Planting positivity

Taken by J

Taken by J.

I may be having a blip and not be able to get outside or indeed downstairs at the moment but that doesn't stop the garden and allotment being a real source of strength and positivity and I'm so very grateful for it. Today I've peeked out of the window and watched the blackbird eating the cotoneaster berries from the hedge, looked down on the beds that J managed to do a bit of work on yesterday and spotted the scabious still in bloom and the strawberry and flowering currant leaves taking on their Autumn tints of red and yellow. He's also been busy sowing broad beans and onions in modules in the hope that the mice and voles might leave them alone if they are rooted when we put them in ground. Tonight we ordered our seed potatoes for next year's harvest courtesy of the Transition Loughborough Potato Day online system and J has spent some time pricking out and potting on the cuttings and biennial sowings I made at the end of the summer so we can look forward to pansies, violas, sweet rocket, verbena and penstemons next year - mind you we're already running out of window ledges!

Next stop part 2 of the brilliant Northern Lights adaptation. Happy Sunday all.

Yesterday J went to the allotment and brought back a trolley full of joy!

It's a 3 mile walk to the allotment and a 3 mile walk back and when I can't drive that's what he does - sometimes a friend will give him a lift back and yesterday he managed to get a bus back part way. He mowed and tidied and harvested and then brought all these wonderful things back to me using an old shopping trolley pressed into service many moons ago. 

Rudbeckia, sedum, yarrow, penstemon and sunflowers for the living room

Close up in the living room

Rudbeckia, tagetes and yarrow for the kitchen

Sedum, rudbeckia and tagetes in the kitchen

Last few courgettes

Box of beans

Apples galore

The courgettes were popped onto last night's homemade pizza and today we'll pod the beans and set them to dry in the dehydrator. The apples are destined for cakes and fruit leathers. The flowers are just bringing a smile to my face whenever I look at them.

And then there's this little video of picking the apples with the picking pole which made me smile as I could see the orchard corner and feel like I was there!

I may not be able to get to the plot at the moment but he's making sure I know it's still there and that means more than I can ever say xx

Saturday stories

Chemo number three went ok yesterday - I was very tired by the time we got home but as usual J looked after me and I managed to stay awake to enjoy the delights of Gardener's World and some of the evening comedy shows before crashing out. My hair has now started coming away in earnest which was distressing on Wednesday when it began and is now irritating as I keep finding myself with a furry keyboard and trackpad. I've got plenty of hats and scarves at the ready for when I need them but could really do without the fur-balls!

This morning I'm not too bad so J has left me with everything I might need and headed up the plot for a harvesting trip - with a bit of luck there should be beans, spuds, apples and flowers to look forward to later today.

Talking of beans J brought some dried pods back from the community allotment in Loughborough on Thursday night - really ugly looking pods but look at the lovely shiny treasure held inside.

dried ugly and brown pods

Shiny black runner beans ready to finish drying.

Harvesting

After chemo on Friday, yesterday was a bit of a wipe out for me but J wandered off to the allotment first thing to see what the wildlife has allowed us to keep and came back shattered but with a trolley laden with apples, potatoes, squashes, courgettes, carrots and beans plus a lovely bag of tomatoes from a pal. Whilst up there he'd also cleaned up and re-netted the brassicas and tidied away all the dead sweetcorn stalks so he was really grateful for the lift home from the tomato-donating friend too! Walking through town he'd stumbled across an Isle of Wight Garlic stall at the Food Festival and picked up a new batch of seed garlic. For the last few years we seem to have hit a problem with voles or similar undermining our alliums so he's hit on a new ploy:

Wish us luck - we really really need a new harvest of garlic!

This morning's job for me (before I doze back off again anyway!) has been bean sorting - the second harvest for some of the frames and hopefully at least two more to come if the weather holds for the next few weeks. Once they've finished air-drying they'll join the others in their jars - these store brilliantly for months if not years and make winter meals so much more interesting. 

Borlotto pods

Blue Lake pods

Beautiful speckled borlottis

Creamy white blue lakes

A few stray little cobras

Hope your harvests are going well

Health and Harvests

Well yesterday was a bit of a bugger to be honest. The meeting with my consultant confirmed our fears and I'm back on chemotherapy from the end of next week as the tumours in the liver have multiplied and grown which I suppose explains why I've been feeling so grotty the last month or so. The second bit of news was that there is something going on in my head too so I am off for an MRI next week and I really really hate MRIs but it's a necessary evil if they are going to determine exactly what's going on and then there is talk of something called cyber-knife radiotherapy which sounds delightful. Still they've started me on a course of steroids which should help with the pain and sickness and things are moving quickly again so I'm grateful as ever for the speed and kindness with which my NHS specialist teams all kick into gear and they are given us options rather than giving up so whilst future posts may be a little intermittent as I get used to a new treatment regime I will still be posting pictures and musings for a while yet.

On a more cheerful note we have started harvesting beans for the winter and the first batch are dried and in their jars in the kitchen ready to be joined by the next crops. These keep for ages if dried properly and will get used over the winter in soups and stews and bakes and pies.

And the Sweet-pea pot we popped in the back garden to finish dying has offered up a generous posy of blooms as the night's cool so I have a final pretty purple offering for the kitchen.

Oh and J came across the website recently which is guaranteed to provide hours of distraction to any child of the eighties - http://bbcmicro.co.uk/ - Beware it's a time thief.....

Six-on-Saturday 7th September 2019

Afternoon Blog-land today is my September link-up with The Propagator's Six on Saturday meme. I missed August but please check out The Propagator's post here for instructions on how to join in and take a look at his blog for links to lots of wonderful gardens from all around the world. My previous posts can be found by clicking on the #SixOnSaturday label.

Today was a trip to the allotment to see what we could harvest and to plant out the leeks, spinach beet and beetroot that has been languishing on the shelves here at home for far too long. We picked courgettes, Uchiki Kuri squash, dried beans, chickpeas, spinach beet, beetroot and apples plus a couple of lovely bunches of flowers. Then we had a look round to see what was to come.

1. Butternut squash doing well - 8 decent sized fruit on the now stopped plant. Cleared away the leaves to help them ripen.

2.  Some lovely sized eating apples on the small apple tree

3. The Borlottis are ripening well and in a few weeks they will join the bag of already dried beans that we harvested today .

 4. The first of the Achillea Cerise Queen has flowered at last adding their colour to the Rudbeckia rows in the cutting bed

 5. Their stems may be too short to cut but these sunflowers are still giving so much joy as bud after bud opens.

6. And in a sure sign of the changing seasons the sedum is putting on colour in the front border.

Bonus picture - we love our wildlife but it would have been really nice if the badger had left us just one sweetcorn cob to enjoy....grrr....

When our allotment gives us marrows instead of courgettes...

It's time for pie...

I first had a version of this many, many moons ago when I worked in Northern Greece, this is the closest I've been able to get to what I remember eating although a hunt around the internet shows that traditionally grated raw courgette is used. I also use shortcrust rather than filo pastry as it takes five minutes to make and costs pennies whereas filo needs to be bought in. It's also really easy to make a double batch and freeze half for days when life throws you a curve ball but you want real food. Some marrows can end up being quite watery so just bubble off the liquid until you have the desired consistency.

Marrow and cheese pie (works with courgettes that haven't got too big too!)

Shortcrust pastry (a batch made with 8oz flour is plenty for a four serving pie)







Filling 
1 medium brown onion (3 small ones in my case)
About 750g of marrow or courgette peeled and diced
1 dessert spoon dried parsley
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried Sage
appx 1tsp ground dried garlic (about 1 clove)
200g wensleydale diced (I usually use Feta but didn't have any today)
black pepper & salt to taste ( if using Feta don't usually need salt)
1 beaten egg

In a large saucepan, heat oil and slow fry onions to soften. Add diced marrow and herbs, stir well and cover and cook until soft.  This will take anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes depending on density of marrow and size of pieces. Add salt and pepper and allow to cool a little (about 5/10 minutes) then stir in the cheese. Once cool enough to not scramble the egg stir it in as this will help bind the filling.

Line pie dish with pastry and spoon cooled mixture in. Cover with lid. Seal by pinching the edges and trim away any excess. Make a hole for steam to escape, glaze if wish and bake in oven Gas Mark 6 for approx 30 minutes until golden brown.

I often find this is sufficient as a meal in itself but it can be served with a green salad if you prefer. This is a lovely herby substantial meal that makes great use of sometimes tasteless veg and the chief taste tester approved and of course, went back for seconds!

Beans, bees and baby squashes...

A trip to the hospital for a blood test was followed by a far more relaxing (for me anyway) couple of hours up the allotment today. Whilst J ran around like a mad thing strimming, mowing and lifting potatoes I pootled around picking things and taking photos in short bursts before hiding out in the shade of the car.

The beans are bulking up really well now with the Portuguese beans showing lots of glorious red pods as promised by the Heritage Seed Library catalogue way back in the depths of winter . The borlotto, cobra and blue lake beans are doing just as well so the winter stores should be well stocked again.


The Homeguard spuds we picked a few weeks ago were really tasty and as good mashed as they were boiled in their skins so I was chuffed when J dug the next row of them and produced this lot from just 5 plants. We've still got the second earlies and maincrops in the ground so keep your fingers crossed the dreaded blight stays away!

A quick check on the butternut and uchiki kuri squash plants didn't disappoint with about 4 butternuts including this baby one and at least 4 uchikis that I hope ripen over the next month or so to join the beans in autumn and winter stews.

Back to summer veg and our lovely yellow courgette had plenty for us to pick today, including one oversized one that's destined for pie tomorrow. I think I'm glad only one plant made it as it's keeping us well stocked.





And the flowers? Well they are keeping the local buzzies happy as well as providing beautiful bunches for the house. 

Whilst it was really cloudy when we set out by the time we got up there the sun was at full beam and it's promising to get hotter and hotter as the weekend progresses so today's visit was a fairly brief one but with a good haul and a tidy plot to show for it. A bag of beet leaves; several beetroots; onions; potatoes; blackberries; cooking apples, courgettes, rudbeckia and sunflowers all came home with us ready for a long weekend in the kitchen.

Happy weekend all.

  

Sunshine on the sideboard!

A rainy kitcheny kind of day

I thought my eyes were deceiving me this morning as I stood in the kitchen chatting to my Mum on the phone and a flock of long-tailed tits fluttered through the garden. They scampered around from the giant fir two houses down across our hedge and apple tree and into the cherry two doors across the other side and then back again briefly alighting on the apple. Of course, as I cut my chat with Mum short and grabbed the camera the little blighters disappeared - not sure whether they have camera or rain sensors but they didn't return. I'll just have to keep an eye out but usually they're a winter sight around here not summer.

As the promised rain duly bucketed down all morning I decided to go through the fridge and fruit stores to cook up anything that was looking a bit sad and not likely to keep over the weekend. Now I'm up 2 pots of mixed berry and apple sauce - great for pies, crumbles or for stirring into yoghurt or warmed over ice cream; a pot of peas; a tray of roast tomato and pepper sauce cubes and half a dozen roast courgette and mushroom cubes plus a tub of cooked beet leaves for adding to soups, stews or pie fillings. I'm shattered but at least nothing's going to waste.
The vegetable cubes are really simple to make, use up slightly-less-than-best veggies and provide wonderful little flavour bombs for adding to pie fillings, pasta sauces, soups, stews and bakes throughout the winter. They also make great use of any gluts you might have or even left-over roast veg from a meal.

Quick and Easy Sauce Cubes
Ingredients
Tomato and Pepper
Roast equal quantities red pepper and tomatoes with basil, black pepper and onion powder.

Courgette and Mushroom
Roast equal quantities of mushrooms and courgette with thyme, black pepper and onion powder

Next steps
Allow to cool slightly and then tip into a deep bowl or pyrex jug and blitz with a stick blender ( or tip into a food processor if you prefer but I find stick blenders easier for small quantities).
Once thoroughly blitzed, spoon mixture into an ice cube tray and either cover with lid or with a sheet of foil and freeze.
Once frozen they can be popped into a box or bag to free up the cube trays for future sauces.

Red pepper and tomato

Mushroom and courgette

Blitz

1 tray = 14 flavour bombs

Not as pretty but definitely tasty

Cover tray and freeze -don't forget to label

Soggy sunflowers

After a wonderful day catching up with friends over lunch yesterday and dodging high winds and heavy showers, this morning we popped up to the allotment to see how the sheds, beans and sweetcorn had coped with the stormy weather. Luckily the tee-pees are still upright and the beans are climbing high, the sunflowers are continuing to give us dozens of beautiful heads of yellow, copper and rusty red and all but one sweetcorn plant standing proud - and this one looked more like a casualty of falling apples rather than high winds so it looks like the hazel windbreaks and hedgerows are working well to filter out the worst of the gusts. The sheds at each end are also still steady on their bases so we count ourselves lucky. A quick potter around the beds yielded well-washed crops and well-watered plants, so we picked more courgettes, peas, spinach beet and a few berries for the kitchen as well as a couple of bunches of sunflowers, rudbeckia and yarrow to brighten up the living room. We managed just a little bit of weeding before the rains quickly came hammering down, thoroughly watering us and everything on the plot. A short but productive visit.

Rudbeckia amongst the squash plants

Glorious multi-headed sunflowers

Peas, courgettes, onion and berries

First potatoes - plot to plate

Yesterday was a busy allotment day - at least for J who spent about 5 hours up there in the end, mowing, weeding and tidying - I joined him about 3.30 to do some picking and give him a lift home. In addition to some lovely flowers and a few more peas, we also managed to pick a couple of courgettes and some onions plus, most importantly the first of our potatoes. Importantly, because whilst relatively cheap to buy the taste of homegrown fresh from the plot is wonderful and the last few batches I have bought have been really quite ropey and not kept for long at all. This batch is called Home Guard and is a first early we're trying for the first time. We grow using the no dig method, earthing up with compost and mown grass on a layer of card and compost on top of our sandy soil. It produces really clean spuds with minimal disturbance of the soil so it maintains its health and helps it retain moisture. If you aren't familiar with No dig growing I really recommend checking out the You Tube channel of Charles Dowding.

Today we ate some of them - they held their shape well when boiled and are just the right balance of floury and waxy to enjoy this way. A nice simple lunch with our peas and beans, shop bought carrots, chunks of feta and black pepper. Yum!