Harvest Monday - bits n bobs

We're still getting some small harvests of summer-y veggies - here's some runner beans and cukes from the back garden. The smallest cuke actually went in the compost as it was too 'seedy' (seeds had gotten big and not much non-seedy flesh left around the outside).

And I found another couple of nice beans in this morning's sunshine (I've chopped a lot of the older leafy growth off to let in light and air, just in case it helps along a few more beans on the newer growth).

And I spied another cuke still hanging on. I've left this one on the plant for now.

Earlier in the week I picked a couple of sweet peppers (variety lipstick) from the lean-to. I can't remember what I made with these but I know it was tasty.

Inside the house, the chilli fruits are ripening - I have two plants I sowed this year.

And my over-wintered chillis produced fruit a lot earlier. But unfortunately, laziness on my part meant that the greenfly took hold. I still need to clean them off really, but I'm still also feeling lazy.

Also in the lean-to, there are still a few tomatoes ripening.

And the winter purslane / claytonia plugs which I sowed a while back have started settling in to their new positions in some of the pots / compost that held tomato plants. They've needed quite a lot of watering (daily) despite the cooler weather).

The same goes for the rocket (variety esmee), pictured below. The winter purslane plugs I planted out on the allotment were looking a tad miserable the last time I was down there, but hopefully the recent rain has helped them settle in. They went into a bed I had potatoes in. Incidentally, I lifted the majority of the potatoes this week, one bed definitely produced better spuds than the other. I need to sort them out into user-uppers and keepers, though there aren't actually too many user-uppers, which is better than usual, mainly just from a little bit of slug damage and a bit of scab.

I also picked some nice big chard leaves from the plot - these were self-sown inbetween two rows of summer raspberries. Oh and talking of raspberries, I cooked up a big batch of quince, apple and raspberries on the hob. I cooked the chopped quince for a little bit first, just in a little bit of water, as they're quite hard, then added the chopped apples (which I picked from the plot this week) and rasps from the freezer. It made a really interesting flavour combination, and as the apples were quite sweet there was no need to add any sugar.

Back to that chard, the stems were a lovely colour.

My mum has been visiting for a few days, and so she kindly helped me pick and pod a load of blauhilde beans from the allotment. We probably picked about half I reckon. What a kind mum, especially as it kept raining on us (I lent her a spare pair of wellies, am so generous). The podded beans were quite white but the cooked beans went a light purply colour. I've frozen most of them and made a sort of hummus with some as a trial - it's quite tasty. Thanks for everyone's advice on how you preserve your beans. I decided not to store them dried as I had a weevil problem hatch out this spring in some borlotti seed I'd saved from last year, so didn't want something similar to happen this time.

My mum also helped me pick more hazel nuts from the allotment, looking for the darker ones still attached to the tree. So far there are two trays like this ripening up, with a few more left to pick. It's been quite windy today so there may be some fallen on the ground, plus windfall apples, so I'd better go and check sometime tomorrow.

I wanted to make a squash soup tonight, so chose one of the 'cream of the crop' which had a slightly damaged skin and which the stalk fell off of, as it wouldn't store so well. It's the first time I've grown this variety. The flesh was quite pale but quite a good thickness.

I gently fried some homegrown onion and garlic, added some spices, the cubed squash, some homegrown cubed potatoes, and a bit of leftover carrot (the only veggie not homegrown in the dish) and covered with water, cooking until all soft, then whizzed it up and added a bit of milk. It was good! And hopefully the first of many tasty squash dishes.

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

 

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