Harvest Monday and a trip to Spain

So, I was away last week visiting my sister in very sunny Spain (more of that later). On returning, I was happy to find that the first of my mega green butternut squashes was still ok (we'd eaten about 2/3 of it but left the last 1/3 in the kitchen, with the cut end covered over. The cut end was fine - it was a section still of solid flesh rather than a seedy bit. I cut off a few rings and made a curry which lasted 3 meals for the two of us, not bad. But that then exposed the seedy bit, which is quite liquidy and would rot quickly.

So last night I roasted it in chunks with rosemary, red onion and garlic. This is the actual colour, I haven't edited it...very orange.

Towards the end I added some kale that I'd harvested yesterday at the plot (there was a cold wind blowing down there and I didn't hang around very long).

It's really good..The butternut squash has a very sweet flavour, though some liquid does come out during roasting. Anyway I ate a load last night and we had some of it today for lunch. I chopped and cooked a potato first to add and make into a kind of soupy stew. Oh, and also added some fresh leaves of winter purslane from the lean-to, there's a couple poking out in the photo below. Jan's got a cold and I thought a hot lunch with extra vitamin C from the purslane might help (spoiler alert....it hasn't!).

Also, a bit of an unseasonal harvest yesterday - a couple of aubergines and a red pepper from the lean-to greenhouse. They haven't seemed to suffer too much with the cold temperatures but as we've been getting some heavy frosts this week I thought I'd pick them before they were past it. I roasted the two aubergines (in a separate dish to the squash) with some garlic....it tasted lovely but didn't look so good. Also, I caught naughty minxie cat on the worktop, licking the dish (after I'd eaten some), so I'm not sure if she was licking the aubergine or the oil, or both...whatever the case I'm a bit reluctant to eat the rest! I haven't used the pepper yet...I forgot today so maybe tomorrow.

One of my sisters lives in southern Spain...it's so hot there - too hot for me in the summer, so we visit in the autumn. It's actually still pretty hot during the day but cooler at night. They have some land with almond trees, and this year harvested about four sacks of nuts....and so I didn't feel too guilty at cracking my way through a bucket load to bring home. It was lovely waking up and heading straight out to my nut-cracking station. People seem to have their preferred method of opening the nuts, and mine is sitting across a low wall, with a large stone with a groove in it (for the nut to nestle in), then give it a couple of taps with a stone.

My method definitely improved over the week and I managed to get most of the nuts out whole, quite a satisfying job. In fact I virtually had to be dragged to the car on our last day, getting in a final few cracks to leave some nuts ready for my sister to munch on.

This was the view from my nut-cracking station...not bad, not bad.

Back at home we're making steady progress through the nuts, I don't think they'll last us very long (I should've got up earlier each day). They're delicious on they're own raw, but even better dry toasted in a pan, and even better better mixed with a bit of honey, pinch of salt and chilli powder then toasted in the oven. I made some of these last night but they didn't make it into a photo.

I don't like to sit around too much on holiday, so if we weren't out for the day I made myself useful on the land. They have a swale (on-contour ditch for spreading out rain water) with planting pits dotted along. You can just make out a pit in the pic below.

There was a flush of wild plant growth this year after some rain, which led to masses of wild rocket germinating, so we've been clearing the dead dry plant material (grows up to about knee height) and adding it into the swale, to help absorb any rain when it does eventually come (the area is a semi-desert with very low rainfall). Within the pits they'd had broad beans, which actually did really well, they'd eaten loads fresh and I found loads more dried beans for saving. I podded them whilst sat at each pit, to chuck a few beans back in and see if they do anything over winter. I also added the dead stems and pods back into each pit, again to add organic matter.

I had some help from Beth dog. She wasn't in the way at all.

The area my sister lives (Almeria) is really diverse. A large proportion is semi-desert mountains, but we visited the Rio del Agua, which because of the water is much more lush. Unfortunately though, the whole area is suffering from over-abstraction, one of the main reasons being that the new extensive olive plantations require irrigating. As a result, the huge aquifer is rapidly depleting. We bumped into a guy who's been meeting with UN to explain the effect it's having on the ecology and people...what an inspiring man.

We also visited a botanic garden, set in the area of an abandoned gold mining town. I'm always a sucker for a veggie plot, so enjoyed seeing what they were up to. Incredibly, because of the super-long growing season in almeria they even had some new-ish plantings of potatoes, tomatoes (growing up the frames) and broad beans.

Potatoes with toms in the background.

Broad beans.

The gardens were lovely to wander around and earlier in the year would be full of colour. As it's Autumn, there was a lot of green, though still lots to enjoy. I particularly liked all the carob trees, with pods dripping down.

We had a day birdwatching in the salt lake area adjacent to the coast. As well as some cool bird spots (including flamingo and black winged stilt) there was an unexpected site....

A herd of goats coming along the beach!

Jan and I really loved the goats, they have such nice faces. We've seen them in the mountains before but not along the beach. And some started following us instead of the goat herd, so his dog had to come round them up. (I'm sure he wouldn't have noticed if we took one or two home). As well as being kept for the milk and meat, the goats in this area are taken around to graze the scrub down and reduce the fire risk.

We had such a good break, it was a bit of a culture shock to get back to a busy city that's gearing up for (dare I say) Christmas. So I'll end with a couple of reminders of the peaceful countryside there - the walking route through to their nearest town....

And a beautiful cove down on the coast...sigh.

Thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Out Happy Acres.

 

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Harvest Monday - squashy squash

I hope you all had a lovely festive season. We went to stay with my folks for a few days on the south coast, so didn't get any harvesting or allotmenting done during that time. We did get out for a few walks though, and found a few geocaches whilst we were out and about too.

 

Back in Norwich we thought we'd see what geocaches were around our way as well, and blimey there's some good ones! I didn't get any photos at the time but they included a tiny cache hidden in the end of a stick (if anyone watched the new spy drama Deutschland 83 last night, it was exactly like the spy-thingy hidden in the woods), Another was a small tube attached to the top of a high fence that we had to use a pulley system to bring within reach, plus a very clever cache disguised as a bolt, attached by a magnet to the back of a metal railing (the railing was full of real bolts too, so this was very well disguised!). I mean, wow! Amazingly we all walk past these things everywhere, they are all over the place. I expect we looked a tad suspicious poking around in trees and behind fences though but hey ho - and thank you to all the people who take time to place and look after caches - brilliant!

 

Anyway, back to the plot.....I popped to the allotment during the day on New Years Eve as it wasn't raining for a change. The main thing I did was to cover my broad beans with enviro-mesh. Although I'd only just sown them in autumn, because of the mild winter they've already got 4 or 5 leaves on most plants! I didn't want them to get nipped-off by pigeons or damaged by the strong winds so hopefully the mesh will protect them. That is if the local foxes don't jump all over the mesh like they sometimes do.

 

At the weekend I sorted through my seeds to decide what to order this year. Usually I do this in October or November so not sure why it took me until now this time. It doesn't matter anyway, as most things won't need sowing for ages. I think I sometimes I panic and worry they'll run out of what I want, particularly seed potatoes. Tomorrow night I'll place the order, that is if we haven't gone out to see the new Star Wars film :)

It reminded me that I do usually sow some things in January though, so I'd better get organised (some toms inside, peas for shoots etc). No need to rush though, I'll check what the temperatures are likely to be over the next month or so first.

Just before we were due to leave for the train to my folks I noticed that one of my butternut squashes had started to rot from the stalk. So I quickly cut off the rotten end, cubed it and put in the freezer. The remaining two squashes (including my nine-pounder) looked ok so I decided to risk leaving them (plus I didn't have the freezer space). When we got back unfortunately they'd both gone the same way.....The lean-to where I keep them leaks so there's quite a lot of moisture around with all this rain, plus the mild weather doesn't help.

 

Yukky

Cutting off the rotten bit

Luckily still a good amount left to eat

Some has been roasted with rosemary from the front yard

Nice with more corn salad picked from the plot.

Just for a change (ho ho) I was making a pot of chickpea curry-thing and and wanted to add a bit of greenery, so snipped some parsley from the lean-to (after the toms and basil had died off, parsley germinated by itself in the compost, bonus!). I've been using cooled water from greens cooking to water them every now and then (as it has nutrients in it). You have to use the water pretty quickly as otherwise it really smells.

 

A few other things have germinated by themselves too - some young nettles, which Jan made into a soup today (normally only a spring meal due to needing to use young leaves)

And....some tomato plants! I took this photo a few weeks ago and they've continued to grow. If the mild winter carries on they might make it all the way through to spring. That would be exciting. I could bring them inside but I think it's too dark for them so will let them fend for themselves out in the lean- to. They're on a narrow windowsill away from the outer windows so probably in the warmest place. I've been giving them a bit of water every now and then when they've been very dry. They're a little bit vulnerable to falling off the window-sill actually, so I might move them down onto the bench in front and wrap bubble wrap round the pots. We'll see what happens eh.

That's me for the week, thanks for reading.

Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted this week by Michelle at From Seed To Table who is kindly hosting for the month :)

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Harvest Monday - squashes & cider vinegar update

I was lucky on my non-working day this week - the weather was pretty good and even sunny for a while, lovely. So I spent time on the allotment cutting some of the grass paths (which have got really long due to the mild autumn). It was quite satisfying as I'd wanted to start on them for a while but hadn't had chance, and it means I can move around the plot without getting soaked feet every time (Like if I pop to the plot during lunch from work and I'm not in allotmenty footwear).

 

There's still lots to be cut but I managed to get the main paths through the plot done (I use shears). I think we now get an allotment inspection in autumn as well, so hopefully it makes the plot look presentable enough to avoid a warning letter!

 

I also prepared a couple of small beds for broad beans, and got them all sown the following day (about 70 seeds) during a long lunch break (I work flexi-hours so sometimes can take a longer lunch but then work later - it's good at this time of year when after work it's too dark to do any allotmenting). After I've raked the bed level, I make holes for the seeds using a dibber, then go along popping the seeds in the holes. I was in a bit of a rush and the depth of the holes varied a bit! Then I loosely cover the holes with soil and cover the whole bed with sticks and branches to try and keep the local cats off them (it doesn't always work).

 

So I had quite a good harvest on weds, with a variety of greens from the allotment (Chard, corn salad, kale) and even found some more beans in the back garden whilst I was clearing away the plants. The runner beans were from the plants that grew from last year's root that I'd left in the ground and which re-grew this summer.

They made a nice stew-thing

I noticed that one of my stored medium sized butternuts had a bit of mould on it and on closer inspection it was pretty soft - when I cut it open it was completely rotten from the inside out which was weird and very yukky. So in a bit of panic I checked all the others over -this one had a small soft spot near the stalk but was ok inside, phew!

Inside, still ok. Make sure to check any stored harvests regularly to help avoid losing any to mould, or removing any you find to avoid it spreading to nearby fruit or veg.

I did a couple of batches of roasting, using up some of the small green-ish butternuts I'd most recently picked which wouldn't ripen, plus the one above

I couldn't resist making a soup with some of it - a simple made-up recipe of softened onion and garlic with ground ginger, cumin and paprika, plus chickpeas and some of my last toms, plus water.

And a bit of goats yogurt plus smoked paprika to finish, mmm.

I also made a salad for our lunch today which included my own corn salad (which has sown itself all over one of my allotment beds) plus some dry-fried pumpkin seeds, a bit of cheese and a drizzle of cider vinegar, yum.

I pulled up some of my (very few) carrots this week as well. They did have a bit of carrot fly damage despite being covered with an old net-curtain, darn. This method has worked ok in the past.

And talking of cider-vinegar, we strained off the liquid from our first attempt at homemade apple cider vinegar (first step is to use 8 or so apple cores and peels, cover with water and two table spoons of honey then leave for a couple of weeks). So yes, it does look somewhat like wee, but has a much nicer smell! Now we leave it for about 4 weeks, stirring everyday until it gets the flavour you like. It already tastes quite nice so am not sure how long to leave it.

This weekend I've also been out collecting bags of leaves to make leafmould (to improve soil structure). The allotment soil is very sandy and drains a bit too well, so any organic matter I can add is always welcome. As the weather was incredibly windy there weren't that many people around so I didn't get too many odd looks this time! I collect them up from areas nearby where the leaves all get blown into big piles, filling up old compost bags and transport them using my old shopping trolley frame - it must be a funny sight to see me pulling that along! But it means I can move quite heavy materials without the need for a car.

 

Anyhoo, thanks for reading and see you next time - I'm dashing out to hopefully see a talk by Tom Cox who writes the My Sad Cat stuff, it's a small venue and unticketed, so is first come first served, eep!

Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

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Harvest Monday - squashy and potatoey

Wow, what a lovely late summer / early autumn we've been having. Thank you weather, for easing us in gently. In fact if I remember rightly we had a bit of autumn in the middle of summer, so thanks for sorting that out now to even things up. Today's gone rainy though but we needed it really.

Ok, so some crops are grown to be productive over a long period - you can keep going back and picking more and more until the plants fizzle out (eg they run out of nutrients or it's just the end of their lifecycle) or the seasons change and the weather isn't to their liking. Here's a few things which have been carrying on producing this week -

Dwarf beans (though are getting a bit stringy) - I've had a few handfuls but not photographed them all. Courgettes and summer squashes still really slooowly pushing out occasional fruits. Some kale from a plant which carried over from last year. And a first for the autumn, hurrah, self-sown lambs lettuce that I put absolutely no effort into growing. There'll be loads more of that.

Chard continues too, but slower, plus runner beans. A few borlotti beans from the plot.....I still have the ones in the back garden to pick too. And another first (and last I think) - in the bag are some hazelnuts from the plot, but there are hardly any compared with last year.

Picked on Saturday, the blackberries are hanging on in there and producing some lovely late berries thanks to the weather.

And today from the plot. Everything's a bit smaller now. And I forgot to look for lambs lettuce.

Tomatoes from home. Look closely just above the bowl and you can see two of my little aubergines...there are 5 fruits now, ooh.

And some extra blackberries, foraged from the countryside. Jan's away for a holiday in the sun to get some vit D and relaxation with a couple of our friends - not my kind of hol so I stayed here. But the weather's been so nice I had to get out in the countryside, so headed up to gorgeous North Norfolk on the train and bus yesterday. ( I'll hopefullly do a separate post on this ). I followed a walk inland first before heading to the coast path....and my goodness, the hedgerows were absolutely heaving with blackberries. I knew I didn't have any freezer space or a spare tub with me (though I had some spare bags in case of wild plums) , so at first I just kept stopping and picking a handful to munch on the go. But then, along a bridleway, the temptation got me. These'll have to fit in the freezer somehow! And amazingly they didn't get squished in my rucksack, phew, that would've been messy.

Back on the plot, turning to crops that you can generally harvest all in one go and store easily for a while (though of course you can store beans, courgettes etc in various ways too. )

Maincrop potatoes - these are Setanta (not rooster, whoops). They're a lovely roaster too. I dug them up Wednesday morning and left them to dry / harden skins a bit during the day in the sun ( which was getting lower in the sky by the time I got back there, as you can see from the shadows). You can't really tell from the pic but they are huge potatoes from this row, it's quite interesting...I gave them lots of well- rotted horse manure at planting out time, and then my own compost on top to earth-up later (there wasn't enough soil to earth up from the sides)

Oooh, sunny

And my other bed of setanta. Here I just about fitted in two rows side by side, and also gave manure and compost. But the potatoes were generally a lot smaller here, with smoother skin (hardly any scab on either bed though, which is unusual for me due to the dry sandy soil). I wonder if the size difference is just due to the space each plant had to grow.....still, quite a good harvest anyway. I don't have a car so use a sort of granny pull-along trolley to move heavy things to and from the plot.

The squash plants aren't liking the cold nights, and as several of my butternuts seem ripe (sound hollow when knocked), I brought them home to keep in the lean-to. This is my biggest one and I wanted to know how much it weighed but I didn't have enough weights (there's a 2lb weight under there too). I just about managed to balance this lot, the result being just under 9lb! And the second biggest is about 7lb. Phewee. I think they liked the well-rotted horse poo.

Lined up on the settee - I sat next to them for a while, they feel very cold to the touch, brrr.

I have about 5 or 6 more fruits on the plot, though some still have a long way to ripen so I may have to protect them from the weather. I've got 4 of another kind of squash too, I don't remember the name without looking it up, and the cat is currently trapping me in my seat. It would be a shame to disturb her ;)

This week I'm going to head out and check on my other squash plants, which are in the garden of my friend's elderly mum, out in the Norfolk countryside....I'm quite excited to see how they've got on, it's been a few weeks since I was last there.

We have a new host for Harvest Monday - Daphne has decided to stop blogging - she was a great host, blogger and inspirational grower and preserver, so a huge thanks to her for all that she gave. I've only been taking part for a year or so but will definitely miss her. Her squash, sweet potato and carrot harvests were amazing too!

But our new host is Dave at Our Happy Acres, and looking at his blog he will do a grand job. I'm already in awe of his harvests this week!

 

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