Quick back garden update

So recently I shared some pics of the runner beans on the west side of the garden - I have them growing up a free-standing wigwam and strings and poles up the fence. On the east fence, shown below, I'm also growing beans, but these are borlotti. I have wires, string and poles that they're growing up here too - the trellis-style fence topping is useful for tying things to as well, and makes the garden feel more open.

You can also see an orange winter squash peeking out - it's not done as well as the one I grew last year though.

In the pic above, I have rocket growing in the bed in front of the beans on one side, and on the other side a bit of rocket but not much else happening. I've been a bit disorganised and not made the most of these beds this year. Also, all my lettuce sowings failed, which otherwise would be filling up the space.

 

Up on the fence you can just see the pinky coloured Borlotti beans amongst the green leaves

These ones weren't very pink for some reason. Because I already have runner beans at home and dwarf beans on the allotment (plus more borlotti) I'm letting the borlotti swell up to actually eat the beans rather than the pods.

In the lean-to greenhouse I've still got quite a few tomatoes ripening. I've stripped out all the lower leaves to let in the light and allow air to circulate better

Out of 4 aubergine plants I finally have a fruit forming!

And I've started hardening-off my brassica seedlings - my zillionth attempt this year at sowing finally paid off. I'll probably put a few plants in the back garden and the rest on the allotment - though it's pretty full at the moment with squash plants growing all over the place, so they might have to wait!

Hopefully the brassicas will make it through the winter and I'll get some harvests from them in spring.

The mesh is to keep the naughty pigeons off. They're happily feeding on the elderberries though at the moment - there's purple bird poo appearing everywhere, yuk!

This morning, when I started writing this before work, there was a lovely male blackbird hopping around on the grass and a dunnock hopping along the fence in the sun, lovely. And the runner bean flowers were lit up in the sunlight and looked beautiful....it was a shame to go in to work really!

We're due a lot of rain tomorrow, but hopefully not too windy and cold as I've got my fingers crossed that the beans will keep cropping for a while longer.

 

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Anyone for a tomato?

I was away for a few days last weekend and got back late on Monday night, so was keen to get down the plot after work on Tuesday.

What would I find? A lot of weeds (I knew this already), really long grassy paths (I already knew this), lots of massive slugs (I knew this already too unfortunately) but also......

A lovely range of goodies! All the eating apples were ready, they came away from their branches with a little twist - I think the variety is Charles Ross - I have it written down somewhere. I have 4 apple trees, all dwarf ones that I've planted myself since taking the plot. Although the cooking apples / dual purpose varieties had some insect damage, these ones were perfect. We're still working our way through them, yummy

Now, although all my first few brassica sowings got eaten by beasties, I had left a couple of last year's plants in place on the plot, mainly just to see what would happen (and flowers for the bees etc). In the pic above you can see some Nero kale that's now producing some leaves, plus a cabbage that didn't really do anything last year, which in spring produced lots of flowers and extra side shoots, that have now got some decent leaves too. Luckily I'm not a very tidy allotmenter or else I'd have cleared these away in spring and missed out on extra bonus crops!

 

We've had a lot of rain the last couple of weeks, and the squash plants have really benefited - otherwise I think they're have had it by now. I'm also just getting the first few dwarf beans (a late crop this year due to beastie damage on earlier sowings). I keep my onions in the shed at the allotment and bring some home every now and then.

The runner beans in the back garden had produced a steady crop every few days but it it's now getting quite cool during the day and at night, so they've slowed a bit. But the tomatoes in my lean-to have been coming along nicely....

Early in the week

Saturday - it's important to keep picking the toms as they can start to split with over-watering, as you can see below. I use these up straight away as otherwise they get mould in the split.

I did some more roasted toms, with one of my own green peppers, red onion and Rosemary. I keep forgetting about the peppers as they're up on a shelf but there's some nice looking ones which're actually turning a bit red

Yummy

I also made some mixed pesto with walnut, basil and rocket. The rain has really given the rocket in the back garden a boost too so I should make some more. The mint in the front yard has gone crazy but that's another thing I keep forgetting about. I'm not really sure what I should make with it either.

Pesto - topped with olive oil to create a seal to preserve it

I've use up most of the pesto now though anyway.....On toast

With a side dish of toms and summer squash

More toast

Sandwiches for lunch today, very tasty. I was going to do a sort of open sandwich but changed my mind, so we ended up with double pesto!

Tonight we had a mixed veg curry with quinoa (No pesto this time), with everything veggie from the plot or back garden, yummy. Just when we were dishing up I thought we should've made a yogurt and mint side dish but it was too late by then, doh!

It's not all been about veg - I've picked a few small batches of blackberries, added to them some from the freezer plus some of my cooking apples and a huge chunk of frozen raspberries peaking out. There's frozen gooseberries in the bottom of the pan too.

I've frozen it all back again in portions in tubs - it's much better in terms of maximising freezer space than in the bags the rest of the fruit's in. I didn't freeze them very well and they're mainly in solid weird shapes!

I should really make a tomato sauce or something tonight to freeze the rest of the harvest but time is getting on, so that'll wait til tomorrow. There's more toms ready to pick since Saturday too, phew.

Yesterday, after a lovely day out at the Maritime Festival over in Great Yarmouth (where we went on the world's tallest Tall Ship - the amazing timber Gotheborg from Sweden), I headed to the plot for an hour to start shearing the long grassy paths. All was going well until the gnats started coming out, so I'm sitting here trying not to scratch a big itchy bite on my neck, argh.

Anyway, That's it for now...linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

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Harvest Monday - rain, rain, rain

Look, I'm well ahead of my usual posting time today (normally scraping in at about 11pm). It's bank holiday Monday and I'm here visiting my folks in West Sussex. It's also my sister's 50th, who lives along the coast a bit in Brighton.

It's great here as you've got the South Downs running along on one side, and the sea (English Channel) on the other. Usually my visits are packed with seeing my brothers and zillions of nephews (big family) but most of them are away at the moment, so my mum and I fitted in a short walk through the Downs on Saturday morning before the rain set in. Now, I'm used to walking lots in Norfolk (which isn't flat like everyone thinks) but walking in the hilly Downs definitely gets your legs working! The views are amazing, looking back across the town down to the sea. I took photos but they're trapped on my camera, darn.

Yesterday I headed over to Brighton to see my sister, and a whole gang of us got the train out and went for a much longer walk through the hills, earning our pub lunch at the end (I had falafel burger, which was very good). The expected rain didn't come until very late evening, when there was a storm, but I was back at my folks by then, phew.

Today it's raining.... again. Here's a picture from my folks' house, you can just about see the lower Downs through the rain and cloud. On a clear day you'd see more behind them too.

But on Saturday before the rain It was quite bright. I like looking around my mum's garden at the food she's growing. When I was very little she grew tomatoes in a greenhouse and I can really remember the distinctive smell. They had an old apple tree too and a veggie patch. But as times changed the Greenhouse, apple tree and veggie patch went. Having footballs kicked all over the place wrecking the garden probably didn't help! But in the last few years the foody plants have been creeping back in, I like to think my attempts at growing have encouraged this. We did also go to the 'pick your own' farm quite a lot when we were kids and my mum now takes my nephews there too.

I'm quite jealous of this pear tree she's got in a tub, plus she has a nice plum tree, an apple tree and a big gooseberry bush. She started growing annual veggies like toms and chard but the local fox population like to dig, poo and wee all over the place, which had put her off that, which is a shame. Oh but she does grow runner beans behind the shed - I'm always amazed how well they do considering it must be quite shady there, squeezed between the fence and the shed.

Not ripe yet unfortunately, I'd like to try one!

So back in Norwich the past week has been very rainy too. I haven't been to the plot much, just to pick what's ready and look for slugs etc.

In the lean-to the toms are mostly doing ok but a few have a bit of blossom end rot and a couple were being nibbled by a slug or snail, climbing up the glass at night to reach them. Still it wasn't too bad damage.

But the heavy rain made loads of drips through our leaky lean-to roof.....the extra weight caused one of my tom plants to collapse - the supporting twine broke. I had re-used some twine from last year that was still hanging down from the roof - won't be doing that again! I think if it was new twine if would've been ok. I managed to rescue most of the plant though.

Meals this week have tried to make the most of the summer variety, like this mixed curry thing

And when we've been in a rush, posh beans on toast are handy....fry your veggies of choice a little first and then tip in a tin of baked beans, easy peasey.

On Wednesday, after heavy wind and rain there'd been some more windfall apples - the red ones are eaters and the others are cookers, small but tasty.

I'd popped to the plot in my lunch break from work that day as I hadn't been down for a few days. There weren't any massive marrows but a few little courgettes. The yellow one below and round one from the pic above were given to me by a fellow allotmenter. I had a few little cukes too.

I had Friday off work to get some things done before heading off to my folks, and took a trip to the plot.....Well, more apples had started to fall off and many still on the tree had damage so I reckoned they might rot too much if I left them until after the long weekend.

 

So I picked the majority of them that came away from the tree easily and left a few on. Then I had the dilemma of what to do with the them all, so chopped them all up and mixed with the blackberries just picked plus more from the freezer to make stewed fruit. There wasn't time for them to cool before I had to leave though, so I had to put them warm into freezer in tubs....not ideal.

 

I also picked a load of other things which might either get too big over the weekend or would spoil. It was more than I was expecting! We've been eating some of it over the weekend at my folks.

I also had another big bowl of toms - these I put in a double paper bag in the fridge (though I wouldn't normally keep them in the fridge) and brought a whole load to my folks, which have been going down well. My Dad's been eating toasted tomato sandwiches each day, so much nicer than the supermarket ones they buy.

 

Here's the huge vat of fruit, with some apples done separately (I added cinnamon and ginger to them both) and the toms

I have to go back to work tomorrow so it'll be a surprise pop to the plot afterwards to see what's been happening over the last few days (if it's not raining), maybe my dwarf beans will have got going, ooh. That reminded me, I did pick some runner beans this week too, from the back garden but didn't photo them.

Sorry for the huge post, that's what happens when you have a bit more time on your hands!

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

 

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Harvest Monday - beany

We've had quite a mix of weather this week, Saturday was really warm (we took a bus ride out to North Norfolk, the bus was packed with people going to the beach but we got off at aylsham, a historic market town, and walked across to Blickling, a National Trust property). The walk was quite nice and shady plus there were some tasty blackberries to snack on.

Anyway, since then it's been rainy, rainy rainy, helping my beans grow big and strong (except for when it's also been very windy, battering the leaves and blowing the flowers off!)

Here's my main lot of beans in the back garden, to the left of the bed is a wigwam and to the right they're growing up the fence (using poles and string) I've also got some stray shoots coming out that are twining round the low mesh fence - the same thing happened last year and I got lots of extra beans. I Have some more beans growing up the left fence (not pictured) which are borlotti I think but they're a bit behind these runners.

Lots of flowers (this was before the rain and wind though). This method of supporting the plants is a bit tricky to find the beans as they hide amongst the foliage but I kind of like hunting for them, there's always a surprise when you look from a different angle. If I was growing a bigger quantity I'd probably do something different.

You can see one of the shoots coming out to the bottom left, it'll produce more flowers when the main plant is getting tired. Also amazingly I have one plant from last year that's started growing again (not pictured) as I just cut it off at ground level and left the root in. They're meant to be perennial if the conditions are right but this is the first time it's worked. I'll let you know if I get any beans from it.

A nice crop :)

Goes well with pie and home grown corn (from the allotment)

Also good added to a curry

The rest of this week's harvests - a few windfall apples from one of my dwarf trees.i need to keep an eye on the apples as last year a lot of them rotted on one of the trees before I noticed. These apples have split for some reason (uneven watering?) But tasted good. The cukes are very slow now and the plants look bad but this rain might pick them up.

Friday's harvest - Still getting blackberries though they've slowed a bit. This rain will make them go bad quickly but on some of the branches there's some new berries coming.

From yesterday (Sunday). Though it includes some sloes picked on our walk on Saturday - they were only just ripe but as we wouldn't be going back any time soon it was worth a go. I've put them in the freezer which has the same effect as them going through a frost - splits the skins when they de-frost to let the flavours out into what ever you're making, like sloe vodka or gin. Oh, also a couple of greengages were from the walk (a round variety), hanging over a high wall. Most of them were too high to pick (or already squashed on the road) but we managed a couple - the rest are from the allotment, hanging over the adjacent lane. They were also mainly either squashed on the road or too high up but we used Jan's walking stick to hoik the branches down!

The toms in my lean-to are doing well still

I roasted some more in the oven, with my own garlic and onion. Mmmm, and used a bit of bread to mop round the dishes afterwards, tasty juices.

Jan decided to make gazpacho

So we picked a pepper too. It was funny - shaped as it'd grown squished inbetween two stems. No blemishes though, which was a surprise.

There was quite a lot of it, it's lasted several days! Here's yesterday as a starter (Topped with my own onion and cuke) with the rest all home grown too (except the lettuce and egg....one day we'll have chooks, cluck cluck).

So not a bad week, all in all though I really must do some 'proper' work on the allotment....picking blackberries just takes up all the time, in a nice way.

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

 

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