Harvest Monday - summer harvests and gooseberry cake

On Tuesday I harvested all my spring-sown broad beans (Eleanora Express). Looking at the bed, I didn't think there were too many pods but working along each plant they added up to a decent amount. I harvest them by cutting each plant off at ground level (leaving the roots to decompose in the soil), then when I've got a few plants in a pile, go through snipping the pods off. I noticed a real difference in size and flavour of this variety compared to Super Aquadulce (which I grew over winter and harvested a while back). Eleanora express had a lot smaller beans but very sweet...lovely. I made a massive batch of hummus (pod the beans, boil, then use as you would chick peas. The Eleanora express skins were OK to leave on, whereas the super aquadulce were a bit tough and needed slipping off). There was enough hummus to freeze some, so we'll enjoy that later sometime.

This evening I picked a couple of courgettes from the allotment. I noticed the big one on Saturday but at that time it was quite small....two days later it was a fair bit larger! I also picked a small one the other day, which we had sliced thinly in sandwiches (with broad bean hummus of course).

Tonight I also harvested some Nero kale - I have some under netting, and the leaf stalks of one plant had been snapped a bit so I think a cat or fox had jumped on it. They were still in good condition to eat...first of this year's sowing to be eaten, yum. (Here I've removed the stalks already).

So after getting back from the plot I had a quick, rather late tea (9.15 pm) - one of my 'classic' meals - onion, garlic, courgette, kale, an egg in the middle, on toast. It was soo tasty and all the veggies homegrown (I've lifted a few small onions which had flopped over, the rest are still growing).

I've picked so much fruit this week...this is just some of it...

Jan helped on Saturday and did a marvellous job picking all these raspberries, which freed up my time to plant leeks and beetroot. The leeks went into the old broad bean bed.

We've been eating fresh berries and I've frozen a lot of the fruit, to eat later. But we were heading round to friends' yesterday so decided to make a gooseberry cake, based on the Waitrose recipe (but used a bit less sugar as the berries are a dessert variety). You make the cake mix, then pop the berries on top, which then sink in.

After baking for a while, add flaked almonds on top and bake a bit longer. Very tasty.

Oh I forgot, I've also lifted all my early potatoes, so I could plant out some more winter squashes in their place. Not very exciting but I'm hoping the squashes do well, to help provide winter meals. There's masses of chard too that I've been picking, lovely soft young leaves. I might pick a load and make a pesto. And there'll be another cucumber to pick tomorrow, from the back garden. Ooh, and a couple of yellow tumbler tomatoes, hooray.

 

I did go to the farm again on Wednesday (not for profit market garden) but it was very rainy so I didn't get any photos. We had a good session picking peas and lifting garlic though...quite good fun apart from the thistles!

 

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

 

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