February 7

Harvest Monday 07/02/22

We have had a strange winter here on the south coast. Very little wind, evident from the fact that we have not had the sand blown off the beach and along the road at all this year, and little rain. That is not to say, however, that we haven’t had storms with a lot of wind and rain in one heavy drop. I do wonder if this is the future.

The downside of this is that the weather has been grey. Dreary and grey. The upside is that I have been able to do quite a bit of work outside in December and January. We had an official complaint about rats which is tricky as we border houses and have had to re-organise our plots to ensure that it isn’t us providing the perfect conditions for them. It turned out it wasn’t but we have all had to move our compost bins and other detritus from the bottom of our plots and store it elsewhere. I found carpet under the soil, a burial pit of plastic bags, many, many tree and bramble roots plus all my poles and wood. I also had to move 5 large compost bins most of which were ready to use and that has been strenuous but warming work.

From the store we have been pulling out potatoes – we’re still eating Charlotte – and carrots which are a mixture of Autumn King and Oxheart. We are also valiently working our way through a Queensland Blue squash that is delicious with a firm flesh but is quite large and has lasted for about 3 weeks already. Memo to self – eat more squash!

From the plot we have Brussel sprouts and Kalettes, Parsnips (Tender and True), lettuce (Rouge Grenoble), lambs lettuce (Vit) rainbow chard, Boltardy and Bona beetroot and fennel from the tunnel.

Over-wintered red admiral which came in to the kitchen on the vegetables.

When I brought the veg in yesterday, a Red Admiral came in with them. Its wings look a little tatty at the edges, particularly the bottom so I think it must have over-wintered here as it is not really the right time for the migrating ones to arrive. Apparently, down here in the south that is happening more and more.

I put it outside but with a fairly heavy heart as it really wasn’t warm enough.

It is the first year that I have almost grown enough sprouts! I had 8 plants which I started picking at the beginning of December and still have a few left to go. I think 12 plants next year would be fantastic and I won’t have to ration them! They were of a good size probably because I grew F1 varieties – Crispus and Brodie – rather than open-pollinated which seem to be a lot more variable. I have been trying to grow more OP vegetables but sometimes F!s are better. Food is becoming a lot more expensive here for a variety of reasons so getting the best crops is more important.

I’m off to finish the bug pit on the wildlife plot before seed sowing starts in earnest. Have a good week.

I have linked to Harvest Monday on the Happy Acres blog. Do visit to see what else is being harvested around the world.

November 30

Harvest Monday 30/11/20

It’s that time of year when I start to make a list of everything that can be harvested this month or that I have in storage just to make sure that I use it. I hate getting to March/April and finding that I have squash that have rotted or potatoes that have sprouted because I haven’t used them in time. I walked around the allotments and made my list and then took it home to plan the menus for the week. It really cuts down on the shopping list and time I spend faffing around thinking about what to eat.

I listed:- leeks. spinach (maybe a bit too much), fennel, Black Spanish radish (I don’t like them. They taste soapy.), parsley, coriander, sprouts, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, hispi type cabbage, leeks, lambs lettuce, lettuce, parsnips, chinese cabbage, chard, celariac, two types of kale, carrots, mustards, landcress, rocket and chervil.  In store I have winter squash, potatoes, onions and garlic.

So for a sausage casserole today one of the things I  picked was some fennel. I have settled on growing Rondo as it seems to be slower to bolt and grows well both outdoors and in the polytunnel. The outdoor fennel is finished so it is on to the first group grown in the polytunnel. I have a second group but they are for next year as they are still very small at the moment. I have always wondered what to do with the fronds as it seems such a waste but a friend showed me a recipe for fennel pesto and to that is now in the freezer ready to use when we next have pasta.

If it isn’t too cold we still have a salad at lunch time. If it is cold we have soup, but today was a sunny, bright-blue-sky type of day so to bulk out the lettuce, landcress and rocket, I picked some lambs lettuce.  This is Favor and in my normal, slightly slapdash way, I am not sure where I got the seed from. I buy as much seed as I can from Kings because we do this as an allotment association and get the seed quite a bit cheaper. However, as I am on a seed saving mission, I bought some from companies that sell open pollinated varieties especially so that you can save the seed such as Real Seeds, Vital Seeds and The Seed Cooperative.  I’ll save some seed and see what happens anyway.  Favor has quite big, dark green leaves and grows into a dense, compact plant so we only need two of the plants for the salad.

The celariac, Prinz,  needs harvesting. Last winter I left it in the ground as I am in the south and the winters are mild but the woodlice got into them and were a complete nuisance, going right into the middle of some. Charles Dowding harvests all his in November and stores them in a cold shed so I will do the same.

I have also harvested a LOT of twiggy peasticks and bean poles this week by coppicing the hazels on the wildlife plot. I can probably provide supports for all 300 allotments as there were about 9 hazels which had not been cut for quite a few years. Some of the wands are more than 5m long. I will write more about this during the week.

What is really good in your garden at the moment?

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November 23

Harvest Monday 23rd November 2020

Oh it has been wet here in the south of the UK and that means I haven’t been able to get out and ‘do stuff’.  I haven’t even really wanted to go down to the allotment so the harvest this week is from the garden.

I started growing vegetables in the garden this spring when I decided in the autumn that now would be a good time to start saving my own seed.  I didn’t want to grow the plants on the allotments because the chance of cross-pollination is very high.  So, I have grown some veg at home.

On Thursday I picked the very last of my tomatoes and removed the plants.  Surprisingly, these have semi-ripened so a few days on the window sill should see them completely ripe and ready to eat. The tomatoes from left to right are Black Russian, Rosella, Costoluto, Sungold and Shimmer.  All are delicious and I will grow them again next year.

The lambs lettuce is grown outside and has reached a good size. It is Vit and I am going to leave a few plants to set seed to see if it is possible to save seed from it.

The really strange harvest this week is my mahooooosive beetroot.  I built a hugelkultur bed in the spring and planted 6 beetroot at the short end of the bed and left them to grow until next year when they will flower and I can collect the seed.  It was a sunny day and so I cut the grass but caught one of the beetroot on the lawn mower which pulled it out of the soil. They have very small roots which don’t seem to cling to the soil much. Anyway, this beetroot is a whopper.

It weighs just over 3.5 kgs and I do not know what to do with it. I am not sure it will make great eating so I think I will have to chop it up and put it on the compost heap. I don’t want seed that makes enormous beetroot as I prefer my beetroot to be tennis ball sized.  The only thing we can say is that Boltardy beetroot really do not bolt.

In my next post I will be reviewing the hugelkultur bed and planning my next steps.

I have linked this post to the Happy Acres blog where Dave hosts a Harvest Monday series every week. It is a fascinating place to find out about what other people are growing.

September 3

A changing harvest

The start of September usually signals a change in harvests for us. The courgettes are slowing down and the sweetcorn is ready.  We picked our first cobs this week and they were very sweet and tender. Now it will be a race between us and the badgers to see who gets the most!

The chillis are now in full swing. I have two types: cayenne (long and pointy) and one from a seed packet called Chilli Shakes. When I looked at the packet more clearly it is yet another mixed packet that I bought and so I don’t know what type this is.  I really MUST stop buying mixed packets!

I am also picking chard regularly now. I add the leaves to almost everything. Tonight it is chilli made with black beans to which I will also add shredded chard leaves.

L to R: Leaf beet, Lucullus and Rainbow chard

It has taken me a very long time to work out what to do with the stems. I read somewhere that we grow chard for the leaves and the french grow it for the stems.  After reading a blog post from the Frugalwoods about their mammoth chard growing and storing days, I too decided to chop the stems very finely and add them to stir fries. It works a treat and now no waste!  I believe the french use the stems in a gratin – I do love a gratin but am not convinced about a chard stem gratin.

The allotment seed catalogue from Kings has arrived and I have already spent a pleasant hour perusing the delights.  The more blogs I read about growing, the wider the range of seed companys I need to use. For instance, I want to grow Aji Limon chillis this year so will have to get them from the South Devon Chilli Farm. I will get the Stupicke tomatoes from Sarah Raven and the Coriander Cruiser from Simply Seeds. (I have just bought the coriander because it is on sale at 29p!) And I haven’t even made a list of all the things I do want to grow yet.

I did something I have never done before. I pulled up some tomato plants that were still productive.  Zlatava was a tomato that I tried for the first time this year and found it to be watery and tasteless and prolific. It didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of the wateriness so I pulled the plants up. It felt wrong but who wants food that they don’t like to eat?

What are you thinking about growing next year?

My thanks to Dave at Happy Acres for linking us all up with his Harvest Monday posts.

March 5

A little bit of a harvest Monday 05/03/18

Oh we have had a cold time this last week. Snow and freezing rain and we are just not used to it. The whole country shut down and I had two snow days at home. Yes, it even reached us here on the south coast of the UK.

In 2010 we had a lot of snow and on Christmas day I went down to the allotment to harvest some veg for the meal of the year only to find that the weight on top of the polytunnel had meant that it had collapsed. I didn’t have crop bars going across for extra stability because who would have thought we would have that much snow down here! Anyway, I spent the next two or three years bent double in the polytunnel growing short vegetables whilst I saved up my pennies for a new one.  So, when it snowed, I went down and brushed it off the tunnel – several times a day! The best bit was the freezing rain as it coated the tunnel and made a wonderful sound when pushed off from inside. There’s a short video here of me doing that cracking ice-1ow8hpz.

I am still picking leeks and parsley and eating the squash we grew over the summer but do have one new vegetable that is just  coming in to its own and that is purple and white sprouting broccoli (no not stripey, two different plants). The white never seems as prolific as the purple and I do love sprouting broccoli. I have three plants of each but I am not sure that is enough.  The first harvest is always the best – I eat it like asparagus. Lightly steamed and dipped in mayonnaise. Yum.

I may not be harvesting much but the seed sowing has started. There are chillies and aubergines potted on in the propagator upstairs and tomatoes just sown in the propagator downstairs. I also have peas in the greenhouse but I am not sure whether the recent cold weather has seen them off or not. A week or two will tell.  I also sowed four types of beetroot: Boltardy, Bona, Boldor and Detroit 2. They too are in the unheated greenhouse but are quite hardy seeds.

How are your veg growing?

 

February 13

Harvest Monday 12/02/18

Stored vegetables

We grew a lot of winter squash this year; Crown Prince, Waltham Butternut  and Hunter – a type of butternut.

Here they are after we had harvested them in October . As you can see, the bench is quite full. We ate the Butternut squash first because they do not last as long as the Crown Prince which will still be going strong in May.  There were five Crown Prince in total and they all grew on one plant. Normally I have five plants each with one squash on so I do put the vigour of the one and only plant that survived the slugs down to no-dig. I have also just noticed that there is an Uchiki Kuri, the bright orange one, in there as well.

 

This is what the bench looks like today. Just the Crown Prince to go and they are probably the best-tasting of all of them.

New no-dig bed

I have created  a new bed for some squash this year on a slight slope. Being a no-dig gardener, I have put cardboard down first, watered it, and then manure and home-made compost on top  and covered it with black plastic that lets the rain through.  A new bed in 15 minutes. I reckon I will get three squash plants in it.

It is not essential to put compost on top of the manure but I have found that plants seemed to do better in that mix rather than just compost or just manure.  That could be more about my compost and manure than anything else. The compost I have is full of weed seed because it was made before I got on top of the weeds which is why I covered the bed with black plastic. Again, it isn’t essential to do this but beds that I haven’t covered, where I used my compost, do have weeds growing in them. I need to get the hoe out!

I am as desperate as everyone else to start sowing seeds but the weather is so cold at the moment.  I might sow some chilli seeds in a propagator on the kitchen windowsill but that is all until this cold snap disappears.

Multi-sown seeds

I really enjoyed Charles Dowding’s latest video about growing multi-sown module leeks. He certainly seems to grow a lot in a small space which is what I want to do. Leeks are one of the seeds I will be sowing soon.  I have Musselburgh which were free with the magazine Kitchen Garden and are ready from October onwards; Tadorna, which I have not grown before,  are ready in December  and Blue Solaise which are ready from November onwards.  With these three, I should be able to have leeks throughout the winter and into the early spring. I planted 50 leeks last year and they are just about to run out now so I would say I need another 20 at least.

Harvest

And so to the harvest. I really can’t show kale again which doesn’t leave much to show this week.  I do have large clumps of parsley in the polytunnel and so a salad of parsley, cucumber and tomatoes all chopped really small would go well with my chicken tagine tonight.  I know people talk about the hungry gap starting in April/May but mine seems to start now!  I do still have a freezer half-full of blackberries, raspberries and black currants which we eat for breakfast every morning.

What is the best fruit or vegetable you have stored over winter?

January 14

It will only take half an hour! And a harvest

You know what it is like. You take your eye off a plant – a helianthemum – for 5 years (!) and it outgrows its allotted space. You have half an hour so you think you will just pop out and give it a quick trim. Ha!

The first thing you find is that the local cats have been using the top of your much loved Helianthemum as a toilet. It is after all quite cold at the moment and who would want to put their little botty near the cold floor when there is a nice, cushion-shaped plant near by.  So, you clear that up which is not easy and then continue.

You then decide to put the clippings into the dalek compost bin only to find that rats have taken up residence. It is cold after all.  So you tip it over, spread it out and make a lot of shrieking noises just to scare them off and put the clippings on the big, open compost bins. You do however, see some suspicious holes in the big bin.

You then have a good idea! You prune a holly bush and stick the twigs of holly in the helianthemum to keep the delicate little bottys off ! And it has only taken an hour.

One thing I am very pleased with though is my bowl of salad in an unheated greenhouse. I planted the pot up in early November. I don’t keep records (but I might make it my New Year’s Resolution to do just that) so I am not quite sure when, but we have had a picking each week from it throughout December and now into January. I just pick the outer leaves, leaving the growing inner leaves and they seem to have replenished a week later. I will definitely be growing more of these pots next year.  I found some old polystyrene boxes in a recent clear out of the garage and they would be fantastic being slightly insulated. In the pot there is Little Gem lettuce, Mustard – which seems to be taking over and needs more frequent picking – Catalogne lettuce (I think!), fennel and coriander.  There have been several mornings when I have looked at them and they have been very droopy. It is quite cold after all, but they have all recovered as the greenhouse has warmed up. So, salad with tea tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What have you harvested recently?