Our patch of earth: squash

Showing posts with label squash. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 October 2009

Harvest

We needed a wheelbarrow to take our tatties home today. Ok, not a massive wheelbarrow, but still, not bad for a couple of hours' work in the sunshine, and it feels like we've got all this food for free!

As Adam re-insulated the composte heaps with lots of dry grass, I picked the last of the tomatoes and the squash. Then we spent an hour or so digging up the last potato bed, and we ended up with half a barrowfull of Cara potatoes, as well as nearly a dozen winter and butternut squash, a bag of tomatoes and another big handful of dried borlotti beans.

I'm looking forward to eating these. They're not massive, but perfect for a meal for two, which is great as, well, we are two, and we eat meals. They should keep pretty well - especially if we can cure them a bit more in the sunshine - but that iddy biddy one on top isn't going to see the inside of a cupboard, as it's going to be roasted along with potatoes (ours), carrots, swedes and parsnips (all not ours, sadly) and a pheasant from the local market for our lunch. With lots of garlic and lemon. Yum.

And I wonder if I'll be able to resist making a Halloween lantern out of that orange one...

Update - ickle squash tasted goooood.

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Blight.

Gah! The evil blight has struck.

At the weekend Adam pulled up all our Marmande tomatoes. They were just starting to turn orange, too, the majority having survived the attack of the chavs. (Please note I am speculating wildly here; the vandals could as easily have been embittered old folk as delinquent yoofs... but somehow I doubt it.)

Anyway, it doesn't seem to have affected the other two tomato beds yet (touch wood) and we ate our first red tomato straight from the vine. Now we need just a bit more sunshine, please, to ripen the rest and help the sweetcorn along.

And we have beans, beans and more beans. We're leaving the borlotti to ripen and will dry the beans for storage. The French beans are delicious, crunchy and juicy, even the ones we missed and picked when they were six or seven inches long. But the runner beans are not great - a bit stringy and fibrous, even when we get them when they're tiny. We're thinking we may not bother with runners next year and go for different varieties of french beans instead.

We have a baby butternut squash, 'ickle and green but still that recognisable skittle shape. And a handful of winter squash, some green, some yellow, as well as summer squash and courgettes.

Oh, and potatoes! Still un-blighted, and we're working our way through digging up the second earlies - delicious.

The damsons have ripened (sorry Mum - forgot to tell you! The damsons are ripe!) and we've picked some, but not as many as we'd hoped. Enough for just about two bottles of damson gin for Christmas. And the blackberries on the giant bush next door were plump and juicy, so I've made some bramble jelly (which hasn't quite set so will probably end up swirled through some yoghurt, at which point I'll pretend it was intentional) and some blackberry flavoured vodka. Mmm.

And I haven't mentioned the parsnips for a while, have I? Well, after all that faffing around with kitchen roll and windowsills and toilet roll and greenhouses, two (count them!) have survived and seem to be doing well. Now I'm willing them to grow big and strong and pointy and hope they don't just put all their effort into pretty leaves.

Bank holiday weekend coming up... lots of weeding in store. And does anyone know when is the best time of year to move strawberry plants?

Sunday, 1 February 2009

Lots of stuff

We've been shopping. Yesterday we went to the allotment shop to buy our seed potatoes. We've ended up with 'Arran Pilot' first earlies, 'Wilja' second earlies and 'Cara' maincrop. I'd post some pictures, but I think you can all just imagine what a string bag of potatoes look like...

We also got a bag of 'Green Windsor' broad beans, ready to sow when the weather warms up a little bit. And we got some 'Centurion' onions and 'Yellow Moon' shallots. We've already planted some red and some white onions on the plot, but we use onions in everything so a few more won't go to waste!

We had some garden centre vouchers from Christmas so today we decided to use them to buy our seeds, rather than send off a big long list and pay postage. And - extra bonus - the garden centre had 25% off all seeds! Excellent! We had a list of things we'd chosen from a catalogue, but there weren't as many varieties available on the shelves so we didn't always get the exact variety we wanted. But then, a beetroot's a beetroot, when it comes down to it. As long as it grows and can be eaten, I'll be happy.

Ready for a list? We've bought...

'Cobra' climbing french bean
'Firetongue' borlotti beans
'Oasis' and 'Twinkle' peas
'Cobnut' butternut squash
A mixed selection of winter squash
'Marmande' beef tomato
'Alicante' regular tomato
'Golden Sunrise' yellow tomato
'Marketmore' cucumber
'Sundance' sweetcorn
'Bosworth' brussels sprouts
'Autumn Giant 2' leeks
Perpetual spinach / leaf beet
'Kilaton' autumn cabbage
'Ruby Ball' red cabbage
'Neapolitan' basil
Mixed leaf salad
Rocket (great on pizza!)
Swiss chard 'Bright Lights'
'Parador' yellow courgette
'Defender' green courgette
'Globe 2' beetroot
'Purple Haze' carrots (purple!)
'New Red Intermediate' carrots

And left over from last year we have:

'Scarlet Emperor' runner beans
'Panache' parsnip
'April' spring cabbage
'Rainbow' mixed radish
Dwarf green curly kale
'Marian' swede
Acorn mixed summer squash
'Tasty Trio' beetroot
'Emilia' spinach
'Rainbow' mixed carrots
'Golden Ball' turnip

Plus (plus!) Suttons were offering a free pack of certain seeds when you bought two other packs... so we've also got three (three!) packs of 'Purple Dragon' carrots, two (two!) packs of 'Hilton' Chinese cabbage and a pack of poppy seeds, called lilac pompom.

Can't blame a girl for sneaking in some flowers...

Saturday, 13 September 2008

Mildew, mould and machines

Mum called me this morning and offered (really offered - no arm twisting involved) to come and help us weed! Fab! I love it when people actually want to come and help out. As long as they don't mind taking some extra veg away with them as well!

So, this afternoon - making the most of the sunny weather - we went to the plot with Mum and Dad and got looooads done!

Dad and Adam immediately turned to the petrol strimmer and rotovator. The strimmer is notoriously temperamental but Dad got it going and strimmed all the paths which has made a huge difference. Then he and Adam had a go with the rotovator and churned up some of the already-dug beds, mixing in the manure which we spread a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, me and mum were weeding around the cauliflower plants (looking good, the snails haven't found them yet!) the courgettes and squashes, and the chard, and pulling up some of the mange tout plants now that they've died right back. Everything looks neater and tidier now.

Here's mum among the courgettes...

We picked quite a lot, including the first two cobs of sweetcorn, which we had for dinner. YUM! This is one of the few things that I can honestly say tastes SO much better than shop- bought. You know how people usually smother corn on the cob with butter? No need. Ours are sweet and delicious, and I'm just hoping we get enough sun for more of them to ripen. Anyone who has a couple of square feet in their garden, or even in a bucket on a patio, should grow some. As Tony the Tiger would say, they're great.

Here's the rich pickin's from the plot this week... swiss chard, runner beans, a little pumpkin (picked too early 'cos I thought it was a squash!), white and red beetroot, colourful carrots, white scallopini squash, a green acorn squash, some dark green cucumbers (bottom right), courgettes, a yellow scallopini squash, a round courgette and the beautiful, delicious sweetcorn. And this isn't all of it, because we gave a carrier bag full to mum and dad for helping out.

Not everything has gone according to plan. The red cabbage and swedes are being munched to death by snails. Grr. The tomatoes have blight, I think, so we've picked all the healthy tomatoes and I'll make some Green Tomato Chutney. The dwarf beans have, frankly, been a bit pathetic, though we've had enough for a couple of meals from them. Some of the courgette plants have mildew, we pulled up the most productive squash plant yesterday after it started to die back with some weird disease, and the biggest cucumber plant has withered and died too.

But all in all, it's been an ok summer for the plot. I'm feeling quite pleased with ourselves.

Now we just have to think about overwintering things and ahead to 2009!

Sunday, 17 August 2008

They're taking over!!!

We popped to the allotment during this week to pick a 'few' veg, and ended up with a whole carrier bag full of courgettes. It's obviously that time of year when the courgettes decide to go mad. We've had stuffed courgette, barbequed courgette, fried courgette, a mousakka with courgette in, the funkily-named 'courgetti spaghetti', and now I've made a whole load of courgette chutney. And still, when we went to the plot today we came back with another bag of courgettes... and that's not counting the ones still in the fridge.

We also picked the first scallopini squash, which we simply chopped into eighths, skin on, and baked with olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious, light, slightly buttery taste. Yum! Everyone should try it.

Today we had a big weed and tidy up session as we're due to be going on holiday next week for a fortnight. Good ol' parents have agreed to keep an eye on things, though we're not expecting them to start weeding and digging, just the odd splosh of water here and there (if it ever stays sunny for more than a day) and the chance to pick whatever's available to take home. My poor mum is going to be overrun with courgettes...

Do courgettes freeze? I doubt it. Drat.

Part of the general tidy up involved digging up all the remaining potatoes and onions, plus picking a couple more squash, a couple of cucumber, some runner beans and the aforementioned carrier bag full of courgettes. The potatoes were our maincrop, Picasso, and were a decent size - we even got a couple of jacket potato-sized spuds which is great. As for the onions, well, we had some titchy ones as well as some absolute monsters. Strange, seeing as how they were all planted the same time, in the same bed, with the same conditions. I was really pleased with the onions, cos' as well being pretty much hassle-free, I thought quite a few would have gone mouldy in the ground, what with all the recent rain, but only 5 had to go straight in the compost heap. Here's the onions drying in the sun...

I think I'm going to have to dedicate some time to preserving and pickling (or something) this week, or our families may end up with a big bagful of courgettes on their doorstep before we go on holiday. I enjoy sharing the fruits (and veg) of our labour, but I admit I'd prefer to be able to store it for future use, especially as I'm not sure we've planned far enough in advance for the winter.

Here's our haul - and yes, we did have to use the handy fold-up wheelbarrow to get it home - that's a half sack of potatoes and a nearly full sack of onions in there! No way I'm carrying one of them home with my delicate girly arms!

Oh, you may also spot a little purple kohl rabi on the side. this time it's gonna get boiled and maybe mashed. Barbequeing one last month was not really a success.

And as far as 'not successes' go, the asparagus peas are right at the top of my list for Things We Will Never Grow Again. We tried them, little wiggly pods that they are and, frankly, they ming.

Sunday, 3 August 2008

Squash brings a smile

Much excitement down on the plot today! (Well, it's probably just me.) One of our squash plants has three little squashes on! Hurrah! I actually did a tiny little jig of joy when I saw them! The variety is 'White Custard' and it's one of the little flying saucer style summer squashes that you can cook with the skin on.

We've also picked our first yellow courgette today - along with lots of green ones - and there's a nice round courgette growing nicely too. PLUS the cucumbers are really getting carried away.

Above is a kind of support I put up with canes to keep the cucumbers off the ground, also because the bigger plant was starting to grow over the smaller ones and I didn't want them to get swamped. We ate a freshly- picked, small but perfectly formed cucumber along with hunks of cheese and chunky bread for lunch. Very rustic, and very tasty.

What else did we get up to? I did lots of weeding, 'cos with all this rain the weeds are getting a bit manic. I also tied up the tomato plants as some of those had put on a growth spurt too (no red tomatoes yet), and I sowed some spinach too, a variety which is apparently good for summer sowings and shouldn't bolt. Also pulled up a dozen or so small onions which are now drying outside (I'd like a bit of sunshine but at least it's not raining.)

Adam began weeding the overgrown strawberry patch - a mammoth task. 'But wait!' - I hear you cry - 'didn't you clear the strawberry patch already?'. Yes, indeed I did, some of it back in the winter and some in early May with Jo, but the weeds have once again taken over. I blame the patch next door which has run to rack and ruin since the plot holders' rotavator broke. Then they seemed to lose interest...

Adam also dug a bit of manure into the ex-broad bean bed... Did I not mention the manure? Last week we popped to the garden centre to get a plant for our garden, and on the way back saw a place selling well-rotted horse manure for 50p a bag. Too good a bargain to miss! So we took ten bags, filled the back of my tiny Ford ka, and drove the 5 miles back home with all the windows open. It was a very hot day... poo!

Here are some pics to get you all up to date with what's going on down on Our Patch of Earth...

Little French beans, yellow courgette, pretty Swiss chard, baby runner beans, our first round courgette and a lovely cucumber flower, which the bees seem to like.

Here are our very healthy looking squash plants (they've got bigger than we expected, otherwise we'd have put them further apart!) and part of the sweetcorn patch in the background.

Louise gave us ten little cauliflower plants a week or so ago - 5 different varieties: Cheddar, Emeraude, Nessie, Gitane and Graffiti. They've now been planted out and covered with netting to try and keep the pigeons at bay. Why do pigeons like brassicas so much?

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Beans and greens

Went to the plot on Saturday for a little while - just long enough to pick the first of our broad beans and a big bagful of strawberries to have after dinner. Mr Hussein (he's got a plot the other side of Phil) gave us advice on our garlic, pointing out some which had gone rotten in the soil and telling us which ones looked like they were going to be good. He then gave us one of his own garlic bulbs, to show us What A Good One Looks Like. Apparently, you can tell if it's a good bulb of garlic if, when you pull it up, it has "a big moustache"... he meant the size of the roots - his English isn't that great, but it's a lovely phrase anyway. When we pull up our garlic I will certainly be checking the size of their moustaches...

I podded the broad beans tonight and eesh! You get a lot of packaging, don't you? The beans themselves are actually still a bit small so next time some are ready we'll leave them a little bit longer.

We went again today to do a bit of tidying and also to plant out the courgette and squash plants which Louise had given us, as well as some tomatoes which a colleague at work had been giving away. She'd sown way too many seeds which is a good thing as our tomatoes are rubbish this year. We've been pampering them and they're still only about 3 inches high. I'm beginning to wonder whether it might be the compost we used - is there a chance it may not have the right nutrients or something and that's why they're not growing very fast?

Anyway, we planted out Louise's courgettes in the places where our original sowings failed, and we also planted four plants which we got from the garden centre. (I feel like a bit of a fraud. Does anyone else have feelings of guilt if they have to resort to buying plants?) So we've now got ten courgettes, at least five are regular green ones and then we've got a couple of yellow ones and a round courgette variety, and another two which are going to be a surprise.

We also planted four squash plants, and two outdoor cucumbers. And, we transplanted the successful sweetcorn so they're all in a block, and sowed some more sweetcorn kernels in the places left over. I know - it's a bit late for sweetcorn, but I'd have kicked myself if we hadn't tried to get a few more plants. Even if we only end up with one kernel on each, I'll be content.

Here's an overview shot - everything's lovely and green...

What else is going on... well, the peas are podding, as are the first rows of mange tout and sugar snap peas. The strawberries are still going crazy, so I might get to make that jam after all. The french beans are finally showing their heads above the soil and the runner beans are just starting to look like they might need a helping hand attaching themselves to the canes. The baby leeks are doing well, even the second sowing which I thought I'd done too late. The kohl rabi and brussels sprouts are also looking a lot better now we've covered them with netting (grr, pigeons) and the red cabbage are also looking a lot healthier - seems the aphids didn't follow them after all. Garlic, shallots and onions are swelling up, and we've got a few beginnings of raspberries and damsons, showing the promise of good things to come.

Sunday, 15 June 2008

Strawberry time

How time flies. Look, it's already mid-June and I haven't put a proper posting on here since the end of May. I'd better do a bit of an update...

As the heading suggests, it's strawberry season! Yum! The patch isn't quite as chaotic as last year as we've weeded and sorted out half of it (with a bit of help from Jo) which makes it much easier to pick the little red gems of deliciousness. I'm not sure if we'll have the glut we did last year either, but I'm hoping so as I've now got a foolproof jam recipe (with extra pectin) and I want to make daiquiri cocktails, which Sian suggested last year but I never got around to doing. The picture is of the Very First Strawberry of 2008.

The carrots and parsnip are a total disaster. I made a second sowing a few weeks ago but we've double and triple checked and I think there's three, maybe four coming through. That's hardly even a mouthful. It's reassuring to hear that other people have also failed with carrots this year. We haven't yet seen any sign of the French beans which Sian and I planted either. Most of the runner beans have come through, but the French beans are sulking I think. I've popped a few more in, just in case. And we've given up on the cabbages as well. they all got so aphid-y and misshapen that although they tasted great, they were a pain in the bum to clean up. Plus the aphids had transferred to the red cabbage too which was a Bad Thing. I've cleaned up the red cabbage and moved four of them to the failed carrot bed in the vain hope that the aphids won't be able to find them again!

Another area which hasn't gone quite according to plan is the far end of the plot. Our mini-field of sweetcorn has had a really low germination rate, so it's more like a mini-mini-field... We'll have to buy some more kernels and bung 'em in, quick. Our courgettes have also been disappointing. We planted them in exactly the same way as we did last year, except this year we've got a grand total of three plants out of nine... three (count them!) Bah! I think we'll have to throw in the towel and buy some plants from the garden centre.

I also planted some squash and pumpkin seeds at home in toilet rolls and only 4 out of 20 have germinated. I think I'm losing my green fingers! But all is not lost. As we were walking back from the allotment last weekend we went for a chat with Mike and Louise, (who have a fantastic bed of asparagus, grown from seed!) and Louise offered us some squash plants! We ended up coming away with two courgette and four squashes. Hurrah! They also have a blackbird nesting on the back shelf of their greenhouse. Might try and get a picture if I can.

But anyway, onto the successes. Other than the strawberries, we've got broad beans that are nearly ready to pick (we ate some small beans fresh from the pod yesterday and they were really tasty), the peas, mange tout and sugar snap are just starting to flower, and one of the globe artichokes is budding. The salad bed is doing fine, with peppery radishes and chunky lettuce, although the spinach in the corner has bolted. Potatoes and tomatoes are also doing well so far, and we've got some outdoor cucumbers which are nearly ready to be planted out. The asparagus peas are coming up as well, plus there's the onions, garlic and shallots which are just happy doing their own thing. And I'm happy to leave them to it, especially when they're doing so well.

The onions are getting fatter, and look! Actual shallots!

In the seed bed we've got brussels sprouts and kohl rabi, and lots of little leeks, half of which are nearly pencil thickness, which means they're almost ready to be planted out. We also have a few broccoli seedlings coming up, and - over in the failed carrot bed - we have a couple of rows of swede have just germinated. I planted some more yesterday 'cos there's nothing nicer than some swede mashed with carrots, and we've got lots of... oh.

Adam continues his battle with the bindweed. He's getting there, slowly. He's also used the last of the scavenged pallets to make the cold frame taller as we realised that things like tomatoes wouldn't have enough headroom. Here's his handywork - Ta Daa!

Off to pick strawberries this morning to take to parents' barbeque. Mmm.

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