those wouldn't have been left behind.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, absolutely...most of the stuff I grow wouldn't be to 'marketable' standards but still taste good and gets eaten within a few hours of harvest in some cases.
DeleteWith the cauliflowers, I can see why they leave behind the ones with black spots or discoloration on the curd....I've just used up a couple of small ones I brought home and the blackness goes quite deep and spreads over time, needing to be cut out......so if I'd bought them I'd have been a bit miffed at having to compost some parts (especially at organic prices). But, as it was, I didn't mind.
Thank you, it's great getting some late season harvest surprises.
An incredible amount of waste left in that field. I'm sure lots of people would be happy with small heads of calabrese.
ReplyDeleteYour tomatoes are stil; doing really well.
Hi sue...its incredible to think of all the waste that no doubt happens in all large field operations. I think if producers are growing on smaller scales (market garden-type), more of the crop would get harvested plus the 'rejected' (but perfectly edible) crops can get turned into other products like chutneys etc, more like us home growers.
DeleteThanks, I can see a few more tomatoes that need harvesting today :)
Very nice harvests - those beans are perfect! I didn't have any bean harvests that looked that good this year - so many of my pods started to bulge out before they got to a good size. I'm blaming it partly on variety and partly on the heat.
ReplyDeleteWhat an enormous amount of food you guys saved - hopefully more farms and individuals start taking part as word gets round.
Thanks Margaret, the beans were nicer than some from earlier in the year when it was too dry. I was getting some bulging out back then too.
DeleteHopefully I can rope some friends into gleaning if they organise it on a weekend again :D
The gleaning is such a good idea. I would be happy to do it here, but no one grows veggies commercially, other than for farmers markets. The apple cake sounds good to me too. It is apple season here, and I make a sourdough apple cake sometimes, but yours has more apples and I bet it is super-moist. Those beans are lovely too. I'm getting a late flush from ours but they aren't as pretty as yours!
ReplyDeleteHi Dave, yeah I expect there's much less waste anyway when people are growing for farmers markets rather than supermarkets.
DeleteI think I'll make the apple cake again today...its a nice and easy recipe, just have to remember to get the butter out early (and surely must be healthy with all those apples in, ahem).
Thank you, I'll have a look for more beans today.
Bravo for helping with the gleaning! It makes so much sense. Perhaps farmers ought also to open their fields to local people once the official main harvesting is done, so that they could just help themselves? You are lucky to have so many apples available - I'm working on establishing a supply for myself! All along the sides of the roads round here you see many apple trees groaning with fruit (the result of cores thrown out of car windows I think), but I'm reluctant to pick any because they are probably heavily polluted.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark, hopefully I can make some more gleaning days this autumn. It would be nice if more farms opened up their fields. Though we have to be careful to harvest from the right rows...on this farm they seem to use a rolling system and the 'finished' rows are often in a small section within a wider area that's still being harvested. Though with crops like onions and potatoes it seems to be the whole field is harvested at once (with machinery rather than by hand).
ReplyDeleteOh yes, we have lots of fruit trees along roads too, but I'm the same as you and am worried about pollution.