Harvest Monday - leafy greens, Eves Hill Veg Co and a coastal walk

Phew, we largely escaped the effects of Storm Doris on Thursday....a few things were blown around on the allotment but nothing major..my shed escaped unharmed. On other sites in the city, greenhouses were demolished and wheelbarrows sent flying. Two of our fence panels in the back garden were blown out of place and bent a bit too, but our neighbours popped them back in place...they'll do for now, I don't fancy replacing the panels at the moment.

 

Inbetween the gnarly weather passing through this week I've actually made quite a lot of harvests....firstly some Brussels sprouts and a self -sown cabbage (the cabbage came from a plant I let go to seed a couple of years ago)...here's some of the outer cabbage leaves plus the sprouts -

...the inner cabbage leaves plus some of the Nero kale I've picked this week -

...more Nero kale and some self-sown chard -

...self-sown corn salad -

...a few leeks (plus there was an extra one I'd already used up by the time I got round to taking a pic)

....some dwarf curly kale -

...and finally, some Brussels sprouts which had started to 'blow'...I love these as spring greens. Here I used them with some leftover cooked potatoes and nut roast (yummy nut roast made by Jan's mum, who'd been visiting over the weekend).

A touch of colour came from some stewed fruit I made with the last of our stored apples, and frozen berries - gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, saskatoon and red currants. I still have lots of berries in the freezer too, so hopefully they'll last us through to June (when the first strawberries should be ready).

As a bit of a sweetener I added about half a jar of my homemade apple and elberberry jelly (from 2015). I'd given away most of the jars for Christmas 2015 but still have a few left.

When the fruit starts to thaw it releases quite a bit of water, but that's fine as we mainly use it up on muesli for breakfast (along with organic milk and a big dollop of yogurt, mmm).

Whilst Storm Doris was giving it her best outside I got stuck into sowing some seeds...tomatoes, peppers and a few aubergines. I was comparing how many I'd sown of each variety last year but still managed to sow too many...couldn't help myself...but I'll give away spares. I covered them all with a thin layer of (peat free) compost, filled the tray with water to let the compost soak it up from below, then after a little while moved them to a fresh dry tray, wrapped it with bubble wrap and placed nearish the radiator. Quite exciting.

These are the tom varieties...

Last Wednesday I volunteered at Eves Hill Veg Co again. Amongst various tasks we pegged out where the beds in the new polytunnel will go. Five beds with four paths. Yes that'll be a lot of veggies...awesome. Unfortunately Storm Doris struck the following day and damaged the original smaller polytunnel next door, bending one side out of shape (the side in the photo below). But from what I've heard, it's repairable and may even have been sorted by now...phew.

We had a little excursion from Norwich at the weekend, with Jan's folks who were visiting and headed up to the coast to sunny Cromer (well, it wasn't actually sunny, but it was still lovely nonetheless)

Down on the beach we were actually out of the wind too, walking a couple of miles east to Overstrand.

But on the way back along the cliff top we experienced the full brunt of the wind plus some heavy rain joined in too - it was bracing to say the least. Nice scenery though.

So that's it from me, I think the weather is meant to perk up again soon (we had lots of rain showers again today) so hopefully I'll get some more work done on the plot too. Oh, this evening I went to an interesting Norfolk Organic Group talk on stinging nettles...that's how I like to spend my evenings :D

 

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

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Harvest Monday and allotment peep

I'm just back in this evening from a really interesting talk on hedgehogs, given to the Norfolk Organic Growers group, which I joined just before Christmas (I was lucky enough to get a gift membership as a Christmas pressie). The talk was given by a lady who volunteers her own time to run a rescue centre for these lovely little creatures....and she even brought in one of her current lodgers....so cute. Anyway, there's a lot that we can do as growers and gardeners to help these vulnerable mammals, so I'd encourage people to do a quick internet search to find out how.

 

Back to veggies, this week I've managed a couple of trips to the plot and have even brought some goodies home. I lifted a few leeks, picked some chard and snipped some corn salad.

Jan used up the chard and a lot of the corn salad almost straight away, making a delicious pizza. She also added some homegrown purple basil pesto, which I found another jar of in the freezer, in a place I wasn't expecting it to be - a nice surprise.

So as the chard had been eaten quick-smart I popped down again today to get a bit more greenery - first some small leaves of Nero and curly kale -

And a lot more chard - I leave some chard to go to seed so it pops up all over the place (and can easily be transplanted if it's in the way). I also got some more corn salad but didn't take a pic.

Talking of corn salad, here's the main bed that I have it growing in - I let it self-seed too - this bed originally had my maincrop potatoes in, with the corn salad germinating later - I also transplanted some clumps from where they'd germinated on top of the hay mulch which I had over the potatoes. They germinated on top of it because I'd laid some dried corn salad stems on top too.

Yum. I tend to snip off the bigger plants at soil level, and leave the rest to get bigger.

The Nero kale is still looking ok - the top leaves are quite small but picking from several plants gives a reasonable yield.

The autumn-sown broad beans (super Aqua-dulce) are looking healthy so far. I took a bit of inspiration from Sue Garrett of Our Plot on Greenlane Allotments, and sowed double seeds in some spots, because I had a few spare seeds after filling the bed. If I recall, Sue sows double at each station and gets a good crop. I'll see how my doubles do this year and maybe extend it across the whole bed next time. I'll be sowing a bed of spring beans too (Eleanora Express).

The garlic looks alright. This was planted in two sessions, so the ones at the back are only just coming through. I used broken-up bulbs from the organic veg stall but I think next time I'll buy a proper variety suited to our climate more. On the surface of the soil you can just make out the dissolving chicken-poo pellets I scattered when planting out the garlic. I'm wondering if it's better to scatter these in November or spring, as maybe some of the nutrients will wash through the soil over winter (or maybe it doesn't make much difference).

Still a few leeks to harvest. They're not very big but I try to harvest alternately-ish to leave space for the remaining leeks to grow-on.

And a shot across the main rotational beds on the plot (The two in the foreground are strawberries though). I have a lot of weeding to do! but am prioritising weeding under the fruit bushes, so the birds can get in and eat any overwintering pests in the soil. Plus I don't want to leave the soil bare as the nutrients will wash through otherwise. I've weeded and then covered the beds with large sheets of cardboard in previous years but I don't have any at the moment.

Oh, I've started volunteering at a community veg farm (Eve's Hill Veg Co) and will hopefully share some photos next week.

So that's it for me. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday, kindly hosted this month by Michelle at From Seed to Table.

P.S. Am posting a day late due to technical issues yesterday

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Harvest Monday - corn salad aka lambs lettuce

So this week I've had two small pickings of corn salad, also known as lamb's lettuce, a hardy salad leaf, with lovely dark leaves. I left a few plants to go to seed a few years ago. This year, after harvesting potatoes and disturbing the soil a bit, I had a surprise crop spring up. I've got some leeks and chard in the same bed too, that I transplanted there after harvesting all the potatoes. I've now covered this bed with environmesh.

The first picking, which went into sarnies for lunch,

And some more I picked today, for more sarnies made this evening (with egg and carrot). There's quite a few little corn salad plants, and rather than leave them to get big and picking a whole plant, (which would take a long time to grow) I've been picking a few leaves from each, a bit like 'cut and come again'. These were only little sandwiches so I made 3 to have one and a half each :) Nice to have some fresh greenery.

And a bit of a beige but tasty meal yesterday (I didn't realise how bad the photo made the meal look, I was rushing to eat! ) with home grown veggies - cabbage, potatoes and plum chutney. Also a celeriac roasted as chips but not home grown. Plus I made another two of Shaheen's chickpea loaf (I froze one). It was raining all day so I felt like a bit of baking.

And finally, nothing to do with harvests but....how cute is our cat Minxie!!! Enjoying a sunny spot.

Linking in with Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.

 

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