Indigo Beauty

The last of our Indigo Beauty tomatoes has been eaten with great ceremony. This was our first time with this variety and we shall definitely be growing more next year.

I was intrigued by the description of the fruit in last year's Simpson's Seeds catalogue but their photos really do not do it justice. On the outside the top half /two thirds of the tomato is almost black with the rest turning a very dark red when ripe. Inside it is dark red.

As for taste and texture I rate it as very good and a nice, meaty tomato. My taste rating scale is: forget it; average; good; very good; excellent. A little more sweetness would have made it an excellent tomato, but it probably suffered from the poor growing conditions early in the year as did my other tomatoes (they are all outdoor plants). 

A couple of people have asked me about the yield per plant; all I can honestly say is average and about the same as every other variety I have grewn this year Again, the yields suffered from the erratic outdoor growing conditions. Definitely worth a go next year.

Home made yoghurt

This is my third attempt at making yoghurt and the best so far in terms of taste and texture. Rather than guessing the temperatures when heating and cooling the milk, this time I went out and bought a kitchen thermometer. I also wrapped the jars in several layers of bubble wrap before placing them in my shredded paper box overnight. The end result is served here with honey from Mill Green, which is just around the corner from us.

Although I use yoghurt in cooking I don't often eat it as a dish in its own right. I am unlikely to get through a large jar such as this very quickly so keeping a starter for the next batch "going" could be a problem. Apparently it can be frozen so that will be my next experiment.

The final squash?

I found yet another squash in the garden. It's the acorn squash second from the left. When it was picked a couple of days ago it was completely yellow but is now beginning to turn green. I'm almost certain that this is the last one from the garden, but I said that about the previous one!

The one on the far left, which was picked a couple of weeks ago, was green with pale green stripes but is now turning to a butternut squash colour.

We've already eaten the onion squash, two of the small butternuts, a green acorn squash, the green marrow type squashes (best description I can think of) and a very large green skinned pumpkin like squash. All very different in texture and flavours and all delicious.

First parsnips of the season

Judging by the foliage, the parsnips are doing well. I have them in two different patches in the garden one of which was a bit stony and compacted. This is where I dug out my first parsnips of the season and not surprisingly they are not the prettiest of roots. But given the growing conditions I was pleased with them and they tasted good.

I'll be building up this bed over the next couple of years with compost and mulch, so there should be an improvement in the shape and size of any root vegetables we grow there.

Elsewhere in the garden the swiss chard is going berserk. As soon as I cut some for lunch it grows back with a vengeance!

Sauerkraut

I love sauerkraut. It tastes delicious, is so easy to make and you can play around with the veg mix to get different flavours. I started this batch of sauerkraut about 8 days ago and included red cabbage, white cabbage, celeriac, carrots and some caraway seeds. This is my favourite mix at the moment.The only disappointing aspect about it is that you lose the individual colours of the vegetables and everything becomes pink but it's a sacrifice I can live with.

To keep the vegetables submerged under the brine while they are fermenting I place a whole cabbage leaf on top and a clean small jar filled with water on top of that (not easy to see in the photo on the left)

If you want to try making sauerkraut yourself, Sandor Katz explains the process in his video Fermenting Vegetables with Sandor Katz - YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i77hU3zR-fQ

 

Warning: If you make sauerkraut in jars do not screw down the lids too tightly. The gas produced by the fermentation can cause the jar to explode. I make my sauerkraut in Ravenhead red top kilner jars. These have a glass lid that sits on top of the jar and is held in place by the plastic ring. When I have filled the jar I screw down the lid completely and then undo it by 2 turns. This allows the glass lid to move enough to let out the gas produced by the fermentation. These jars are no longer produced by Kilner but can be found second hand on eBay.

Last tomatoes of the year

The weather is still relatively but we have had a couple of cold nights and a touch of frost. The foliage on the tomatoes is starting to die back so I decided to pick the remaining tomatoes. With the batch I picked a few weeks ago we should have enough to last through to early December.

Many of the tomatoes are green: some will ripen, some will not, The green ones are delicious simply fried or mixed with green lentils and spices, so they definitely will not go to waste (I am not that keen on green tomato chutney). The Tomato Book published by Simpson's Seeds has a good section on green tomato recipes. As well as recipes the book offers good advice on growing tomatoes and saving seed. It is no longer available from Simpson's but there are some second hand copies on Amazon.

At the same time I found another decent sized squash hidden underneath some leaves. It's the green stripey one to the right of the tomatoes in the photo. I also managed to gather a few beans and some small yellow courgettes but it does look as though that is the last of those crops.

20th September 2015, Harvest and lunch

Today's harvest from the garden. The yellow courgette, which had been hiding underneath a mass of leaves, is more like a marrow in size but was still delicious. The yellow courgettes have been truly prolific this year.The other veg I gathered are swiss chard, runner beans, hungarian wax pepper and a long thin hot chilli (can't remember the name and the label as gone AWOL)





For lunch we had spiced chicken with some of today's veg harvest. The veg mix included the last of the squash that had been picked a couple of weeks ago. See the entry under 7th September on the Harvests 2015 page for a photo of the beast. I have been told by friends that it is a non-orange skinned form of pumpkin. Whatever it is it was delicious and we have another one sitting in the kitchen ready to be eaten.