Phewee we've had another windy weekend. In places my soil is actually cracking, despite the rain, because the wind dries everything out so much. One bed that I'd mulched with leafmold had all blown away, so that was a bit of a waste of time! I need to either set up a wind break or weigh the mulch down....another job for this week.
Harvests this week have been more purple sprouting broccoli and kale sproutings from the allotment
Perfect with bangers (quorn sausages) and fried potatoes from the freezer for a Friday night tea.
I've picked a lot more corn salad from the allotment, here's some of it. I'll be picking a lot more this week as it's starting to bolt now.
Mizuna from the tub in my lean-to. This is almost the last of it now, unless the snipped plants grow some more leaves (which they may do)
And a nice surprise, some over wintered rocket from the back garden. A couple of years ago we were given (from a friend) a Mediterranean collection of plug plants from Rocket Gardens, which was really kind. The rocket plugs have lasted all this time, I cut all the leaves of each of them in turn and they keep growing back! I covered them with a plastic tunnel over the winter.
Here's one of the rocket clumps I've just cut (foreground) plus an overwintered chard. I covered it recently with a bottle when I realised the wood pigeons had started tucking in to it, which actually really brought it on. Good for some early leaves.
Which are here, plus some smaller ones from the tub I front yard. I love the stems :)
I added the chard to a recipe from here, which comes with the pack of dried fava beans. The drawings are really lovely.
I made the Egyptian ful medames, a first for me :) though actually added some other bits like the chard that needed using up too (Sorry about the angle, couldn't avoid my shadow!). I also missed out some ingredients that we didn't have (or I forgot to put in, like the sugar) And just used a tin of tomatoes instead of passata
it was delicious but looked like gloop! (Hence no piccie)
And to finish, a cute little hoverfly that landed on the flower of some oriental greens in the lean to, awww.
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A nice mix of things there! I think the little flower shoots of the Cavolo Nero are actually nicer than the big leaves. Interesting what you say about Ful Medames - things often taste much better than they look!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark, yes it's good with the cavelo shoots, you get double crops, one from the leaves first then second from the flower shoots, if you're able to leave them in the ground long enough.
DeleteA lot of my meals end up looking like gloop especially when they go in a beige dish! I just realised the photo of the recipe book came out a little blurred, so apologies.
Love the assortment of vegetables from your overwintered plants. I wonder if the quorn sausages you have are the same vegetarian quorn that we get in the US.
ReplyDeleteThank you Phoung, nice to have you come visit :) We had an easy winter in Norwich this year so quite a few things have made it through.
DeleteIt could be the same quorn, I think I remember a while back when it was first introduced to the U.S. and some people didn't get on with it (too much fibre) !
Your harvests look beautiful. And just like Mark's photo your PSB looks like a bouquet of lilacs.
ReplyDeleteThanks Daphne, it's been a good week considering the time of year. I think my hungry gap will come soon though!
DeleteYou managed a good variety of crops to harvest. Great for this time of year,
ReplyDeleteThanks sue, it's been good not having to buy salad from the market. We go to the organic veg stall and I'm always reluctant to buy things I could've grown myself, even if I haven't actually grown it at the time! They do a nice freshly picked salad bag grown in Norfolk though, so I had been buying it occassionally recently.
DeleteSuch beautifully fresh greens. And yummmm - those bangers and potatoes look like real comfort food!
ReplyDeleteThanks Margaret, we don't have sausages very often but they certainly suit a Friday night meal! It's nice to be able to still eat homegrown potatoes from the freezer too, I now wish I hadnt wasted some that started shooting too much. Next year I'll be more organised, ha ha.
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