November 2016 A few surprises lurking in the undergrowth

We usually gather in the remains of the summer and early autumn annual crops by the end of October at the latest but leave the squash and courgette foliage for a few weeks more. This is mainly to provide some continuing ground cover while we sort out an overwinter mulch for the beds. There are generally a few surprises lurking in the undergrowth, and this year's prize goes to a queen squash that was hidden amongst the branches of the cherry plum tree. Not exactly a monster but a respectable 482g. 

Elsewhere and at ground level we uncovered a small patch of carrots and beetroot. This was at the bottom of the main part of the garden and an area that has only just been brought back into cultivation after the removal of the three sycamore trees from the other side of our boundary. This part of our zone 2/3 has not been used for about 4 years because of the shade from the trees and the mass of tree roots that were close to the surface of the ground. 

We are steadily building up the soil level with compost and mulch and earlier this year I scattered some leftover carrot and beetroot seeds at random over the ground. Leaves from a nearby squash in a pot quickly covered the ground and I forgot about them. There were enough for a meal and it shows that the soil is becoming productive again. 

The main crops at this time of year are swiss chard, curly kale and cavolo nero. The brussels are maturing nicely and we should have enough for Christmas and the New Year, with a second variety due to come to maturity later in January. 

Indoors, we were drying the tea bags and soil samples that had been retrieved from the garden and preparing them for despatch to the Tea Bag Index project at the University of Reading. The project aims to measure the rate of decomposition of organic material in garden soils across the UK. 

Details of the project can be found on the TBI website and Facebook.

An interesting alternative to the Tea Bag Index has been tried on pastures in South Dakota. See Tighty Whities Can Tell You About Your Soil Health « On Pasture for details :-) 

November 2016: Inventory of chutneys, jams, jellies and pickles

November 2016 harvest summary

Garden harvest total 4.048kg
Garden harvest shop/market price £28.31

TOTAL SHOP/MARKET PRICE 

Garden crops	Weight g	Shop price
Beetroot	942	£3.77
Carrots	778	£2.10
Tomatoes	644	£5.00
Swiss chard	492	£3.69
Squash	482	£1.90
Parsnips	386	£0.66
Cavolo nero	158	£0.99
Curly kale	62	£0.50
Yellow courgette	40	£4.00
Onion	34	£0.20
French beans	30	£3.00
Estimate for herbs		£2.50

October 2016: time to bring in the chillies and tomatoes

October is often a mild month and many of the summer crops are still growing, albeit slowly. There were some cold nights and the threat of frosts towards the end of the month so time to pick the chillies. There was a good crop on the plants that made it past the seedling stage but I lost most of them right at the start of the year. 

I always start the chillies indoors but we don't have an area in the house that is consistently warm enough for them. So, I use a propagator. Unfortunately, it is a very basic model: either on or off and if left on for too long it can get too hot. I was away for two days running some workshops and forgot to switch it off. On my return I was greeted with cooked chilli seedlings. A mistake I won't make again and time to invest in a thermostatically controlled propagator.

We picked all of the tomatoes and brought them indoors regardless of whether they were ripe or not. Some were beginning to turn and have been left to ripen in the kitchen. Others were nowhere near ready to ripen and used up in stir fries and omelettes. The last big green courgettes were picked but the baby yellow ones were left until frosts and slugs threatened. 

And I found I had a single, lone aubergine. When we started growing our own veg we had several years of successfully growing aubergines in pots outside (we don't have a greenhouse) but we then had three years when we didn't have the right weather at the right time. We gave up after that but this year I was given a plant so I thought I'd try again. I was underwhelmed by the yield but it was probably not the right variety for growing outdoors. They are not on my list for 2017.  

The runner bean seeds have been collected for next year. I've been saving these for so many years that I'm no longer sure what varieties I have apart from the white ones, which are Moonlight. Moonlight, however, has been a perennial disappointment. I have tried different suppliers as well as our own and grown in different locations. The plants grow well, they produce plenty of flowers but we get hardly any beans from them. All the other varieties we grow have been fantastic this year. 

I have no idea where we are going wrong with Moonlight but we shall try again in 2017. We are enlisting the help of friends who will grow some plants from two of our batches of seed so that we can see it really is us or the seeds that is the problem. 

The garlic has been planted and this year we have three heritage varieties: Red Duke, Mikulov and Bohemian Rose. 

Outside of the garden it has been a good year for Rowan berries. There is still rowan berry jelly in the cupboard so this time I made marmalade with the juice and some citrus fruit. 

The wasps that have been nesting in the kitchen roof space have been dying off in small batches over the last couple of weeks and this morning it looked as they were all on the way out. This sight was repeated across all three kitchen windows. But there are still dozens, if not hundreds, of them buzzing in and out of the nest so a lot more to go. The windows are covered in streaks of some sort of sticky goo but there is no way I am going to attempt to clean them while there are wasps still around.

Squash harvest minus five already eaten!

October 2016 Zone 2 and 3

October 2016 harvest and foraging summary

Garden harvest total 11.494kg
Garden harvest shop/market price £96.87 
Foraged food total 1.652kg
Foraged food shop/market price £1.32 + ?

TOTAL SHOP/MARKET PRICE £98.19 + ?

The "?" represents the rowan berries, which are not sold in UK shops or markets.

Garden crops	Weight g	Shop price
Tomatoes	7500	£56.25
Squash	962	£2.79
Green courgette	910	£4.55
Swiss chard	452	£3.39
Beetroot	314	£1.26
Yellow courgette	294	£1.47
Cavolo nero	224	£1.40
Carrots	216	£0.86
Cucumber	162	£1.00
French beans	142	£1.14
Cabbage	118	£0.40
Aubergine	78	£0.50
Raspberries	72	£1.44
Curly kale	50	£0.42
Estimate for herbs		£5.00
Estimate for chillis		£15.00
Foraged food
Rowan berries	960	?
Apples	692	£1.32

September 2016 The squashes finally came good

The harvest continued this month unabated this month with the tomatoes continuing to ripen. The blight that has affected many gardens in the area seems to have passed us by but, with the late start this year because of cold weather, the yield this year is not as great as in previous years. Nevertheless, we have enough of a surplus to make two batches of tomato chutney and relish using recipes from the Simpson's Seeds The Tomato Book.




This is no longer available direct from Simpson's but there are a few second hand copies to be found on eBay and Amazon.

We had a good range of varieties, all very different flavours and characteristics making it difficult to choose a favourite. I suppose my top three this year would be the Purple Russian plum, Indigo Beauty and the super sweet orange cherry tomatoes. There are enough of the meatier types that are only just beginning to turn to keep and ripen indoors, hopefully until the end of November. We shall, though, leave them on the plants for as long as possible - maybe well into October if the weather holds.

This year, I had a go at preserving some of the smaller tomatoes by fermenting them in brine. I got the idea from a Radio 4 Food Programme episode on Fermentation. Olia Hercules talked about how, in the summer and early autumn in the Ukraine, they have a sort of fermenting fest during which the household spends days brining and pickling fruit and vegetables for the winter and spring. The programme and recipe for fermented tomatoes  is available on the BBC website at BBC Radio 4 - Food Programme, Ferment. 

I have already opened a jar after just 4 weeks and they are delicious with a wonderful "zing" to them. I have another two jars that I will attempt to leave until later in the year and at least until after we have finished the last of the fresh tomatoes. Olia Hercules has published a book, Mamushka: Recipes from Ukraine & beyond, that has a wonderful selection of recipes from the region. I am steadily working my through it, but it will take about a year if I am going to stick to my self-imposed rule of using only seasonal produce.

In 2015 I grew squashes for the first time, mainly by accident. Seedlings started to pop up out of the compost made from our kitchen scraps and seeds and I let some of the plants get on with it. I was so impressed by how easy they were to grow and with the size of some of them that I repeated the experiment this year, but also deliberately sowed some seeds. Although they germinated readily enough and grew well it seemed as though they would never set fruit. Most of the flowers were initially male flowers and when a few female flowers finally look as though they were about to develop into squashes they dropped off the plant. I thought I was doing something wrong but many other gardeners in Reading and Caversham reported that they had the same problem, as did some of the TV and radio gardening experts.

The squash plants did finally come good, though, and it looks as though we shall have an interesting selection of varieties. There many not be many of them and they are nowhere near the whoppers in size that we had last year, but I am content with what we have.

One really nice surprise was the unexpected reappearance of some autumn raspberries. I had tried growing some canes in pots about two years ago and failed dismally. I thought that they had died but a cane that I had left in one container as a support for another plant sprung into life. It has encouraged me to try again with a couple of other varieties, although the ultra sweet autumn fruits are my favourites.









There are still grapes to be harvested but the foliage has started to turn. I'll be glad when the leaves have all fallen so that we have a chance to untangle some of stems and train it properly rather than let it run rampant.

Still on fruit, we had one pear. Such a rarity and I forgot to take a picture! I wasn't that surprised as the tree is still settling in and we had a severe frost just as the blossom came out. I'm grateful we had even one fruit.

Back in the kitchen the usual glut of courgettes was being converted into spiced chutney. Overall, it looks as though we shall have good store of preserves to last well into next year.







And, of course, we are enjoying some great meals prepared from our freshly gathered veg!

Grey dagger moth caterpillar on the pear tree 

Quince brandy workshop and social

Last weekend I attended a quince brandy making workshop or, as one of my Facebook friends pointed out, a quince vodka workshop. Technically, she is correct as we used vodka rather than brandy to add to the fruit but I assume that it is sometimes referred to as "brandy" because of the colour of the final product. [Note: brandy can be used instead of vodka so that would definitely be quince brandy.] Moving on: the event was organised by Slow Food Berkshire & Wiltshire and although the stated aim of the the event was to learn how to make the aforementioned beverage it was very much a social occasion as well. One can, after all, just follow a recipe retrieved from the internet but it is not as much fun grating quinces sitting on your own in the kitchen. As well as learning a new skill we all shared our own quite different experiences of  growing, preparing and preserving food, and made several new friends.

The quinces and other dry ingredients were provided by our hosts and the fruit came from a tree in their garden. We brought along the jars, vodka, graters and paring knives. The recipe we used was straightforward: 8 medium-large quinces grated, 450g sugar, 20 cloves, 1 cinnamon stick per jar (about 2-3 inches long), 1litre of vodka and water if necessary to top up the jars. My three jars are now infusing on the kitchen window sill and are turned every day as per instructions.

I managed to grab some of the cores that were left before they were consigned to the compost and those are now in a jar with a little sugar and water in an attempt to make quince scrap vinegar. It will be some days before I can judge whether or not that is working.

Ready, steady, GRATE!

Time to add the alcohol

Back home on the kitchen window sill

Quince scrap vinegar in the making - hopefully!

September 2016 harvest and foraging summary

Garden harvest total 19.404kg
Garden harvest worth £107.28
Foraged food total 566g
Foraged food worth £5.66

TOTAL WORTH £112.94





Garden crops

Squash	6938	£11.52
Tomatoes	4974	£39.00
Cucumber	1682	£10.00
Runner beans	1240	£7.19
Yellow courgette	1158	£5.79
Green courgette	1010	£4.40
Grapes	836	£4.15
Cavolo nero	300	£2.25
French beans	228	£1.52
Raspberries	218	£2.18
Swiss chard	148	£1.11
Carrots	140	£0.28
Pear	130	£0.70
Cabbage	94	£0.18
Curly kale	88	£0.73
Figs	84	£0.76
Damsons	78	£0.31
Green peppers	58	£0.21
Estimate for herbs		£10.00
Estimate for salad leaves		£5.00
Foraged food
Elderberries	566	£5.66