Harvest Monday - greeny #2

Well, we've had a much calmer week weather-wise. After the incredible storms and wind for several days last week I was relieved to find minimal damage on my plot. A few things turned up that needed returning to their owners though!

I had a good day and a half on the plot this weekend, what with having two bank holidays, making 4 days off! I planted out the rest of my potatoes and sowed some beetroot and RainbowChard in between two rows of autumn broad beans. I also sowed some spring broad beans too. Plus, lots and lots of weeding (mainly couch grass, urgh).

At home, in pots and loo rolls I had a good sowing session on Friday - sweet corn (in the loo rolls for their long roots*), winter and summer squashes. I have a load of seeds on the sofa waiting to be sown too but haven't had chance yet.

*just to add that when growing in the ground, the corn roots are shallow, just below the soil. But I find if I grow them in pots the roots poke through the bottom quite quickly, and as they're not meant to like being disturbed when planted out, I can plant the whole loo roll out too because it will break down in the soil.

I've picked quite a lot of corn salad this week, it's growing quite fast now so I'm taking a whole plant at a time rather than just picking the biggest leaves off. Here's some with my homegrown fermented gherkins.

And some with homemade coleslaw (red &. White cabbage, grated carrot and vegan Mayo and cider vinegar) - (not homegrown coleslaw though)

I've picked more oriental greens (to go in noodle soup)

And forked out the rest of my leeks. These last ones weren't that big but as there's quite a few it added up to a reasonable amount to go in a soup.

I've left a few tiny ones in situ to flower and seed around. Though if you're properly saving seed I think it's good to leave your best as they'll then be more likely to produce quality seed too.

We treated ourselves to veggie curry pie from a local takeaway this weekend and to be healthy (ish) I added some purple sprouting broccoli on the side! Should still have a fair amount of PSB to come.

And I just realised there were a couple of non-green things too:

I used some sweetcorn from the freezer to add to a savoury pancake filling plus also a tub of tomato and courgette sauce. I tried to take a photo but it just looked like brown gloop (very tasty gloop though, with added kidney beans from a tin).

When saving my corn, i do it a bit long-winded and prise out each kernal with my fingers (after blanching and cooling rapidly) because my technique for cutting it off the cob is rubbish and I end up wasting lots otherwise.

And we used up the last tub of fruit concoction for the freezer. I'm gutted at this because I usually have a huge dollop on my museli every morning. I think I might just get some cooking apples and add a jar of one of my preserves to make a slightly less healthy version (because of the sugar in the preserve).

That's me for the week, back to work tomorrow, hope you've all enjoyed the holidays!

Linking in with HarvestMonday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

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Harvest Monday - bit of a fail? And a seed swap

Not much to report on the harvest front this week - I haven't been down the plot to pick anything as I had a busy weekend. So I thought I'd share this harvest fail instead!

Last year I grew gherkins for the first time and they were REALLY prolific. I wanted to try a couple of different ways of preserving them, and one was the natural fermentation method. You basically mix up a brine solution to a specified ratio (that I don't remember right now) and pour it over your gherkins/ chopped onions/ spices etc that you've packed into a jar. Then you cover the jars with a cloth or similar, so that the pressure doesn't build up, and let the natural bacteria on the veggies develop and ferment for a few days, skimming off any white froth from the surface. When it gets to your required sour flavour, you seal it and keep in a cool place (to stop the fermentation continuing).

I made loads of jars of these and they took up the whole bottom shelf in the fridge. Now, as far as I was aware I was making these all in the same way. But, left to their own devices in the fridge, some developed a really thick white gloopiness on top, and those batches are inedible.

Here's a good jar (left) and a bad one (right) - see the thick white gloop on top

I've had to compost several jars because of this. Anyone know what might have happened? Should I have just kept more of an eye on them in the fridge and started scooping off the scum as it grew?

Hmm, I dunno, but I'll try again this method again this year too.

On to more positive things, my tomatoes are continuing to germinate. They're getting a little bit leggy but when I come to pot them on, I'll plant them deep, so that the stem is covered (toms grow roots from the stem when it's been buried, so it's not a problem at the moment)

Another thing to watch out for when growing on a windowsill is that they lean to one side to reach towards the light. You can keep turning them round each day to even them up but they can get leggy this way too. For some reason this year I haven't had to so far. It might be because I've made them a bubble wrap wig wam that seems to diffuse the light more evenly. I'm just using a pencil to keep the bubble wrap off the seedlings, acting like a tent pole. Also I've put a white bag beside them to reflect the light more evenly too.you can use anything reflective like tin foil etc. or even a white piece of paper would do I guess.

 

The peppers haven't come up yet but they need more warmth than toms to germinate, so if they haven't come up soon I'll probably take them out into their own little protected area.

And on Sunday, Norwich had its first big seed swap event ever! (In one of our dozens of flint medieval churches that have been put over to community use. Honestly,you would not believe how many of these lovely churches we have in Norwich. This is one of four on one street!)

I went quite late in the day so it had quietened down a bit but I heard that it had been really successful, which is great. You could take along seeds to swap or just make a donation if you wanted seeds but didn't have any to swap. There were stalls there too, like a couple of the local allotment associations. I didn't actually swap any seeds or take any as I'm pretty full on the seed quota for this year but wanted to show some support for the event. (The day before I had also bought a magazine that had 11 free packs of seeds on it!!).

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions.

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