Harvest Monday - it's all green

It's been another mixed week for weather, sunny one day then pouring rain the next (or sometimes both in one day). Saturday was really lovely but I couldn't get to the plot until Sunday, when of course it turned cold, windy and rainy but yippee I got a few hours in before it got too bad.

I've mainly been carrying on weeding under my fruit bushes (the couch grass gets in and around them every year) then adding compost on top, and in some cases adding a thick layer of old bramble prunings too as mulch, which I'm experimenting with to see if it'll keep down the couch grass. I also added some chicken-poo pellets and compost to one of the areas I'll plant out onion sets next month.

My robins and black bird friends came to say hello again, which was nice.

I picked some green things this week:

More corn salad

Curly kale, Nero kale, my first and last sprouts, and some tiny broccoli. There's still a few sprouts but they're tiny too so I'll leave them to 'blow' and grow into tasty spring greens

And finally, some seed excitement, I peered through the bubble wrap last night and spotted a little seed had germinated and by this morning a few more...Come on tomatoes!

 

I think that must be fastest tom germination for me, just one week! The intermittent sunny weather must have helped. I also tried to be good and brought the compost inside first for one night to warm up, plus used room temperature water. Must've done something right anyway.

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

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Harvest Monday - a secret weapon

I had a day at the allotment yesterday...it was meant to be sunny but wasn't, booo. But it wasn't rainy either, so that was alright. I was glad I had an extra body warmer in the shed though as it was a tad chilly (especially as I was expecting sun).

When I took on the plot there were several rose bushes, all in the way, so I've been digging them up over the years and moving them into the bramble boundary hedge. They're mainly lovely fragrant varieties, so I didn't want to get rid of them completely. The last one was next to my shed and was always rubbing against it in the wind, plus I want to grow a grape up the side of the shed, so it had to be moved. I pruned it quite low and set to work with a fork and spade to get as much root out undamaged as possible. It came out easier than expected though I did have to chop a couple of roots off a bit. It'll take a couple of years to settle back in as no doubt I'll forget to water it this year. The last couple I've moved are still hanging in there!

I then got sidetracked pruning brambles, cutting out the old dead ones and trimming those growing out over the path. I basically wanted to make it as easy as possible to pick the delicious fruits later in the year, the old dead stems would get in the way when I reach through, and those thorns are vicious. I also pulled some of this year's stems closer to the path for easier picking.

I continued to weed around the base of my fruit bushes too and discovered a lovely little froggy when digging out the compost heap. It settled down into a corner and seemed happy enough, protected.

My two robin friends came to say hello in the afternoon, such a beautiful song. I think I might try and train them to eat out of my hand :) a blackbird came to say hello too, pecking around as soon as I moved a little bit away from the area I was working. This is good news as they'll be eating up grubs from under the fruit bushes, like the gooseberry sawfly larvae.

So what's my secret weapon? Well, not quite as exciting as it sounds but in the lean-to I have the tubs that I grew tomatoes in last summer. In late summer I sowed some oriental greens into one of these and they've been coming up over winter - I gave them a bit of extra protection with bubble wrap over the top of the tub too. Because it's dark in the evenings when I get back from work I've kind of ignored them for a while but decided to pick some the other day to add to a noodle soup. I wish I'd done a couple more tubs of these.

We've had the last tub of strawberries from the freezer this week :(

But spring must be on its way because I've just sown my toms and peppers etc

Here they are before I covered them with a thin layer of compost and soaked them from below for 20 mins or so. Where I have lots of seeds of a particular variety I've put two or three per module but otherwise just one.

I have them under bubble wrap on the top of the drawers by the window. Grow little seeds, grow!

Linking in with Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.

 

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Harvest Monday - a little cabbage

It's warmed up a bit this week and was even sunny on Sunday, which was great as that was when I fitted in a few hours on the plot. I did a few different jobs, of course not all that were planned (it's so easy to get distracted).

I did have a couple of little friends to keep me company - two robins that were sooo cute kept coming right up to where I was working for a peck around, and when they weren't looking for morsels, they were singing beautifully. One got a treat, a tasty green caterpillar I found, gobbled up as soon as I threw it over to them.

Jobs included; topping up my garlics with compost (some of you might remember that I planted them a bit high, so I wanted to cover them up a bit), clearing the brambles from around my hazel tree (I have a little one too, that was in shade and crowded-out so recently I cleared back an overhanging privet tree to give it more space and light), the hazels have catkins on, which is a good sign for more nuts this year.

I also weeded round the base of two of my dwarf apple trees (I have 4) and added some compost on top. I've been clearing out a huge old pile of cut brambles that I'd been mounding up since getting the plot - it has some really good leaf mould in it (that I'll use for my hugel bed) and masses of tougher broken dead stalks, some of which I've already used as a layer for my hugel bed. But with so much material available I decided to use some of the broken up stalks as a mulch on top of the compost, to try and stop weeds a bit. There's about 8 years worth of stalks so I'll be trying it round lots of my fruit bushes. Not sure if it'll work!

And on to the harvests this week -

A little savoy cabbage,

 

Some parsnips (no sign of canker), a leek, some little beetroots I'd forgotten about, and a little potato I found when digging out the compost heap

I also noticed that one of my squashes had a bad spot on it, so roasted it up, with some of my foraged chestnut roast from the freezer (the chestnuts were foraged, not the roast!), my own potatoes plus the cabbage. Yummy

There was enough leftovers for lunch today too.... bonus! But I only have one squash left now, sigh. It's a big'un though so should go a long way. I'd better keep an eye on it to look for signs of deterioration. It's not ideal keeping them in the lean-to greenhouse - I think they need to be kept warmer but I don't have anywhere appropriate at the moment.

Linking in with harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions :)

 

 

 

 

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Harvest Monday - corn salad aka lambs lettuce

So this week I've had two small pickings of corn salad, also known as lamb's lettuce, a hardy salad leaf, with lovely dark leaves. I left a few plants to go to seed a few years ago. This year, after harvesting potatoes and disturbing the soil a bit, I had a surprise crop spring up. I've got some leeks and chard in the same bed too, that I transplanted there after harvesting all the potatoes. I've now covered this bed with environmesh.

The first picking, which went into sarnies for lunch,

And some more I picked today, for more sarnies made this evening (with egg and carrot). There's quite a few little corn salad plants, and rather than leave them to get big and picking a whole plant, (which would take a long time to grow) I've been picking a few leaves from each, a bit like 'cut and come again'. These were only little sandwiches so I made 3 to have one and a half each :) Nice to have some fresh greenery.

And a bit of a beige but tasty meal yesterday (I didn't realise how bad the photo made the meal look, I was rushing to eat! ) with home grown veggies - cabbage, potatoes and plum chutney. Also a celeriac roasted as chips but not home grown. Plus I made another two of Shaheen's chickpea loaf (I froze one). It was raining all day so I felt like a bit of baking.

And finally, nothing to do with harvests but....how cute is our cat Minxie!!! Enjoying a sunny spot.

Linking in with Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.

 

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Harvest Monday - parsnips (and a starling murmeration)

 I headed to the plot for a few hours on Sunday, it was a bit overcast to begin with but then brightened up....lovely. I did some more work on my hugel bed (which I'll report on another time) and spent a bit of time moving one of my enviromesh covers. It was only covering a couple of small cabbages and a purple sprouting broccoli, so I decided to use it over my leeks, chard and some self-seeded lambs-lettuce, which are all growing in the same bed, slowly but steadily.

And in the morning we'd watched the birdies in our garden, to take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch (14 individual birds with 8 species, which is our best year EVER!). There were lots of birds around the plot too, including two robins having a bit of a fight.

Anyhoo, on to the week's veggies which I was pretty pleased with, all from the plot on Sunday:

 Some kale (nero), a little cabbage and my last onions from the shed.

A leek, some little carrots that I'd missed before (they were so sweet, we ate them raw), and two massive parsnips!

Here's one of them cleaned up - no canker, which is good for me. I roasted these lovelies.

And here's why I missed last week's Harvest Monday. I was visiting my folks for a few days down on the south coast. I usually try and get across to Brighton, especially in winter when the huge flocks of starlings roost under the pier.

This is where they used to roost - the West Pier. Not much left of it now, damage from fires and storms. I popped here first as the sunset was so lovely, to get a few pics.

 

 This is where they roost now, It used to be called the Palace Pier but now is just Brighton Pier. This pic is just to show how far apart they are.

  

I could easily fill up the blog with dozens of pics of starlings and the piers but will stick to a couple of videos of the mumeration (the name of the flocking action) taken from Brighton Pier on my little camera (you get a great soundtrack from the pier rides and stalls too!)

Looking west, a large flock, just before coming in to roost right under my feet

 

Looking east, another large flock that flew around for a while longer after the ones on the other side had already headed under the pier.

 

It was the largest murmeration I've seen there for a few years. I had a feeling it was going to be a good one, there'd been lots of starlings in Norwich too (we even have a reasonable murmeration in the city at the moment, which roosts on an office block).

I love seeing people notice the flocks, they're hard to miss! One of nature's spectacles for sure. And the sound when they've come in to roost, thousands of birds right under your feet!

Apologies for the digression, I just had to share :) and it's the reason I missed last week.

Linking in with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - another roast (and some seed sprouting)

Wow, it's been really windy the last few days and some heavy rain too. But I did get to the plot on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours and made a start on a hugel bed (ooh).

This is where you layer up material, starting with logs at the bottom, then smaller branches then twiggy stuff, green stuff and then top off with some soil. I've got the first two layers done. Not sure exactly what I'm going to top it off with as I don't have any spare soil, but I might be getting some horse poo soon. The idea is that over time everything breaks down, levels out, and feeds the plants grown on top. Or if you build one as a toblerone shape you can plant-up the sides and top too.

I had a spot which was in a big dip, next to a big buddliea, so thought I'd bring up the level by making one of these beds. I am taking pics which I'll share later in the process. I'm planning on growing a couple of squash plants here but I'm a bit worried that slugs and snails will find it a nice place to live too. Though I found a couple of toads which might help (I moved them somewhere safe).

On to the harvests this week...not too much!

I forgot that sprouting seeds would count as a harvest - these are alf Alfa. My pack of seeds is 2 years old! I didn't sprout seeds for ages and they went out of date. So not that many actually germinate, but enough do each time, this is about half.

This is the start of the process - put in a couple of teaspoons of seeds, add some water and let them soak overnight. Then leave them in a light place and give them a rinse twice a day. After a few days they'll have sprouted and you can enjoy in salads, sandwiches, add at the end of a stir fry etc. There's loads of different seeds you can sprout too, like mung beans, lentils, chickpeas. This container has holes in the lid for the water to drain out and the green arm thing keeps it leaning at an angle. But you can just use an old jar and make holes in the lid (best to use a plastic one).

Yesterday I thought I'd use up some of my smaller squashes, one had started to go mouldy (it was one which came late from a self sown plant from the compost and probably hadn't cured properly)

But half of it was ok

And the others in half too:

The larger squash had big enough seeds to roast, so I did some of my hazel nuts at the same time (I roasted the amount that I could crack open in the time it took the squash to roast, which wasn't too long because I'd chopped them up quite small.)This is them before roasting, all that remains is in the paper bag. I roasted on gas mark 4 for about 10 mins (after the squash was finished on gas mark 6).

The roasted squash...YUM! With some of last week's chestnut roast from the freezer. Other veggies not home grown!

And a few of the hazels (all eaten now... SO TASTY! I hope I get more this year). The skin flakes off once they're roasted, making a nicer flavour.

That's me for for the week. Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

 

 

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Harvest Monday - chestnut roast

I had a baking day on Saturday. The weather was terrible with heavy rain but I'd had a good session on the plot the day before, making a start on moving a strawberry bed and setting up a stretch of fence to grow peas or something up. So I didn't feel guilty about staying in all day!

 

I made two loaves - a chestnut roast (left) using chestnuts we'd collected in the autumn (the same recipe as we had for Christmas Day - see recipe below ) and a chick pea loaf using Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen's recipe (right).

To prepare the chestnuts, I sliced them length ways, boiled for 15 minutes, let cool a little bit then peeled. If you let them cool too much they're harder to peel. When slicing the nuts, I check inside each one to look for grubs (I did have to discard a few nuts because of this). Normally you can tell from the outside, as there's a little hole which is a bit of a give away but sometimes they're hard to spot. I'd kept the nuts in the fridge since we collected them, having read somewhere to keep them in plastic bags (with holes for ventilation) and stored in a single layer. Actually, when I still had loads left they weren't in a single layer (due to space) but seemed to keep ok anyway, with lots of holes in the bags. It's the first year I've tried this, so will definitely do it again.

Some herbs picked from the front yard also went in the chestnut roast - Rosemary and sage (I don't have any thyme).

Shaheen's recipe for chickpea loaf was really easy. I include it here as I did use my own onions and mini greeny-red pepper that was the last on my plant I'd brought indoors (above, with my remaining chillis). You can see my remaining squashes in the background too.

I also made a carrot cake but that didn't involve any home grown or foraged ingredients!

Other things picked this week - I found a few more potatoes! I was forking a bed a bit to temporarily move some strawberry plants into it and discovered these, in good condition too.

I picked a couple of the chillis, making a massive soup (with some other ingredients of course!)

And today popped to the plot in my lunch break to pick a bit of chard that went into a curry tonight.

That's me for the week, linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions

Chestnut Roast recipe (Chestnut, walnut and mushroom nut roast. Serves 4-6)

So we got this recipe from Jan's mum, and not sure exactly where she got it from but the scanned page we have says 'inspired by Rose Eliot and Sarah Brown.' My instructions written below are adapted from the recipe, to cut down on washing up!

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 tsp olive oil

1 red onion finely chopped (I used a normal onion)

1-2 small carrots, grated or finely chopped

200g mushrooms, finely chopped (or in my case, roughly chopped)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

200g chestnut purée or mashed chestnuts

125g walnuts, finely chopped (we used a mixture, and they were roughly chopped, for varied texture, and laziness)

1-2tbsp fresh herbs finely chopped. Eg Rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme

1tbsp tamari or soy sauce (I found this too salty, as the cheese is salty too, so the second time, used half a spoon)

1 egg

1 cup (100g) grated tasty cheese (We used mature cheddar each time)

black pepper

1. Grease and line a loaf tin

2. Preheat oven to 200 C

3. Heat oil in large pan and fry onion, celery and carrots for about 5 mins. Add mushrooms and garlic and fry another 5 mins.

4. Turn off, and let it cool a bit (as you're about to add the egg and otherwise it will start cooking). Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

5. Spoon in to the loaf tin and bake for 45-60 mins

6. Let it sit for about 10 mins then turn onto a serving dish

7. EAT!

You can adjust the recipe loads of ways eg add chilli, different nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.

 

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Harvest Monday - post christmas

So I missed last Monday because I'd picked up the lurgy and didn't do much for a few days. Luckily I started feeling a bit better for Christmas week, and I had a few days off work on holiday too :)

My main seed order came in, which is exciting. I use the Organic Gardening catalogue and get 10% off as a Garden Organic member.

Included are Sturon onion sets:

Colleen early potatoes and Setanta main crop. I've set these out in the greenhouse lean-to (frost-free). The earlies had already started sprouting a bit and I want to make sure I get the right sort of shoots (if you leave them in the dark, they are pale and long, rather than the green leafy shoots in the light)

 

I picked a bit of coriander from the lean-to.

A small Savoy cabbage and kale for Christmas lunch

Some parsnips for Christmas lunch too. I didn't get a photo of the final meal but it included chestnut roast too (using chestnuts we harvested ourselves from the woods in autumn that I'd kept in the fridge). We also made our own gravy and bread sauce (using herbs from the garden)

On Christmas Eve I went round to friends' houses delivering cards and presents, including jars of my elderberry, apple and clove jelly. I've had good reports on this :).

My first chance to get to the plot for a while, on Sunday for an hour or so, I started a bit of clearing and brought back a few onions.

And today I returned to work (sigh) but it was sunny and I popped to the plot at lunchtime and picked some chard for tea,

And picked a chilli from the houseplant to go with tea too. They're starting to get quite wrinkly! But seem ok.

Zzz feeling a bit pooped after returning to work and with the tail-end of illness. So to end, a not very good but sunny Christmassy photo of my decorated birch twigs! Usually I collect some holly and ivy and make a Christmas wreath but what with being ill I didn't get round to it this year.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and have a great New Year!

Linking in with Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions :)

 

 

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