Gardener Cook ~ Waste Not Want Not

I seem to have been doing a lot of pressing, squeezing, chopping, cooking and tasting – all in the name of filling the freezer and preserves cupboard.

Is it some deep-felt need to go through this every year – originally in case of times of hardship.  Well, not really – I mean, everything is readily available in the shops – so what makes us keep on with this ancient practice of hoarding food  against the shortages of winter – when we know there won’t be any.

To be quite honest, even if we don’t really need to do it – I quite enjoy the whole thing of gathering in the surplus crops and trying to make something tasty out of them – and I do get quite a kick out of opening the cupboard and freezer and seeing them full to the gills of homemade produce.

Anyhoo, what did I spend the last week doing.

• Mixed Berry Jam
• Damson and blueberry jelly
• Vegetable Mulligatawny Soup (for the freezer although we did have a bowl each first)
• Apple Juice

I thought I would get the (seldom used) juicer out of the cupboard and make the most of the over-abundance of James Grieve apples on my tree.  I was going to get rid of the juicer as it is only taking up cupboard space – then I thought – why not turn the apples into juice.  The result is one glassful from about ten large apples. 

When you drink this tart-sweet juice, the sharpness makes you salivate, and look at the lovely pinkness of it.  It smells and tastes just the same as the apples, which I guess is no surprise – I found it really refreshing – but was it worth all the mess, and the washing of all the parts of the machine just for a glassful?  The jury is still out on that one – but I won’t throw the juicer out just yet – it has earned a reprieve for now.

I think that’s me done for this year a) because I have no room left anywhere to store anything and b) because I have run out of freezer containers and jam jars.

The evening on Sunday was glorious – I took a couple of pictures of the veg patch just as the sun was going down ~ as you can see it wants a good sort out ~ it all starts to look a bit messy at this time of year with the runners dying back  ~ tomatoes needing to be taken down ~ foxgloves that have seeded themselves into the beds need digging up and transplanting, all jobs that I will get on with when we come back from our September break at the coast.

I have planted some onions in modules in the greenhouse – they were in the shop so I thought I would give them a try as I have never grown them this early before – but it seems a good time of year to get things going – the seeds I sowed last week are all through already ~ even the carrots which usually take an age to germinate ~ I’m dead chuffed because my original sowing of carrots got munched by the badgers and I haven’t had a single one this year.

And finally – I was reading an article in Gardens Illustrated last month about the Great Dixter vegetable garden and Christopher Lloyd’s book ‘Gardener Cook’ was mentioned.  I purchased it for the princely sum of 1p. It has lots of recipes on how to use up the vegetables you have grown all given in Christopher’s own inimitable style – I shall definitely be trying plenty of them out during the course of the gardening year.

‘Til next time – happy veg growing …

Autumn Preparations For A Bountiful Winter

As the weather has turned colder, more blustery and extremely wet over the last couple of weeks – my thoughts have turned to preparations for autumn and winter.  A little early for that I hear you say, but I say, best be prepared a little early rather than leaving it too late.

I have been transferring operations into the greenhouse where it is obviously sheltered and warmer than outdoors.  The tomato plants have been unstaked and laid down so that the rest of the tomatoes on the vine get a chance to ripen -  and I have stopped watering – a bit risky – not really, they have reached full size now  and just need to redden – possibly too much water at this stage would affect the flavour. 

I still have Sungold outdoors where they have grown beyond their canes and are venturing over the fence into next doors garden – if they don’t get a chance to ripen now it has turned colder then I will strip the plants and bring the fruits indoors.

The French Beans left in plant pots have been transferred into the greenhouse away from the cold and the slugs and already these late-sown plants are forming tiny beans.

 

The runners have just about finished now but the ones I planted in the flower bed, which haven’t performed very well, are just starting – they obviously don’t seem to like being amongst the flowers and maybe haven’t had as much water as the others – I won’t experiment like this with them again as the beans are difficult to harvest in the flower bed.

I have had to buy plug plants of all the brassicas due to the slug invasion that wiped them out – but maybe this is no bad thing, later plants means that they have missed the onslaught of caterpillars – they have been covered with nets and dome cloches until they establish – and liberal doses of pellets have been applied – I am taking no chances.

The grow-bags that the tomato pots were standing on have been sown with lettuce and radish seed – the pea troughs also, with spinach and chard, and the potato containers have been re-sown with carrots.  These are all in the greenhouse where they will stay all winter in the hope of harvesting fresh crops.

Once the courgette plants have been hit by frost I have some small cavolo nero kale seedlings to plant in their place – so that the raised beds stay productive all through the winter.

And finally, I have cleared the strawberry bed, applied fresh compost and manure and re-planted with the plants that were growing in containers in the greenhouse.  There is only enough room for a dozen plants which is plenty for us - I have covered them with a mesh cover as we are having problems with badgers in the garden at the moment, and with freshly dug soil – they are likely to dig all the plants up to use the area as a latrine.

I think I am getting the hang of this small scale gardening – it has been an interesting exercise to get as much as I can out of a small space – the secret seems to be to have plants-in-waiting, ready to pop in when a crop has finished - let’s hope all my plans are successful and we have a plentiful supply of food right through the autumn and winter.

‘Til next time – be prepared.

Plumple – Plum and Apple Jam

I have the plums ~ I have the apples ~ I’m going to make Plumple.

Take equal amounts of both ripe plums and cooking apples or under-ripe dessert apples.  De-stone the plums and cut into four or more pieces.  Peel and core the apples and cut into slices.  Place into a pan, just cover with water and cook until soft.  Alternatively, simply chop all the fruit roughly, cover with water and simmer till soft enough to sieve out the stones, pips and so on.  In either approach, weigh the puree and add the same amount of white sugar to the pan and simmer gently, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved.  Turn up the heat until it nearly boils and the puree turns jammy, take off the heat and pour into hot, sterilised jars.  You could add a little lemon zest along with the sugar for an extra tang.

(Taken from Bob Flowerdew’s – Grow Your Own – Eat Your Own)

‘Til next time – happy Plumpling.

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Runner Bean and Sweet Red Pepper Chutney

I thought I would try a new recipe  for chutney – a way of using up a few surplus runner beans.  Great with a curry or maybe a strong cheese.   If you are interested I have put the recipe on the Preserves page on my side bar.

‘Til we meet again – happy chutney making.

--oo0oo--

The Errant Veg Grower Returns

You will have to forgive me for taking so long to decide whether to carry on with this blog. It has been eleven months since I posted  mainly because I wanted to see if I would have enough to  blog about given my reduced circumstances  of four small raised beds instead of a much larger plot that I had to give up.  So, after much mulling over, cogitating and pondering – I have decided that maybe I could manage a monthly post – to show what I have been growing and its progress – successes and failures both.

Sadly, this growing season seems to have been mainly about failures.

Every living creature seems to have been out to get my crops.  I have never actually seen them in action but they have had a good go at ravaging everything and anything edible.  I have replanted my brassicas three times now, only for them to disappear – the same with the French beans and the Rainbow Chard – I can’t ever remember a year where the chard has been eaten before – the possible suspects are sparrows and pigeons – but I can’t swear to it because they do it sneakily.

Container grown Rainbow Chard – not a pretty sight.

Perpetual Spinach – not in quite as bad a state as the Chard but not looking very appetising either.

I have also had to sow, re-sow and re-sow again the French beans – slugs and snails are the culprits this time – this is another phenomena that has never occurred before – why this year when it has been much drier – why have they come out of their secret hiding places to attack the beans – it’s a mystery to me.  The space allocated to beans has now been given to something else – so the last sowing remain in their pots.  French beans are a favourite of mine so it has been a bitter disappointment not to have a crop – may be this last sowing will produce beans before the first frosts – who knows.

Then there are the tomatoes.  The worst crop I can remember.  The flowers  just dropped off  before setting.  Another disappointment.  I only grew five varieties this year Ferline, Cuor di Bue, Gardeners Delight, Sungold and Tigerella.  Except for Sungold all the others were grown in the greenhouse and this is where I have had the most problems.  Not sure what the problem has been but the crops have been pathetic compared to other years.  Sungold is a clear winner once again with much healthier plants full cropping and no disease.  Whew.

Greenhouse tomatoes

Sungold grown outdoors – leaves pulled off below the fruits to encourage ripening but left on at the top of the plant.

The carrots which were doing well were all dug up by a badger and eaten – so I don’t even have a picture to show you. 

The early brassicas that were planted have all been munched to death by slugs and snails – so I have a final planting  of kale, cabbage and purple sprouting broc which I had to buy as plugs, they have been liberally sprinkled with slug pellets and covered with mesh cloches in the hope of keeping them pest free – only time will tell if I will be successful this time.

Sorry that so far it is a catalogue of disasters, if you are new to veg growing, I don’t want it to put you off – but when growing your own food you just have to take the bad with the good I’m afraid.

On the success side there are the runner beans, grown in deep containers and trained over an arch – a plentiful supply has been forthcoming – so much so that I am getting slightly fed up of eating them.

And of course there are the courgettes – thank goodness for courgettes – which have performed beautifully – a constant supply from just two plants.

Sweet peppers and chillies in the greenhouse are slow to ripen  but I’m in no hurry.

And lastly Cucumbers – a nice steady supply – better than last year when I didn’t manage to grow any at all. 

The early container grown potatoes have all been eaten – Charlotte and Foremost – I grew eight containers, four of each – and they performed well.  The only veg that I won’t be able to tell you about are the Parsnips – they germinated successfully and the foliage is abundant – but I won’t be pulling any till later in the autumn, fingers crossed I get nice long fat roots.

So, that has been my veg gardening year so far – it has been a learning curve -  I am slowly adapting to less space – when one crop is finished in goes another one – for instance, when the beetroot was pulled I spread fresh compost over the area and re-planted with leeks.  Hopefully by next year I will know what is possible and what not to bother with.

‘Til next month – happy veg growing! 

Change is afoot . . . Downsizing, big time . . . New Challenges ahead . . .

This will be the last season at my plot.  The field is being sold.  The reasons are complicated and out of my control.  It will be a sad day when I close the gate behind me for the final time.  I  raised hens and chicks, ducks and pigs and sheep and  lambs and my beloved goats and kids up there.  I have visited it every day for nearly twenty five years and tended the plot which has provided much of our food.

I will still have my small veg garden at home which has four raised beds and lots of container planting -  but everything will be scaled down considerably – a quart squeezed into a pint pot.  I’m thinking that this blog will be difficult to sustain under the circumstances – so perhaps I will close it down and just post veg-related pieces to my other blog ramblings from rosebank as and when they arise – I will give it a bit more thought and keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I missed my two year blog anniversary, which was in August.  The first post here was in 2011, since then there have been 180 posts, 3092 comments and 63,806 page views.  The most popular post was about tomatoes here which has had 1171 pageviews since it was posted.  It seems any post about tomatoes is always popular.  It has been a pleasure to read all your encouraging and entertaining comments – I should like to thank all of you who comment for sticking with me - particularly Flighty at Flighty's Plot who has commented on every single post – a loyal follower indeed.

‘Til the next time – maybe!

Just a trickle of tomatoes . . .

You would have thought that with nine tomato plants in the greenhouse and twelve outdoors that I would be inundated with tomatoes – not so.  This year has to be the worst I can remember for a tomato crop.  No huge trusses – just the odd tomato here and there, hardly any ripening just the odd one.  I have a feeling that by the end of the season I am going to be left with a helluva lot of green toms that I will have to bring indoors to ripen.

 

And if I show you a collage of my daily harvest you can see just how few tomatoes there have been.

Beans, beans and more beans – but tomatoes – no.

All in all – a bit of a disaster, to say the least.

Let’s have a beanfeast . . .

As far as I’m concerned – this year has been an exceptional one for runner beans.  I only planted out ten plants; two each of five varieties.  The usual method of growing up canes was changed – I grew them straight up over a nylon net with cross-pieces as support.  This meant that the beans hung down rather than inwards on the usual sloping cane method, and it doesn’t take up as much space.  You know how difficult it is to find all the beans that are inside the wigwam or cross-cane tied-at-the-top method – this way I haven’t missed any, so none have grown to a huge size to stop production of other beans.  After they had established and started climbing I mulched with grass clippings and made sure I watered every day.  The trench they grew in was filled with well-rotted horse manure and topped with home-made compost.

 

There are still a few flowers left to be pollinated right at the top – the plants have been covered in bees for weeks.

 

To be honest, I have more beans than I know what to do with – friends and neighbours have benefitted from the bean bounty.

And still they keep on coming – I have been harvesting a few pounds weight every day – I definitely have a surfeit that I just don’t know what to do with – the freezer is full.  Maybe I could add them to picalilli or runner bean chutney.  We have them with our meals two or three times a week, and although I love them to death and could eat bucketsful – it is starting to wear a bit thin.  I can hear my husband thinking – Oh no – not beans again.  But what a nice position to be in  - and all for so little effort really.  Definitely a must-have crop for me.

Some bumper crops and, erm, some not so bumper ones …

Cucumber close up

The veg garden is going crazy, especially the runner beans.  It seems as though the garden knows that autumn is coming and it is pushing out everything it can before the weather starts turning colder and the hours of light get shorter.
This is my harvest for last week – many pounds of runner beans, french beans, three greenhouse cukes and four outdoor ones (found lurking under the foliage).  Nine courgettes, four summer squash, the last of the beetroot.
Looks like I have got some serious kitchen-work ahead.  All the recipe books are spread out – trying to find enough different ways to use everything up before the next batch are harvested.
Of course not everything comes in huge quantities.  Five blueberries, half a dozen tomatoes and a few cucamelons – look pitiful don’t they.

Oh well, you can’t have everything!
Till next time – HAPPY HARVESTING.