Harvest Monday - nettle soup and a touch of colour

It's been quite a sunny week but windy at times. I haven't had too much time at the plot but have been chipping away a little bit at all the things that need doing (a looong list). Good news is I've spotted quite a few berry flowers - gooseberries, redcurrants and black currants. It's not looking promising on the plum front with only 3 flowers though!

Looking back, I've picked quite a lot this week:

Perpetual spinach from the plot, that I had under a small plastic tunnel. This is from one plant, which has really come back to life

I added it to a cauliflower & butter bean curry

Tonight I picked some chard from a small tub in the front yard and some purple sprouting broccoli yesterday from the plot. That's all the PSB for now but some more might come if I'm able to leave the plants in for long enough before needing to plant the next crop in that bed:

I've picked mint a few times from a tub in the front yard too, nice in a lemony drink (simply lemon juice and water)

The less-glamorous tub of mint (the tub's getting quite old, I made it from scrap wood years ago)

Some rocket that overwintered in the back garden

My splash of colour : Overwintered rainbow chard (hooray) from the plot

Some curly kale re-shoots. I cut the top off the plant and picked all the side leaves a while back and this is the re-growth

I was especially pleased as I managed to make a funny face :D

Some lambs lettuce (the green leaves) from the last ones left on the plot. I can't remember when I picked this but it took a few meals to get through it because I picked a whole load at once as it was startling to bolt and the stems were getting tougher. I've left a couple of plants to go to flower and to seed around for more plants this year or next. We had a chopped up home-grown gherkin too.

Nettle soup

Ive never made this before but thought I'd have a go as the small nettle patch on my plot had some nice leaves growing.

So the recipe I looked up in my book Wild Food by Roger Phillips was basically: onion, garlic, stock, cream, nettles (2 gloved handfuls).

For the potatoes I defrosted some home grown ones that I mashed recently, with some carrot and leek

The washed nettles - I had to keep stopping myself swoosh them around with bare hands. A glove is essential for picking and washing these!

I held the End of the stems (without gloves, ooh risky) and snipped the leaves off straight into the pan

It didn't take too long, because the potatoes were already cooked, just a few minutes really. I whizzed it up and added a swirl of goats yogurt instead of cream (as that's what was in the fridge).

All I can say is YUM! I might make this again tomorrow :)

Linking in to Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday

 

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