Winter has finally arrived and we've had several frosts and even some snow. The snow didn't hang around but the pavements have been very slippy to walk along, I had a very interesting (slow) walk to work the other day. But before that, on my non working day (weds) I had a nice three hours on the plot in the sun, carrying on with the weeding. I'm leaving the weeds on the soil surface to protect it against all the rain we'll no doubt continue to get. When I'm ready to use the bed I can just rake them off, easy peasy. I have to say, I did spend quite a few minutes just standing, facing the sun and enjoying the warmth, and listening to the birds, lovely.
This week my seed order arrived, yippee. There's still a few more to come plus some red onion sets
A few of the potatoes had already started to shoot so I've set them out to chit in the lean-to where they're in a light frost-free place. If you leave them in the dark they develop pale gangly shoots rather than the short, dark green shoots which grow in lighter conditions. When planted out, the shoots then continue to grow up through the soil and then turn into leaves above ground. One of the potatoes was a bit manky though, so I've thrown that one away.
I brought a few things home from the plot - beetroot, parsnips and a red onion from the shed. Plus quite a bit more corn salad that I didn't photograph
Jan wanted to make a 24hour pickle recipe which she saw in the paper recently - it has apple cider vinegar, a bay leaf and beetroot (all our own), celeriac (not our own as I'm rubbish at growing it), orange rind, coriander seed.
Simmer the vinegar, spices and orange rind for a few minutes, leave to cool and then pour over the chopped veg. Leave in the fridge overnight and voila!
We've had some lovely salads this week with the pickle - the orange zest (organic of course) adds a really special quality. I've made more hummus and red cabbage coleslaw to go with it plus we've had the gorgeous green corn salad leaves. No photos though.
Jan's also been busy making a pie which included our own parsnip and some more dried chickpeas we cooked from scratch this weekend, yummy
And to finish, we had a spooky surprise in the sourdough bread, wooooh (bought from the artisan baker on Norwich Market)
That's me for the week, linking in with Harvest Monday, hosted this month by Michelle at From Seed to Table
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