Harvest Monday, a tomato problem and Eves Hill Veg Co

Oh my goodness, it is HOT! We've had a run of very hot sunny days (apparently it got up to 28C today - I was on a couple of small gardening jobs with not much shade...now I'm floomped on the settee, phew)

 

At the weekend (when it was also very hot) I fancied something a bit different to drink, so had a nice refreshing cup of nettle tea - just add hot water. There's a small nettle patch in the back garden so I snipped the top off some young re-growth from when I cut the patch back a bit recently. A lot of nettles will be past their best now. Oh I also had a couple of cups of fresh blackcurrant leaf tea (from the allotment) but didn't get any pics.

The stings aren't stingy anymore

With the hot weather, we've been eating a few salads....here with some more early potatoes from the plot, home-sprouted mixed beans, yummy salad from Eves Hill Veg Co and home made rocket pesto (from a big patch of rocket past it's best, which we cleared at Eves Hill on weds)

I've also been picking salad leaves from the back garden

Earlier in the week, the strawberry beds (I have two), we're looking very tempting at the allotment

Tuesday I picked about 2kg

And on Saturday I picked about another 1.5kg. I love the colour.

These ones I gently heated through on the hob - the berries release their juices into a delicious syrup, and the berries go a nice soft consistency.

I've frozen some and saved a bit in the fridge for our breakfasts over the next few days

At home I grow tomatoes in our lean-to greenhouse....it gets really really hot in here and I try and keep it cool by leaving all the shutters / door open etc and splashing water around. Normally this does the job and most of my tomatoes have been fine (a bit droopy but then recover after watering). But one of them went droopy and stayed droopy. Then I realised the pot was heavily saturated with water, so it can't have been droopy from underwatering. I tipped out the excess water from the tray the pot was standing in a couple of days ago but it's even more droopy and the pot is still heavy with water. I think it's a goner, the roots have died in the saturated compost....sorry tigerella, you were doing so well. Luckily I have another 20 tomato plants so all is not lost! I've not had this problem before but I did put less crocks in the bottom of the pots so that may have contributed.

Out at Eves Hill Veg Co on Wednesday (not-for-profit community market garden I volunteer at), we had various bits to get on with (actually there's loads to get on with, but these were the priorities), mainly getting plants planted (salad and squashes), which includes preparing the beds first.

 

The salad area is looking really good (several beds dedicated just to salad - lots more than in the pic)

In the big polytunnel the tomatoes are really coming on

And the cucumbers are doing nicely too.

Out in the field the peas are fattening up (taste yummy) and the beans are growing up their poles, there's artichokes being harvested along with fresh garlic and onions, and not forgetting the delicious mixed salads (must take more pics). I can't go this Wednesday but hopefully I'll head out on Saturday instead, for the monthly open day. More planting and some weeding I think!

 

Most of my own plants are now in the ground or seed directly sown, although I do want to sow more beetroot. I've potted-on a few brassicas to plant out as soon as other crops are harvested (such as the broad beans, which are on the whole surviving the blackfly). I'm trying to keep on top of hoeing the dirt paths, cutting the grass paths, weeding/hoeing the beds, checking slug/snail hidey places, and now, picking the fruit (red currants are ripe and they taste good, and the summer raspberries are ripening, they're my favourite I think). I'll try and get to the plot early tomorrow and give it a water, it's so dry - first the strong winds, now the sun. Hey ho.

 

Thanks for reading. I'll try and take some more plot pics soon. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

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Harvest Monday - some season's firsts

One of my courgette plants had a teeny fruit on it, and I was willing it to get bigger (sometimes the first ones tend to just rot). Well, I could wait no longer and picked this little fella (or should that be 'little lady' as it's the female). I chopped it up and sautéed with some chard, yum. Hopefully the first of many (but not too many).

 

Today I lifted two of the early potato plants (variety Colleen). The tubers have a really nice flavour and texture...we had them simply boiled and drizzled with a bit of olive oil. There wasn't a massive yield from these two plants but I found a root from the nearby cherry tree (neighbouring allotment) cutting through the bed, so it might have inhibited the growth a bit. I pulled as much of the cherry root out as I could but they have a habit of popping up everywhere.

I've been continuing to pick strawberries....here's one session's harvest. But this was small in comparison to another day when I picked 1kg.

Yum (although I'm not sure if the flavour is as good this year)

Some of them I've mixed with last year's fruit, from the freezer (blackberries, gooseberries etc) getting ready for the upcoming berry and currant onslaught (the first to come are the red currant sprigs, which are almost fully ripe and I've been munching on a few of the plumper ones, I like the sharpness ). I went to the allotment for a while today but didn't have chance to pick the strawberries - there were so many I'll need to dedicate a bit of time to it!

I cooked up the last bulk of Autumn-sown broad beans. I fancied having a go at broad bean hummus (uses cooked broad beans instead of the usual chickpeas). My beans had got a bit big, so I decided to pop them out of their skins after cooking, to avoid a gritty texture. It takes a while to pop them all out (added to the time of podding them first as well), but it was definitely worth it.....we've been enjoying the hummus for several days.

My spring-sown broad beans have got blackfly on them, darn. I spotted it on Friday but also noticed some ladybirds and waspy-type things which looked like they might keep the blackfly in check. But when I was there today, the blackfly had spread. There were more ladybirds, and I saw a ladybird larvae too, but there were also ants around (which farm the aphids for their honeydew sap). So, being careful not to squash any ladybirds, I reluctantly went along squashing as many of the blackfly as I could...a bit of a grim job and there's no way I'll have got them all. I might try a soapy spray in a couple of days. Ugh.

 

Overall, I'm not having too many pest problems at the moment (a bit of slug / snail / woodlice damage, but nothing major)...famous last words of course. The soil is very dry - although we had lots of rain for a while last week, the continuing strong winds are just drying everything out (and blowing all the pollen around, a bad time for us hayfever sufferers). But it means there aren't too many slugs at least.

 

I still have a few young plants to set out on the allotment but have done the bulk of them now. And I've finally potted-on most of my peppers (and the three aubergines) at home. Just some basil and a couple of hot peppers to pot-up now, phew. (And a bit later there will be the beetroot and lettuce that have just germinated). The tomato plants are looking healthy and there's some cute little fruits forming. The tumbler variety (which I have two plants) should be the first to ripen. Can't wait, eh.

 

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

 

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Harvest Monday

This week has involved (surprise)....more strawberries...that's over 18kg picked now. I've been harvesting my friend's as well and he's had about the same amount, crikey. There are still more to go so it looks like I'm going to beat last year's 19kg. I had to take my trolley down to the plot last time I harvested them all as they're too heavy to carry back (4 big tubs at a time, phew).

 

As well as more baby chard leaves, I've picked the first lot of bigger leaves. These are from self sown chard I transplanted a few weeks back, as single plants under wigwams for cucumbers to (hopefully) climb around when they finally get going. In the meantime the chard plants seem to have liked the space and horse poo. We had some of the chard with scrambled egg and some tonight with posh baked beans (cook-up a few different veggies like chard, mushroom, onion, garlic, and then add a tin of baked beans for protein and sauce - easy)

And the posh baked beans went nicely with some of these potatoes

I'm just back from the plot actually - I've had a busy few days and not had much time to get down there apart from for a few slug patrols and strawberry harvests. The other day I noticed that my redcurrants were ripe but that some had been stripped off the strigs (presumably by the blackbird I saw nearby). I was worried the blackbird might have been really tucking in, not leaving me with many (I love fresh redcurrants, yum). So tonight, on first glance it seemed like that may have been the case, but when I began lifting branches for a lookee underneath, a mass of currants was revealed, hurray.

 

My raspberries have also started ripening (possibly my favourite fresh berry), so I've been munching away on them (none have made it home yet, sorry Jan). But tomorrow I'm planning a big harvest day - strawberries, redcurrants, raspberries, broad beans and....my first tiddler courgettes, just about big enough to be worth harvesting.

 

And it won't be long before the gooseberries are ready, I found a couple of juicy ones tonight, though the rest are still a bit hard. Plus I spied my first couple of teeny runner bean pods. Despite all the losses to slugs and snails, it's starting to feel like things are picking up now...

 

Oh, but I have found the small caterpillars of the diamond-backed moth on some of my brassicas. They munch away causing a sort of lace effect, so it's easy to notice if you have them, but it's a bit laborious to go round checking all the leaves. You can give the plants a shake and the caterpillars drop themselves down on a thread, making them easier to deal with (i.e. Squish or whatever). But do check the leaves for the cocoons as well. They're quite hard to spot and often seem to be tucked in along a vein making them even harder to notice.

 

There don't seem to be many cabbage white butterflies around this year so it looks as though the moths will be the pest to watch out most for on the brassicas.

 

In other naturey news, the cockchafer beetles were all out last night at dusk....they're quite big and very noisy (buzzy), so are easy to see. I expect the bats are having a feast on them.

 

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

 

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Harvest Monday - crouching Lou, hidden strawberries.

Well here we go, more strawberries. I've picked about 12kg so far, plus about the same for my friend Andrew who can't get down to his plot at the moment. So if I'm not on a slug-hunt I'm picking strawberries. But I did find a cute toad a few times in the same spot, tucked away under the dried grass I use as mulch on one of my strawb patches (however, yesterday there was a massive slug in its spot instead, ugh).

One batch went a bit wrong....oops. I only left it alone on the hob for a minute honest! Just enough time for it to bubble up and over.

For a different batch I decided to add a bit of rhubarb from the back garden. As rhubarb's rather tart, I mixed in some marrow jam that Jan's mum gave us a while back. The jam has an unusual flavour, it's kind of sweet/savoury so I'm not sure what spices went in...maybe mixed spice? I'll have to ask. Anyway, I puréed it up before freezing. It'll go well topping the breakfast muesli later in the year. There are two big tubs of strawbs over on the counter that need to be processed too but I didn't get chance tonight.

Other harvests have included a couple of batches of baby chard (from the self-sown plants)

And a couple of batches of early potatoes. They're very buttery, yum. (Variety Colleen I think, without checking). We had some tonight drizzled with olive oil. Of course, when I was lifting the potatoes from the ground I managed to spear the best ones with my fork...(Not these below though, phew). And I found an absolutely massive toad, the biggest I've ever seen, luckily I didn't spear him/her. The tops of my earlies are starting to die off now. Once I've lifted them I'll plant-out the leeks in the space. Oddly, the slugs seem to only be going for the maincrop potato tops but maybe that's thanks to the toad keeping busy amongst the earlies. I have at least three toads, as there's a more orangy coloured one around too.

I decided to pick the last few of my autumn-sown broad beans because the slugs were just attacking them and damaging the pods. My spring broad beans are coming along ok (as long as I keep dealing with the slugs and snails regularly) apart from blackfly have discovered them and rust has started appearing too. I've nipped off the tops of the worst affected blackfly plants but there's not much to do about the rust. I've never had it before but apparently it's caused by the damp, which isn't usually a problem on our dry sandy soil. This year however, it's very wet with all the rain.

Jan made the beans into a stew with some of the potatoes.

Back at home the tomatoes are doing well in the lean-to. Here's stripey tigerella. It's quite difficult to move round in the lean-to now, suddenly there's a jungle. Hopefully I'll get lots of fruits as well as leaves. There's lots of flowers anyway.

In the back garden most of the lettuces have been demolished by snails. Ironically I'd been quite vigilant checking for damage on the allotment but not in the back garden...but I found some hidey places today, with some rather large snails.

 

I have some more salad seedlings on the go and made a start at potting them on tonight. But I'd left it a bit long and they've all gone spindly and intertwined, making it really difficult to carefully tease them apart. Hopefully some will survive anyway, I've got more to do tomorrow.

Bishop's Garden - open afternoon

Yesterday we visited the Bishop's House Garden, next to the cathedral. It's usually private but they open it a few times a year for different charities. In all my years in Norwich (21!) I'd never been before, so it was about time.

 

It was lovely, quite large and gave a different perspective on that part of the city.

 

Old gatehouse

Wildflower meadow with labyrinth snaking through

Amazing pear tree in the middle

There were lots of different areas including a veg patch (well, not really a patch!)

Double row of tomatoes in the greenhouse. The taller ones at the back actually had a few fruits ripening.

Gigantic fruit cage

Big compost area too

A few traditional borders

Main lawn

Bee orchids in a cordoned-off patch of uncut lawn

 

So that was a nice afternoon, a pleasant distraction from the mess that this country is in. Sad times but we'll see, nothing seems to be set at the moment and anything could happen. I wasn't going to mention the EU referendum but there it crept in at the end. It'll be even more important now to grow our own, in a sustainable way, and to encourage others as well....looking after our environment, healthy food and contact with nature as well as saving a bit of money where possible.

 

Ok, thanks for reading, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres, just sneaking in before it becomes Tuesday.

 

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Harvest Monday - strawberries

Wow, I'm just back from the allotment (after a not-so-wow slug hunt), but as I was leaving the site I had an amazing view of the strawberry moon in one direction (full moon on the summer Equinox) and a pinky sunset in the other....fantastic.

 

Talking of strawberries, they've been the main focus of my harvests this week. But before that, here's my proper first potatoes of the year (apart from the tiddlers last week). These were from two plants, so not a huge harvest but very tasty. We had them as a side dish drizzled with olive oil, much nicer than my photo looks.

And on to the strawberries..

Yup, there's been rather a lot. This is just a few of them.

We've been munching through quite a lot as snacks but as there've been so many I've lightly cooked down a couple of batches to freeze.

We've also had strawberries and cheese on toast, a dish we discovered last year on the BBC recipe site. It's very easy, just melt a knob of butter so it's bubbly, add the strawberries to soften them and add 4 teaspoons of honey and some flaked almonds.

The recipe uses ricotta cheese but we had soft goats cheese, on a walnut sourdough toast, yum.

 

I kind of feel a bit 'done' with strawberries already, is that too soon?! But I'll carry on picking them (no doubt sampling a few as I go, as usual) and freezing the majority of them I think. We don't eat much jam and I'm not a fan of all that sugar, so freezing them still lets us enjoy strawberries when the season's over. Plus I need to keep picking them regularly because with all this rain we've been having, the strawberries soon go mouldy on the plants, and the slugs are enjoying them too.

 

Other harvests have included more baby chard, lettuce from the back garden and some herbs (mainly mint, basil, coriander and sage, when I remember to pick them that is). Hopefully this week I'm going to plant out my brassicas, I still haven't done that yet. And try a few more potatoes. Oh I spotted a few more broad beans on my autumn sown plants, which I might pick or leave to get big and save the seed to use this autumn. I haven't done that before so it might be interesting to try.

 

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

 

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