Monday 17 October 2016

Harvest Monday - still hanging in there

Out in the glass lean-to attached to the back of our house, some of the summer fruits are still ripening away. I finally got round to harvesting the few aubergines, plus a few peppers (some red, and some green). A couple of the green peppers had dodgy spots starting to develop, so it was best to just pick them and use them up. Hopefully some of the others still on the plants will continue to turn red (I much prefer the flavour of red to green peppers). We'll have to see though, because at this time of year, even though the lean-to faces South, a large evergreen tree in the alley behind our house blocks out the lowering sun.
Down on the allotment I picked some more Nero kale and self-sown chard. I still haven't covered them over to protect from pigeons though. Hopefully I won't regret my tardiness!
I also found possibly the last summer squashes, though there is a chance of some really weany ones if we don't get a frost soon. The white custard marrow is protected on three sides by a low barrier of (safe) broken greenhouse glass that I put around it when planting out, so that might keep it going a bit longer too.
I harvested the remaining apples on one of my dwarf trees...I can't remember the variety but have it written somewhere (at one point there was a tag on the tree but that went missing ages ago). They're crunchy and have quite a sweet flavour. Some of the apples are rather small which probably means I should have thinned them out earlier in the year.
They fill up a bowl nicely though. There's a bit of damage from snails and other beasties.
This week I sorted out my previously dug-up potatoes, which had been sitting in a sack in the kitchen. I sorted them into three piles - the best (for storage), ones with holes (possibly slug damage) and ones starting to sprout, which both need using up asap. We went to use up the ones with holes in and unfortunately, even though in most cases there was only one or two small holes, the whole tuber was riddled inside with damage. Darn. It's not surprising....there have been loads of slugs this year and I bet they loved it under the mulch covering the potatoes.
Meals this week have included an omelette with courgettes, beans, chard and peppers. (I still have beans from last week).
A raw kale salad, with pepper and pumpkin seeds, drizzled with homemade cider vinegar.

It went nicely with some of the last few tomatoes, home-sprouted beans and homemade red cabbage coleslaw (not home grown unfortunately).

I've made the spiced apple cake again (third time recently, it's a nice cake!) and also made two big pots of spicy stew with loads of veg chucked in. We had friends round and that kind of meal is always an easy-ish tasty option...it just mainly involves chopping veggies, which I like. Today we had leftovers, which I added noodles to, as a change from potatoes. I like the noodles because you can just add them raw in to the leftovers, add some more water to the pot, stick on the lid and let them cook away for a few minutes. Easy peasy and no extra washing up.

 

So I still need to work out my crop rotation, check out what seeds to order this year and get chopping away on the allotment. I did a bit of grass cutting this week, which feels good. But some paths I only recently cut already need another trim...the darned stuff just keeps growing. At least it's more to add to the compost heap.

 

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

 

14 comments:

  1. I also prefer red to green peppers; in fact, I had to harvest mostly green peppers due to a frost last week and gave away several pounds of green ones to friends.

    Your kale and chard still looks plenty healthy, hope you keep those pesky birds away.

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    1. Hi Susie, yeh I think I might be left with mostly green peppers, though a few are turning a bit red. If I use the green peppers up in a cooked dish I don't mind them too much. I bet your friends were happy with the ones you gave them though.

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  2. You get a lot of stuff out of that lean-to, don't you? Makes me think I should perhaps get a greenhouse... Shame about the spuds, though it's good that you sorted them now and not in 2 months' time - when they might have collapsed into a soggy mess!

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    1. Hi Mark. the lean-to is really handy. I'd say go for it if you're considering a greenhouse! I doubt whether I'd grow toms, peppers and aubs if I didn't have it (I tried toms outside but they got blight). The main thing is watering.....having someone to water for you if you go away during the growing season, or investing in some kind of irrigation equipment, or those upside down water bottle watering things. The amount of watering needed will be affected by if you're planting directly into the ground or growing in pots (I'm the latter, so have to water every day.

      Yeah, it would be a bit gross to discover all those soggy potatoes, yuk

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  3. Yes, I agree with Mark, darn good thing you sorted out the potatoes now! Yum, those apples sure do look good! I'm hoping to dry some for the first time this year, although it would be nice to use our own apples for that - next year hopefully.

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    1. Hi Margaret. Soggy potatoes would not have been good, ugh.
      I really like the flavour of these apples..I must lookup which ones they are. I've always fancied drying apples too, hope you have some good results.

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  4. Too bad about the potatoes. The slugs and snails have been bad here too this year. And I think the apples look great. There's nothing like a fresh, crunchy apple! We went to the orchard last week to pick some up for us.

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    1. Hi Dave. Yeah my allotment neighbour said he's had the same problem with the potatoes, so at least it's not just me.
      There's something very satisfying about picking apples, picking them from an orchard sounds fun.

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  5. What a shame about the potatoes. We have issues with slugs too and have to set aside anything with a hole in it to use up asap. We have had the soggy mess Mark referred to as well, and trust me it doesn't smell too good!
    Kathy

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    1. Hi Kathy, I've discovered soggy potatoes as well in the past...not nice, yuk! Hopefully your holey potatoes will still be edible, fingers crossed.

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  6. I doesn't seem to have been a good year for ripening peppers does it?

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    1. Hi sue, I've never had that much luck with ripening sweet peppers so anything red is a bonus for me :)

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  7. The aubergines and peppers look fab, i have never had any luck growing them in the greenhouse. The slugs and snails have been horrid this year, lets hope for a proper cold winter this year to kill them as the germs around. I keep meaning to go foraging for some apples I've seen, but its always on the way back home and I just want to get home. Hope your well.

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    1. Thanks Shaheen, nice to hear from you. Yeah it's been terrible for slugs and snails. I've now spotted little baby snails on my brassicas so will have to go through picking them off sometime, what fun.
      Free apples are great...hope you manage to forage for some. Maybe on a nice sunny autumn afternoon when it's more tempting to stay outside for longer.

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