Monday 4 September 2017

Harvest Monday - early autumn

Well the weather is chillier, and the nights are drawing in, but the harvests continue. Although this week I decided to not pick too much, if I could avoid it. Like the purple French beans...I still had masses left from last week, so only picked a bagful, which I was going to ferment, but in the end gave to some friends who called by - there are plenty more at the plot! I've also decided to leave quite a lot of them to pod-up to use as flageolet beans. In the back garden I picked a load of runner beans to ferment, and didn't get round to that either, so tonight I sliced them up and froze them. This week coming I must do some more fermenting!
 
I had an exciting harvest, the first (and possibly last) aubergine, from the lean-to at home. The plant was looking rather poorly so I thought it was best to pick it sooner rather than later, even though the fruit was a bit small. Here it is, with a Lipstick sweet pepper. We added them both to a mix of summer veggies.
The tomatoes have slowed a little but there are still lots on the turn. I've carried on snipping off the lowest leaves, to let in light and for air to circulate, and to pinch out any new growth up top. The plants look a bit odd now, as most have got a bare lower half. Also, I hadn't noticed that the tops of a couple of particularly tall plants had flopped over with the weight of fruit and they're now growing at right angles....the stems are a bit thick to try and straighten up, so they'll have to stay like it...they seem fairly happy anyway.
I've had a couple of bowlfuls of lovely sweet eating apples from my friend's plot, which are on trees he grew from pips. He's had enough for himself so I've picked the rest (a lot of windfalls are also being enjoyed by the local wildlife). The majority have a grub in, so I've been processing those into stewed fruit, mixed with berries I'd previously frozen. This makes better use of space in the freezer too, as there are no air gaps in the stewed fruit, which I freeze in tubs. I've used the peel and non-maggoty cores to make cider vinegar - I did this last year too but his time decided not to add honey, so the recipe is literally just the apple scraps plus water. The honey speeds up the ferment, so it will be interesting to see what happens without it (there are already fermenty bubbles).
I've been harvesting kale and chard...I was going to make more chard pesto but that's another thing I haven't gotten round to.
And unsurprisingly the curcurbits have featured regularly, here's a few of them. I won't be getting many more crystal lemon cucumbers, the plants are looking pretty finished.
My sweetcorn is an early variety, and we've had our fill. So I picked all the cobs, to cook and then freeze the kernels. I picked three first, which I processed one evening.
And then picked the rest all at once, which I regretted a bit as there were so many.
But after a session cooking, cooling and then picking off kernels, it didn't seem too bad as the results were several bags ready for the freezer (which is very very full! I need a sort out). Now, I know that it's quicker to cut the kernels off but I'm not very good at that.
I'd boiled up a load of beetroot last week, which we'd been eating sliced in sandwiches. But we just weren't eating through them quick enough, so I made some more beetroot hummus, and froze some in a couple of small jars, as well as leaving enough in the fridge for us to enjoy this week in sarnies.
We were heading to a 1st birthday party this weekend, and with plenty of courgettes still coming out of the plot and back garden, I thought I'd use some up in these lovely crunchy muffins (recipe courtesy of Steff Hafferty - 'no dig' expert). They include carrot and apple, plus plenty of cinnamon (my fave spice), sultanas and pumpkin seeds.
Mmm, they're really yummy, kind of like a breakfast muffin. My only grumble is the amount of washing-up I managed to create.

There's plenty of scope for varying the recipe a bit (e.g different seeds), so worth experimenting.

 

I'm trying hard to resist harvesting my winter squashes too soon, they need to ripen and cure a bit more. But I'm really curious to see what the massive green variety of butternut squash tastes like. I was given the seeds, so if they don't have a nice flavour I won't bother again. I'll take a photo - I can't believe how huge the fruit is.

 

Ok that's me for the week, thanks for reading, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

9 comments:

  1. We are going to let some beans develop for podding too. We also stew our fruit before freezing for the same reason as you.

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    1. Hi sue. There's still never enough freezer space though is there?!

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  2. Autumn is in the air here too, though first frost is still over a month away. The muffin recipe sounds delish with all those veggies and fruit. And it sounds like you are making the most of those apples! I need to get some from the farmer's market since they are coming in now.

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    1. Hi Dave, ooh yep I must make the muffins again soon. Very autumny today, heavy showers.

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  3. A wonderful variety of harvests! And how nice to have a freezer 'very, very full' of food!

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    1. Thanks Lea. I'd like to have an even bigger freezer full of homegrown food :D

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  4. I am really impressed by your sweetcorn! IT is so satisfying storing away food at the time in the year, especially things that taste of summer

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    1. Thanks Kathy. It's my best sweetcorn for ages - I tried a new variety this year (Sativa early), and gave the bed lots of homemade compost. So, one or both of these may have made the difference. Or could've been the weather...who knows eh!

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  5. Comment from Birgit
    " Is your green butternut really phallic? If it is I bet it's Nice Long, which I love. Birgit"

    Thanks Birgit...Ooh well they are a bit, so could be. They're just called 'green and brown
    butternut squash' on the pack but mine don't look quite like the picture anyway,
    (a traditional looking brown butternut and a slightly more dodgy looking green
    one with flecks). It says 'up to five fruits around 1kg each', but instead I've
    just got one huge green fruit per plant, goodness knows how much they weigh but
    I think I'll need my trolley to bring them home, one at a time! I don't know
    what the ratio of green to brown seeds was in the pack but looking in the pack
    now, there is a bit of a size difference between some seeds, but I can't
    remember which size I chose. So next year will be another bit of pot luck!

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