Harvest Monday - summer!

What's that? Summer has arrived (for a while at least). Following on from some very chilly autumnally weather we've had a lovely couple of days, and look......a strawberry

 

There would've been another one too but a beastie had enjoyed it first. This one was yummy anyway (Jan and I had half each). Hopefully the first of many.

I've lifted all my garlic, bad rust had developed and some of the plants started to rot in the ground. So it won't store, but we'll try and eat it up before any more of it rots. I might sow some carrots in the space where it was, as the garlicky-ness might put off carrot fly? In other years I've planted out squash after lifting garlic, which seemed to work ok too.

Brace yourselves.....this was my potato harvest today. My early potatoes are in flower so I thought I'd rootle around in the soil to see if I could find any reasonable ones to harvest. I think you can see how that went.

I also picked some baby chard leaves. The plants self-seeded in amongst my onions, so hopefully they won't affect the onion growth too much. Posh bags of salad leaves quite often include baby chard so it's nice to get some for free here.

My autumn-sown broad beans have started fattening up. The plants themselves look awful (having been battered by winds and squashed by cats or foxes over winter, then more-recently eaten by slugs) but they've hung-in there and produced some decent beans

I've probably picked about two thirds of them so far

Whilst I was podding the beans, Jan made us this tasty soup with a fresh garlic, the potatoes and then the beans and chard plus a bit of coriander and mint that I'm growing at home. Lovely, with a spoonful of goat yogurt.

Yesterday Jan really wanted a BBQ, so after all the effort of getting it going just to cook a few veggie sausages, I had a think of what else we could put on. Turns out that you can BBQ rhubarb, and there were some stalks that needed pulling from my pot in the back garden. After drizzlling with oil and about 10 minutes on the BBQ they softened up nicely. We ate them with balsamic vinegar and honey (it actually worked!).

And we've finally been enjoying salad leaves from the back garden...here's 'freckles'

I've planted out the lettuce on two sides, and have been checking for slugs most nights. Plus I'm trying out the bran trick, you can just see a white barrier of it around the lettuce patch in the piccie below (the bran's only been in place two days though, so will have to see how effective it is)

I've also finished off the rustic 'gate' made from buddliea prunings...the diagonal stem gives it stability (otherwise it's a bit wobbly). I'm quite pleased with it actually, I might make one for the other side too if I've got enough sticks.

In naturey news, I keep seeing this lovely toad on the allotment (pic by jan). At the moment it seems to spend most days under a pile of rosemary prunings. I'd like to tidy them away but feel a bit guilty whilst the toad's there. I saw a really big frog today too, hope it gets munching on those slugs.

On Saturday we got the bus over to the east coast for a walk. It was a bit misty to begin with but cleared up later....Here's a few of the famous Horsey seals. Well, their bums anyway.

And a beautiful blue sky by the time we headed inland a bit. We were lucky to see swallowtail butterflies and painted ladies (plus the usual marsh harriers, skylarks, stonechats etc , we're a bit spoilt for wildlife round here).

That's me for the week, thanks for reading and hope you've been enjoying nice weather, nature, and some harvests too.

 

I'm linking in with Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

Oh, I forgot to include this basil, picked when pinching-out some basil seedlings (to encourage bushy plants), which we had with a pasta dish

 

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Harvest Monday - overnight pickle, an allotment update and a trip to RSPB Strumpshaw

I didn't do much during the first part of the week as I was still feeling unwell with a virus, but Jan got busy making an overnight pickle. The beetroot came from our back garden - I'd sown some under the runnerbean wigwam as a bit of an experiment....they turned out quite small but still not bad being in a spot that wouldn't have been used for anything else.

The pickle also had an orange rind, celeriac, apple, spices and cider vinegar (which Jan bought, as I didn't want our homemade vinegar to be used....the recipe needs the vinegar to be boiled, which would kill off all the friendly bacteria )

You then just stick it in the fridge overnight and it's ready (And looks pretty)

I spent some time on the allotment yesterday...the weather was absolutely lovely and sunny. I still have a handful of small leeks, so brought a few home

I softened them in goats butter with onion and garlic, then added tinned tomatoes, some chard and chickpeas (plus a bit of extra water), which we had with quinoa. The butter really did make a difference, and it was yummy for lunch today.

We have lots of potatoes in storage still, so tonight Jan made a veggie shepherdess pie topped with mash and a sprinkle of cheese. The filling had more chickpeas....we'd cooked up a load in the slow cooker which needed using up! We'll need to be using up more potatoes soon too as they'll start to sprout...and Jan said she let out a little yelp when she felt inside the sack of potatoes only to discover a soggy one, yuk! The rest are ok though, hehe.

Down on the allotment yesterday it was lovely with birds singing all around. The mild winter has meant the garlic I planted in autumn is pretty big already. I'll have to cover it at some point to protect from leek moth caterpillars. I'll also need to weed it a bit but the weeds have little blue flowers on that I'll leave for a while for the insects to enjoy.

This is from a few weeks ago when I was in the middle of redoing my two old 'U' shaped beds

And the same area yesterday, tahdah!

In the middle bed I've put out some onion sets (covered to protect from birds and cats) and the bed on the left will have spring sown broad beans. The bed on the right will be squashes but it still has corn salad in for now. The beds are holding their shape quite nicely at the moment because the soil is damp but the sides might fall away bit when it dries out.

Back at home in the lean-to I spotted this thing.... cute Minxie enjoying the sun too. On the bench next to her is one of the tomato plants which germinated in late summer that I thought I'd leave to see what happened. Well, it looks pretty sickly now so I'll probably just compost it as my new tomatoes are much healthier.

 

A train trip to Buckenham and Strumpshaw

After a bit of a rubbish week feeling unwell with a virus most of the time, we decided to get a bit of nature therapy on Saturday. A mere 13 minutes away from Norwich by train is Buckenham Station, a request stop on the way through to Lowestoft. Trains only call there on weekends and on Saturday there's only one service which stops...the 10.05, so we had to make sure we got that one. The conductor was really pleased as he said he'd never dropped anyone off there in 11 years! The driver of the two-carriage train also waved us goodbye as he pulled away, ah.

 

The main reason to explore this remote area is RSPB Buckenham marshes, an extensive network of marshes and ditches next to the River Yare. The sound of all the waders, ducks and warblers calling was amazing....lapwings 'peewitting', widgeon 'weeooing', Cetti's warbler's ultra-loud singing and the lovely skylarks trilling their hearts out...beautiful. I don't have a good enough camera to get pictures of the birds but you get the idea

The rooks were cawing so loudly from this copse...almost deafening....interspersed with the high-pitched barking of Chinese water deer, who we also glimpsed through our binoculars

The River Yare...not many boats around on Saturday, nice and tranquil

After a walk along the track around the marshes we headed back past the station up the lane to Buckenham church. It has an unusual octagonal* tower and we knew there was a geocache nearby too.

*corrected, I made a deliberate mistake calling it a hexagonal tower previously, ahem

A Norman door apparently. A lot of churches in Norfolk are open and you can pop in for a look around, so we peeked inside and made a donation to the church's upkeep. The acoustics were incredible so we had a bit of a sing too, hehe.

One of the nearby geocaches, in a tree stump

I wonder how many people pass it without knowing its there

This was a nice one, attached to an ornamental metal ant, hidden in a hedge!

We passed a pillbox too

I spied an owl box in the churchyard

There weren't any owl pellets on the ground under it though so it might not be used at the moment

We then walked along a quiet lane to reach RSPB Strumpshaw marshes, which has a proper visitor hut (and toilets, yippee). Marsh harriers were gliding around and a three-bird kingfisher chase took place at one point. Since I got rid of my car a few years ago we haven't visited this reserve, (apart from one short trip with a friend), so it was really nice to spend some quality time there.

And if there was only one train a day, how did we get home? Well, a mile or two in the other direction is the village of Brundall, which has regular trains to and from Norwich, so it didn't take long to get home (and we picked up another new geocache find on the way too). The train was full of people heading for a night out in Norwich, whereas we were getting set to put our feet up!

Thanks for reading this week, a bit of a long post. I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy acres

 

 

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Harvest Monday & a trip to Great Yarmouth

It was Shrove Tuesday (or pancake day) this week so it would be rude not to partake of a few eh! We use a recipe from this old book that my mum gave me ages ago. It's the same as one she used when I was a kid but I think she picked it up at a jumble sale more recently.

The recipe is very easy, 1/4 lb self raising flour, 1 egg, pinch of salt. Sieve the flour, make a well in the middle, drop in the egg, gradually stir in the milk and whisk well. (Makes about 8 pancakes). I'm afraid we did not flip them though, I wouldn't want to risk wasting delicious pancake!

For the filling I used onion, garlic, butter beans, toms and kale and a sprinkle of grated cheddar. The only homegrown element was the onion, which was the last of my stored onions, so a little bit sad, though mid Feb isn't bad to have lasted that long. The butter beans were dried ones I'd cooked in the slow cooker (about half the price of tinned).

Yesterday we were heading out all day so I thought I'd be organised and do a meal in the slow cooker. I had to be even more organised than usual because the squash needed defrosting first. If I'd used it from frozen it would've taken absolutely ages in the slow cooker. Anyway it had a nice colour.

With chickpeas and toms. I also added some fried onion, garlic and spices and a bit of boiled water. It cooked on low for about 8 hours.

Nice to come home to after a chilly day out.

Tonight Jan made us falafels using more chick peas (I did a big batch on Saturday night in the slow cooker and have frozen some in jars - will have to see how they turn out). We've got some self-sown parsley in the lean-to that grew up after my summer plants died off (the parsley seeds were in my homemade compost) which went in the falafels.

And I picked a bit more for some yogurt dip too. The potatoes are the rest of the ones I dug up last week, with a homemade coleslaw. These meals always look like we're really healthy but they don't show the chocolate we (ok, *I*) eat afterwards! Only organic fair trade choccie though of course.

A trip to Great Yarmouth

A temporary exhibition at the Time and Tide Museum in Yarmouth is ending soon, so we decided to catch the bus over to the coast to see it. A lot of people only think of Yarmouth as a tacky seaside resort but there's loads more to it than that. For a start it has some amazing medieval town wall sections still standing...wow!

The museum is based in an old mackerel (silver darlings) smokehouse, which is an interesting building in itself. Here's a recreation of an old Yarmouth 'row' - there were nearly 150 of these narrow streets within the land surrounded by the old medieval walls - space was tight so they packed the buildings right next to each other. Many of the old rows have been lost over the years but I love looking out for them as you wander round the back- streets.

The exhibition we went to see is called Beastly Machines - an artist has created mechanical beasts that are interactive. This whale was really big!

This frog pedalled the bike. I like the tadpole wheel

The dog's eyes flashed and if you wagged his tail he honked / barked, he hee

These gnus in a canoe slid towards each other

There were other exhibits like this elephant skull - it's thought the air holes in the skulls made people believe they were cyclops' remains.

Fake unicorn...or is it?? (Yes! zebra skull and narwhal tusk)

Back outside, the historic quayside is always nice to walk along

On the beach we were blasted by sand thanks to the strong winds, so instead of a walk along the front we headed inland. A very short walk out of town and you're soon alongside Breydon Water, a huge estuary with mudflats. The bird hide protected us a tiny bit from the chilling wind but it was so cold we didn't hang around too long. But still, we saw teal, widgeon, little egret, shelduck, avocets, godwits, oystercatchers and redshank (plus some other birds we didn't know).

The sun even briefly made an appearance.

Normally we would've gone for a longer walk along the side of Breydon Water but the weather was turning worse...by the time we got back to Norwich we were treated to cold sleet in our faces on the walk home. But we did see the Norwich starling murmeration briefly and came back to a warming slow cooked meal.

 

Ok, thanks for making it through to the end! Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

PS I'm going to sow my tomatoes indoors this week .... Exciting.

 

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