Saturday, 18 July 2015

Quick greenhouse update

It's been a while since I've shown you what's happening in the greenhouse lean-to at home. It's basically a greenhouse attached to the back of the house and runs across most of the back wall and it's pretty much what made me want this house.

So just a few pics as the sun is shining and I should go and get some berries on the allotment - the raspberries, gooseberries and blackberries all need picking, yummy.

Anyway...

Looks like it will be a good tomato year
These tumbler toms are ripening and we've eaten some already, Mmm. I didn't realise these were going to be a yellow variety actually, so that was a nice surprise
And the first red toms, might be ready today (this pic was yesterday)
This is the gap I've left between the tom plants so that we can still get out the back. It looks wider than it really is! I have to keep trimming off leaves. (Cameo from Minxie)

A lot of the basil plants have started to go a bit weird, there's something eating them which is making the leaves distorted I think (I found a little caterpillar on one)

But I have some more growing on just inside the house
These are my sad brassica seedlings. I've had so much trouble this year, the several direct showings at the plot all got munched by slugs n snails and quite a few of these seedlings died off too.
Sweet pepper plant up high on a shelf. I just noticed all the holes in the top leaves which will need further investigation....
Out in the back garden the runner beans have come into flower and the sweet peas are looking lovely, here in the evening light yesterday.
And morning sun today (excuse the lamp post out the back!)

I haven't taken any of the rest of the garden, it's a right state! No lettuces (all sowings failed) but lots of messy rocket plants and a sulky courgette, more beans and a squash. I must make a bit of time to sort it all out.

But to end, here's a visitor to the leant-to that Jan found during the week, which we think is a brown hawker dragonfly. What a lovely creature!

 

 

Monday, 13 July 2015

Harvest Monday - bring on the currants

Another quick harvest report this week...I've been away for a few days for my mum's 70th birthday, aah. (She had a great weekend including a lovely walk on the beach and family meal out). Amongst her pressies I bought her a signed first edition of my friend Tim Clare's first novel The Honours (a quick plug there!), which is excellent and some soap made from local goats milk. It doesn't actually smell too goaty.
I left Jan in charge of watering the toms etc occasionally as she wasn't well enough to travel....luckily it was quite overcast and didn't get too hot in the lean-to so not as much watering needed as usual. But she did a grand job anyway and we even have the first toms starting to ripen, ooh. I must do a greenhouse update post soon.
So on Thursday evening, I spent some time on the allotment picking things for Jan to eat in easy meals over the weekend, for the freezer, and to take to my folks.
Not bad for one evening's harvest! There were some saskatoons underneath the raspberries aswell. I was travelling Friday lunchtime, and went and picked two more tubs of redcurrants that morning (no pics), plus did some watering - despite a fair amount of rain over the week, the soil was bone dry and I didn't want my raspberries in particular to dry out over the weekend.
The fruit went down well with my folks, and my dad said the black currants and gooseberries reminded him of scrumping as a kid...naughty dad! It was my first picking of black currants this year, there's two more plants to harvest from (I have three). I was worried they might all ripen before I went away and they'd spoil over the weekend, but the other two plants still had some reddy fruits on, so they should be fine. Same for the gooseberries, only one lot were properly ripe (and very very plump and sweet, hmmm).
Earlier in the week I'd picked more rocket and basil from at home to make walnut pesto again.
We had it with courgette and scrambled eggs.
Mmm.
Jan had courgettes over the weekend, with leftover nut roast made and brought over by her mum on a recent visit.
And she picked a few sweet peas from the back garden , very pretty aren't they (well they were anyway, they've now all started to fall apart but there's plenty more where they came from)
I got back today and was planning on picking loads more fruit plus broads beans tonight, and getting home in time for Only Connect on TV. Well, that didn't happen, as soon as I got down there I found that the slugs (and a few snails) were having a massive party on my crops. So I spent over an hour dealing with all of them (well actually I gave up when it started to get dark).
But I did just get time to pick a large courgette (must have missed this one last week, I'd picked all but the very small ones on Thursday) and a few berries for snacks tomorrow

And for our dinner earlier I used up that chard I'd picked on Thursday, along with a small round variety of courgette (didn't get a pic) and some of my own garlic into a chickpea and butter bean curry with quinoa.

It was rather tasty, even if I do say so myself. Plus enough for leftovers tomorrow too.

That's it! Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions.

 

Monday, 6 July 2015

Harvest Monday - saskatoons

A quick round up of the harvests as I'm feeling rather pooped tonight...
Basil and rocket to make a pesto
With toasted walnuts and olive oil added
Looks a bit grim...
But tastes real good, here with goats cheese And sourdough bread
I put the rest of the pesto into a jar and covered with oil to preserve it, and stored in the fridge
Ok, not a harvest of mine but these were so nice I had to share. I worked at the Royal Norfolk Show on a stand last week and in my lunch break paid a visit to the food hall. Full of local produce, this lovely selection of tomatoes were from Cornerways, who use a reclaimed heat from a factory next door to warm the greenhouses. These were only £3 (reduced from £5) and the first tomatoes I've bought for months.
They were very sweet and a yummy snack. It's made me want to try and grow different varieties.
I had my first proper courgette harvest this week, hopefully the first of many
More rocket, with the infamous Squashage rolls, Mmm.
Another good fruit week, but now pretty much the strawbs have ended, this is from earlier in the week when there were still quite a few. Plus some redcurrants (I've picked a couple more tubs of these too, jan's mum helped pick one day - they were visiting this weekend). The eagle- eyed will see the first raspberries, which since this piccie have speeded up ripening. I need to tie them in a bit better to make them easier to harvest, they're flopping all over the place. I do love raspberries though!
I thought I'd try to make a strawberry leather, because the lean-to gets really hot and we had a bit of a heat wave. It's just strawb whizzed with some lemon juice
Spread thinly on baking parchment
Covered with muslin. I didn't get the weights right first and the material dipped into the fruit, oopsie
Well, after two days it had dried around the edges but not in the middle, so I ate the dried bits and scraped some of the soft fruit off too then composted the rest so a bit of a fail. I've tried to do it in the oven before but can't get a low enough temp, even with the door open, so the edges burnt. I'll have to think of some other way of doing it though I prob won't try again this year.
The two thin layers of leather didn't use up much of the strawb mush so I added the rhubarb from last week, cooked it down a bit, whizzed it up and froze for later use.
Here's the promised saskatoons (purple berries) nice and plump. These two tubs were from last night, I'll probably need to head out tomorrow and pick some more before the birdies get them, it's been quite rainy inbetween the sun, so hopefully things will come on nicely

Ah, I nearly forgot, there have also been a few pods of delicious peas that haven't made it into the house for photographing. A little treat.

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

Monday, 29 June 2015

Harvest Monday - courgette (just)

It's been a bit of a funny old week, we were meant to be on our hols but as Jan's still unwell we couldn't go away. So I decided to take a couple of extra days off work anyway and take us out on the bus, (we've borrowed a wheelchair from the British Red Cross as she gets v tired easily and can't walk v far...stupid thyroid gland). We went to the excellent Time and Tide museum in Yarmouth and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts up at the university, plus we've got a cool dragon Sculpture trail around the city at the moment ( I might do a separate post on this ). The weather's been confusing again, freezing one day, scorching the next.
Anyway, on to the harvests,
More rocket and basil, here's a bit of the basil with some tasty goats cheese sarnies,
I've been using up the broad beans still, and thought I should really do something other than the new fave broad bean stew, as we've had it 5 or more times in the last couple of weeks! So I made a simple noodle soup with some greens from the allotment and garlic too
The last of the bean plants on the plot were looking a bit yellowy and sad so I picked off the remaining pods, and cut the plants just above the soil, to leave the roots in place and add nutrients as they decompose. I was going to use the cut bits as mulch but there were lots of black fly on them, so I just added them to the compost instead. Has anyone noticed a lack of ladybirds? I've on,y seen one recently, though have spotted (ho ho) a couple of ladybird larvae this week...they are cool looking mini beasts. Hopefully they'll get to munching the black fly soon. I've had a go at my spring broad bean plants with soapy water spray but there's still loads of flies.
Anyway, Tonight I made an alternative turmeric broad bean stew, adding in odds n ends including leftover cooked potatoes, garlic and greens
The strawbs are still cropping, this was the best picking in one go and since then they've started slowing down, in fact tonight there was only just over one tub ( I usually pick them every other day ). A nice total so far of 17kg!
Of course we had to have warm strawb on toast with cheese again,
Yum yum yum! This time with museli bread (from Norwich Providore on the market. Yes I did get us squashage rolls again too, that we had with rocket one day. They are too good)
Tonight I picked a bit of rhubarb because the huge leaves were in the way. Not sure what to do with it yet.
More potatoes harvested by rooting around in the soil rather than pulling up the plant. The soil was bone dry under the grass mulch though, so I gave them a good water to encourage more potatoes to form and swell.
And here's the first courgettes of the year! There's two here chopped up, very tiny but I didn't want to risk them rotting off, as some had already done ( and seems to happen with the first fruit each plant produces, for me anyway). Here with some onion tops from the garden.
That went with scrambled egg, another quick and easy dish (there's a bit of a theme in my cooking!). Abit of mint garnish too from the front yard.
 

So, nothing majorly exciting this week, I've spent quite a bit of time taking us out and about for a change of scenery. I'll be getting bigger arm muscles after all this wheelchair pushing that'll be handy working the plot though!

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions