Harvest Monday, a trip away and Lego!

Well this week has been quite a contrast to last.....rainy, rainy, rainy with a touch of sun. I love autumn but I definitely like it less when everything's all soggy.

I thought I was only going to have one token Harvest Monday piccie - a tasty noodle soup, using up last week's harvests of chard and courgettes plus some sprouted beans. (We also had a few meals from the butternut squash I roasted last Sunday.)

But today I picked a couple of red sweet peppers from the lean-to, which we added to a homemade and grown herby tom sauce from the freezer.

We've been away this weekend, visiting Jan's folks in South Yorkshire, back today. I always like to nose around what Jan's mum has been growing in her veggie plot and made the most of a bit of sun that broke through on Saturday sfternoon. She's got some nice looking leeks on the go, plus some chard and kale still growing. In the background is some purple sprouting broccoli, which looks like it'll be a spring cropper.

Here's the same part of the veggie plot from the opposite angle, looking good

She's got some lovely pumpkins too, variety Cinderella. I might give these a go next year, as they had a really good flavour (we had a nice soup one day and hotpot another, mmm). Quite often pumpkins are watery but these were good. They're a sort of wide and flat variety rather than a carving pumpkin.

In the garden they have some very nice apple trees, still with lots of fruit on them (apparently they're quite late this year). I'm never one to pass up on free apples, so we picked a carrier bag-ful to bring home to Norwich, despite travelling by train. Yes, my rucksack was a tad heavy! If only I'd known beforehand I could've taken a suitcase ;)

Saturday afternoon we headed out to Clumber Park, which is a National Trust property, just over the border in Notts. It's a go-to for nice walks at any time of the year, with a huge lake to walk round plus woods, marshes, heathy bits, a real mix. And a cafe of course. There's a walled kitchen garden I'd like to check out sometime but maybe a summer visit would be better.

Here's Jan checking out the birdies

The lake is formed by river water held back by a wier. The river was rushing through right under this point (so I gripped the iPad very firmly!). I have become one of those people who takes photos on an iPad, ( just so I can use them in the blog easily.) It's quite heavy to carry round so I won't be taking it on every walk!

Sunday was rainy again so we went to the Harley Gallery on the Welbeck Estate. This was a new place for me.....and the temporary exhibition was on Lego! The main theme was famous buildings made out of Lego - brilliant!

An amazing St Pancras Station

It was huge

Amazing detail

Even Spider-Man made a cameo. Can you spot him? I only did because a little kid noticed him. Children are at the right height to spot all the detail so useful to listen out for hehe.

There were loads more - here's just a few

Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona - shows you don't need to build 'em big

But here was another big one - London Olympic Stadium

Battersea Power Station, London, and a tiny St Paul's Cathedral in front

After a nice lunch in the cafe (and a peruse around the farm shop - so many tasty treats, including produce from the estate), we drove a short way to Rufford Abbey Country Park for another walk before the rain set in again. This was another new place for me, I liked the woods and abbey ruins best (I didn't get many pics as the light was bad though). It was quite busy but a definite place to return to.

That's me for the week, linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

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Harvest Monday - brrr

Yup, autumn / winter is here and we've even had the heating on (I always resist this as long as possible!).

I've brought two of my pepper plants in to the house from the lean-to (which is basically a greenhouse stuck on the back of the house). They still have little green peppers just growing through the flowers so thought I'd see if they'll get any bigger. It's nice to have more plants in the house anyway.

I still have in the lean to; some basil, a chilli pepper, two aubergines (with small aubs on) and two more peppers with small fruit on too. I'd like to bring them in to the house as well but don't have the room unfortunately. One day I'd like to build an earth ship with one whole side of the house for growing food!

Earlier in the week, a pepper and some basil -

I got a reasonable picking yesterday from the plot - chard, kale

I also picked a little cabbage, found a potato, brought a couple of onions back from the shed and....found acouple of cucumbers! These were from one I planted quite late, under some enviromesh and forgot about. I was pulling out the plant yesterday and found these! Haven't tried them yet, so they might be too bitter. The little pepper fell off a plant from the lean-to when I moved it inside.

Yesterday I also spent a couple of hours getting the ground ready for planting garlic, I had to cover it over with sticks afterwards to stop the cats and foxes jumping and digging over the beds. Next in line is the broad beans.

This week I've also used up some frozen cubed pumpkin and a batch of frozen pumpkin soup. Tonight we had a yummy tea of fried onion, tomatoes (slowly ripening in the kitchen - they get a bit wrinkly so are better cooked with than in sandwiches), last weeks' courgette, cooked chard plus a couple of eggs all scrambled together on toast, drizzled with a bit of balsamic vinegar. Mmm, wish I'd taken a pic!

Oh, and yesterday, with the oven on I roasted some potatoes, the chard stems (braised) and some of my hazel nuts (they were awesome! I'll be doing more hazels that way for sure. The skin flakes off as well, leaving just the clean nut).

Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's Dandelions

 

 

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Harvest Monday - a nice surprise

We've been away on hols and I haven't been to the plot for over a week....until today when I popped across from work during my lunch break to see what was happening.....

......lots of weeds and old plants needing to be cleared, plus (drum roll) MORE COURGETTES! It seems crazy, the plants aren't protected and look very worse for wear but as we haven't had a frost yet they're just hanging in. Overall it's been really mild too. Ok, these really must be the last ones. I also brought a few onions back from the shed.

I picked a chilli from the lean to on Sunday, to add to a huge pumpkin soup. Jan's work had several massive pumpkins for a Halloween event, so we brought a couple home (they'd have just been chucked away otherwise).

There was three times this amount of pumpkin, I cubed and froze some of it. In the soup I added my own onion and potatoes, plus some garlic, cumin, coriander, ginger (plus the chilli) and salt and pepper, plus a tin of chick peas.

A bit of yogurt to finish it off.

Today jan brought another one home! Blimey, so I'm currently roasting it in batches, with garlic and cumin seeds for the first two and garlic with rosemary ( from the front yard) in the second. I was surprised the pumpkin lasted since Friday (obv I cut off the skin and inner layer that had been scooped against). The flesh was so thick that there was still a good amount left after cutting off the exposed surfaces.

Linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's dandelions

 

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Autumn already?

Well, the past few weeks have whizzed by again. Still not had time to do a decent days work at the plot but have spent lots of time picking things and making chutney and jam, which is what it's all about really! Had the last of our sweetcorn today - our best year so far, definitely thanks to having manure I reckon.

Have dug up the first two rows of the main crop potatoes and sorted them into 'use first' (like the ones I inevitably speared with the fork) and 'keepers' (ones which have no scab or any other blemishes etc). I've doubled up paper shopping bags to act as potato sacks. This has worked in previous years and the tatties have kept well, in the shed. We have some right whopper pots (variety Cara), They're really tasty but have a tendency to over cook easily.

I thought we might have had blight but the discolouring of the leaves started off yellow rather than brown so it was probably (hopefully) just the plants reaching the end of their life! I cut off all the tops just in case. I have one more row to dig up and decided to leave them in the ground a bit longer as it's meant to toughen the skins up for better storage.

Today we used our first ready pumpkin to make this lovely soup:
Just peeking in the background is a jar of rather tasty marrow, apricot and ginger jam, which I made a batch of last weekend. I made it last year too and it's right nice on toast, or mixed in with porridge (mmmm I'm looking forward to those cold mornings already!). Anyone want the recipe?

Here's a pic of the other squashes collected today:
Am desperate to sow some oriental greens (have not grown these before). Just need a bit of time to weed where these squashes were growing and pop them in. This weekend?

Photos!

Some photos from this week. Have spent the evening looking up runner bean and courgette chutney recipes. Glut here we come!

Sweetcorn under planted with dwarf french beans

Yumm!

This is my wigwam set-up with courgette, lettuce and beans

First pumpkin of the year - seems rather early - this is actually ripe now! (hollow sounding when tapped)


Part of our wildflower area


The compost bins with courgette and pumpkin plants are doing well :0)