Harvest Monday and a little lookie in the back garden

I expect a fair few home-growers have started harvesting rhubarb this week....me too. I'm not a huge fan so I just have a tub of it growing in the back garden, just outside the lean-to (I used to have it in the ground on the allotment but decided I'd rather use the area for something else...the spot is now occupied by a Saskatoon bush).

 

I meant to split the crown this winter to re-invigorate the plant but didn't get round to it, but it's looking ok so far. I pulled the three largest stems.

 

But a few days later I was on the allotment and popped onto my friend's plot (the chap in a wheelchair) to see if any help was needed....to discover absolutely huge plants down the far end of his plot. I don't know how he does it....everything grows so well! So we shared the harvest - he had 5, I had these 6 (Too big to fit on the chopping board) and I gave another 5 to another chap on the allotments. There'll be more to pick soon too. Crumbs....(or should I say 'crumble').

Actually I didn't make a crumble, I've made rhubarb flapjack instead (twice). The recipe uses softened fruit, and as I don't like rhubarb massively I add in berries from the freezer to mix it up a bit. Because there was so much rhubarb I had enough fruit mix left to freeze a couple of tubs of it too.

Yummy

For the flapjack I use a recipe that I adapted last year, which you can see on this post from August.

 

I've not harvested much else, but on the kitchen windowsill I have a few pots of onions for adding into salads etc. These were small onion sets that I had leftover after planting the rest on the allotment. I tried to do something similar with them last year in the garden but kept forgetting about them so never picked any....here in the kitchen I can't miss them.

Snipped onto a leek a potato soup from the freezer

In the back garden....

You'll have to forgive the terrible pic, the sun was very bright so you can see my reflection and I couldn't really see what I was photographing! Anyway, I've set up two wigwams for beans (one in each raised bed) and also tied canes to the fence for them too. Beans do much better in my back garden than the allotment. I've sown two bean seeds at the base of each pole - a mixture of runners, borlotti and blauhilde purple French bean.

My plastic mesh 'gate' into the left hand raised bed has broken, so I thought I'd have a go at making a very rustic one from buddliea trimmings. It's not finished yet as I ran out of twine, but I've quite enjoyed making it (and it's free apart from the twine). I don't know how sturdy it will be but really just needs to keep the cats out (including my own little kitty).

I've started hardening off my seedlings too...in fact I need to bring them back inside now....

So that's it from me, thanks for reading. I'm linking in with Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres

 

 

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Harvest Monday - rhubarb and gooseberry flapjack with recipe

Hey it's my 200th post! I only noticed by accident and haven't had chance to do anything special, so will try and do something soon.

This week, the weather's been weird but finally returning to summer the last couple of days. A bit of rain would be nice actually. (I must water the tom plants in the lean-to before bedtime.)

Harvests have started picking up again slowly - it had been really cold so things were pretty much just sitting there.

Lots of chard and a cuke, onions from the shed, the last few raspberries and the first few blackberries. The chard is mainly from some plants which were growing since last year - I had a good crop from them and when they started to bolt in late spring I cut them right to the ground and they produced lots of new leaves, a bonus crop!

A few more blackberries, yummy

And this little lot, picked yesterday. Spot the robot face? And a boomerang courgette. The yellow chard seeded itself from plants I let run to seed in the past and this popped up in the onion bed. A nice splash of colour. The blackberries are picking up the pace too, lucky I got a bigger freezer in the winter.

Meals have included this noodle dish with chard, onion, garlic. And not my peas, mushrooms, beans, ground ginger. Wish they were my peas though!

Some comfort food. The potatoes were real good, oven cooked.

More comfort food - pie and veggies. Pie not home made either! I cooked the veggies in just a bit of butter and steamed in the water that came out from them)

The toms have been slow to ripen

But, yay, the improved weather the last couple of days has started taking an effect

Hehee, don't know how why my hand looks odd

Mmm, fresh veggies

Little n large: In the back garden the rhubarb was blocking access to the water butt (even though that's empty at the mo), so I picked a few stems (there's still more but after a certain time it's advised to stop picking so the plant can recuperate, so I'll not pick too much more). And I was emptying out one of the compost bins to pot-on some basil seedlings when I found a few teeny potatoes that must've grown by themselves, Very cute

Well the basil potting-on took absolutely ages and I didn't even get through half of them - I wanted to get to the plot to pick courgettes and make choc courgette cake for a trip out with friends the next day. So instead I thought I'd make use of the rhubarb, and found a flapjack recipe in The Allotment Seasonal Planner & Cookbook by Andi Clevely. It needed 2lbs of rhubarb but I only had one, so used a pound of gooseberries from the freezer instead. I also used museli instead of rolled oats (a quick internet search confirmed they could be used as a replacement but just adding a bit more quantity) and used honey instead of golden syrup plus dates to replace some of the sugar.

So the recipe I used ended up being -

1lb rhubarb

1lb gooseberries

140g butter

260g museli base

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tsp ground ginger

40g dried dates

35g Demerara sugar

4 tbl sp Norfolk honey

Oven at gas mark 5

Lined and Greased 8inch pie dish (I used one that the bottom pushes up from to get it out easier)

1. Simmer all the fruit together until soft,

2. Warm the sugar with the butter and honey until dissolved then add in the museli, ground ginger and salt

3. Use 3/4 of the oat mix to line the bottom and sides of the pie dish, pressing down lightly

4. Pour in the fruit mix (I found that I only need about 2/3 of the mix )

5. Cover with the remaining oat mix and bake for 35-ish minutes

The mix doesn't look that apetising!

I meant to take more photos of the process but was distracted by half-watching a film at the same time! Here it is ready for the oven.

And the next morning, Mmm. The night before, it was a bit floppy but it had firmed up the next day.

I wondered what it would be like inside - the fruit mix had soaked into the oats. Yum yum.

And for something completley different, a naughty pigeon flew into the lean-to and knocked over some of my

purple basils. Well, they were getting a bit past it so it wasn't too much of a problem!

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

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