Well, I can hardly believe it's been nearly a month since I last sat down down at the computer to write a post. As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun and we have definitely been doing that. The weather often dictates our daily activities and this August we seem to have had our fair share of rain. So we have been using the wet days for crafts and decorating (more about that later as the living room should be finished by the end of this week) while making the most of the dry days to catch up on outside chores.
I spent a lovely week at the beginning of August with mum and 2 of my nieces; a day at the seaside including a trip to the ice-cream parlour is always a winner. After this little break it was back to work and time to get stuck into harvesting some veg and preparing them for storage.
One of the first harvests of the season is always a bit of a mix with the peas, beans, carrots and radish all looking tasty.
We have had loads of Peas and Broad Beans, so much so that I had to ditch the trusty trug and resorted to collecting them in buckets.
Thankfully M is a dab hand at shelling peas and beans so instead of the usual 2 hour chore we had this lot done in no time, ready to be blanched before freezing. I think we will have plenty to keep us going throughout the winter and there is probably one more lot to be harvested before the end of the season.
Jess absolutely loves peas but Finn has never been quite so keen. This year he has discovered that he likes the pods but not the peas and has learned how to eat the bits he likes and leaves the peas for Jess. What a great partnership, nothing wasted here!
We were slightly better organised last year and got our garlic in the ground before the frosts last autumn and they have grown really well in the baths. We planted 2 different types, Bohemian Rose and Mikulov. They are both hardneck varieties which should be better suited to our growing conditions but may not store quite as well as the softneck types, we'll have to wait and see.
The garlic smells quite delicate but once chopped and crushed the full flavour is released and is a delightful cooking accompaniment.
The Jalapenos are coming along nicely and I don't think it will be long before I can harvest some and make more Jalapeno poppers. They were a real success last year and every single one was yummy. Any which aren't big enough for poppers will be chopped up finely and kept in the freezer so we can add them straight to our cooking.
Sometimes we have a disaster with Sweet Peppers and sometimes they are great. This is the best one so far and was wonderful in one of M's amazing omelettes.
So, way back in spring when I was duly sowing seeds, pricking out seedlings and potting up plants I vowed that every plant would have a label. Despite my diligence a couple of plants seem to have been mislabeled. The plant on the left was, I thought, a Gherkin but after consulting the packets again it looks like it may be a Cucamelon. It has been particularly rubbish, although there have been an abundance of little fruits this is the only one which has grown. M has a few of these plants in the polytunnel too but has only got 2 fruits growing. Not quite sure when to harvest them or what to do with them but this may be a one-off as I don't think they're worth the space they take up.
We have so far harvested our extra early and early potatoes and they have been much better than last year. The wasps haven't got to them and although there are a few dodgy ones we have more large and intact potatoes which should store well. As we were experimenting with a few different growing systems I thought I'd write a separate post about the results we achieved.
The wet and humid month has taken it's toll on our tomato plants in both the greenhouse and poytunnel, it isn't blight but they look very poorly indeed. However, it doesn't seem to be just us as Beechgrove (the tv gardening show) spoke about the same issues viewers had experienced in a recent programme.
Still, the fruit don't appear to be affected and so I made the most of a wet day to make some tomato (and pepperoni) soup for the freezer. It was a bit of a made up recipe but at least I managed to use up the 2.6kg of tomatoes we had. The rest will become passata, frozen for the winter.
As I was in the mood for cooking I also did a batch of cottage pie with M's amazing potato mash topping of course.
I really wanted to include a couple of pictures of M's little fig tree which has been in the polytunnel for about 3 months now and is starting to look like a proper little tree.
For the first time we had a go at growing turnips and swedes and despite a labelling mix up they have grown well, in fact so well that I really need to search out some recipes so we don't just end up steaming and boiling them.
Although the sweet potatoes weren't massively successful last year we thought we'd have another go and try them in the polytunnel this time. They look great, reasonably healthy and they have just produced some very pretty purple and white flowers.
The veg plot has been full to overflowing with peas, beans (runner, broad and french), onions, brassicas, turnips, swedes and sweetcorn. As we near the end of the summer the peas are coming to an end as are the broad beans and it won't be long until we harvest the last of the onions and potatoes. Soon the runner beans will be ready and it will be time to make some chutney, more than last year as it was a firm favourite and we ran out months ago. In no time our focus will be turning towards clearing the old plants, leaving room for those few still growing while starting to plan for winter veg.
I went a bit overboard when sowing the brassica seeds and so they are also in the polytunnel where they were doing brilliantly. One day M had been looking at the cabbages and remarking on how they were nearly ready for picking and how wonderful they would be in coleslaw. However, that night we forgot to close the doors on the poytunnel and the very next day they looked like this. Some very lucky rabbits had a midnight feast courtesy of us. Lesson learned, shut the doors every night; at least we salvaged part of one to go with our dinner. Hopefully you haven't experienced any of our little disasters and are enjoying the tail end of the summer along with all the harvests it brings.
