Our chilli plant shave been shorn of their ripe fruits now, and we have made them into strings for drying.
We have made chilli jam with some of them and, delightfully, the plants now seem to be flowering again in the warmth of our kitchen, so there may be more chillies to come.
Threading them made our eyes water, the piercing them with the needle seemed to release a lot of spice and had me coughing a lot.
Well although not much is going on in the allotment right now we are cracking on with our Christmas gifts of chutney and marmalade.
We have apple jelly and rhubarb chutney in the cupboard from earlier this year, have just made orange and ginger marmalade (not with homemade ingredients!), and have made the first batch of tomato and chilli chutney which has our chillies and garlic in it. I got this recipe from someone on the Guardian forums and it always goes down a storm:
Sweet Chilli Jam
This makes a pathetically small amount, in my opinion. So I double it. Or quadruple it (amounts in brackets are for the quadruple amounts which makes approx 5 x 8oz jars).
2 (8) cloves garlic, chopped
2 Inch (8 Inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 (12) small fresh red chillies, deseeded if you wish, and roughly chopped. NB: you can use green chillis, but it may dull the eventual colour - doesn't affect the taste though.
8 oz (32 oz) tomatoes, skinned and chopped; you can use tinned tomatoes if you wish.
1 tsp (4tsp) vegetable bouillon powder
2 fl oz (8fl oz) cider vinegar
5.5 oz (22 oz) soft brown sugar.
Prepare all the ingredients down to and including the tomatoes. Put them, and the bouillon powder, into a blender and blend to a smooth puree.
Pour the puree into a pan and add the vinegar and sugar; stir well. Bring to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for 30 minutes until thick, stirring occasionally and ensuring that it doesn't burn. Test for thickness/set on a cool plate, as you would with jam.
Cool slightly, and pour into sterilised jars and seal. If not using immediately, store in a cool dark place. Once opened, keep refrigerated.
It is lovely stuff and this batch is very hot! Our chillies are very spicy and we left the seeds in. Once we have made another 2 batches or so we will dry the rest of the chillies on strings hung up in our kitchen so that we have them for the rest of the year.
Do beware if you make this chutney as it gets very spitty when simmering, our kitchen ended up speckled with red.
I haven't posted for a while, but I promise we have been doing some stuff at the plot.
Most things are over, but some tomatoes are still going (in the lean house), chilies are ripening, and various kinds of salad are going (also in the lean house). The Christmas Potatoes are also coming on well, and I'm quite excited about them.
So, what have we had?
The last courgette before the frost was more of a marrow, I took it to my Mum's and we stuffed it with couscous and topped it with goats cheese, which was lovely:
We took up the rest of the potatoes shortly after the frost too, they are fantastic, a beautiful colour and flavour:
I made a thai potato curry with some tonight:
I'm also ripening some of my 'heritage' tomatoes at home at the moment, I have them on the windowsill in plastic tubs to try and make the most of the light. I've left some ripe ones in with them in the hope the ethylene they give off will encourage ripening:
The main kind are Lemon Tree ones which are such an amazing shape, really like lemons!
We are now looking forward to getting a few jobs in the winter. The Lean House needs ends, and we need to sort out a few beds. I'm looking forward to having the stove on and drinking coffee in a crispy frosty allotment.
I guess if you have an allotment or garden you will normally make your own smoothies (we have this year with our raspberries, strawberries and the rhubarb made good ones too). However innocent smoothies are tasty too (when the fruit runs out) and now they have just got cute and charitable as well.
To raise money for age concern they are asking for people to knit little hats for their smoothie bottles, these will then be sold in Sainsbury's during November and 50p from each bottle will go to age concern. They got 230,000 hats last year (so £115,000) and this year are aiming to raise £200,000 by getting 400,000 hats on bottles. My mum gave me a leaflet on it and I have knitted my first one this afternoon:
modelled here by a Thirsty Planet water bottle (you don't have to buy any innocent products to join in).
If you want to join in they you can find the patterns and details here. Any little knitted hat of a similar size is acceptable, so if you have rather more advanced knitting skills you can go to town rather than following their 3 patterns. Check out their blog section for photos of some amazing ones in shapes of animals etc.
Happy knitting!
I know, it is all holidays with us.
This time our friend L came into water and harvest for us, she more usually resides in London and has her name down on a very long list there, so this was an opportunity to pretend she had an allotment of her own.
Most stuff seemed good when we got back, apart from the courgette and the beans. All the courgette's leaves had gone brown and flopped over (the squash was similar) and the leaves of the bean plants (way over the other side of the allotment) were floppy and brown too. I've taken all the leaves off the courgette as the rest of the plant still seems healthy, but I'm not sure what to do about the beans, they are only small plants and if I remove the brown leaves there won't be much left.
It has been wet so I don't know if it is some kind of rot. Any ideas as to what is going on, and how to deal with it, welcomed.
After a lovely holiday in the Netherlands we came back to find our plot in good health. A kindly neighbouring plot holder had been roped in to water (and eat) the tomatoes and they were all doing very well.
Many things have sprung into life or attained monster proportions. Peas and bean plants are getting to a good size, one of the courgettes is well on the way to becoming a marrow, several of the lean-house™ tomatoes are a good size, and the cucumber had run away with itself and has become enough for a whole meal rather than an addition to salad.
Some huckleberries have also ripened and flowers are starting to appear on the squash.
And . . . we have some leaves appearing on the 'christmas' potatoes.
The seeds I put in for turnips, radish, spring onions, and beetroot have come through as well, I just hope the weather will be good enough for them to grow to a decent enough size. The radishes should be quick enough.
The seeds in the greenhouse are doing well too, the rainbow chard is looking pretty already.
One of the branches of our plum tomato plant had bent with the weight of the tomatoes and broken so I brought home the green tomatoes. Not quite enough for green tomato chutney (I'm waiting til September for that) so I decided on fried green tomatoes.
I dipped halved tomatoes into egg (they were only small so I decided on halves rather than slices) then put those into a little tub of flour with chili flakes, pepper and salt in it and shook them around until coated. They then went into hot oil for about 3 mins each side.
I wasn't amazed by the taste, but they looked very pretty on the plate and I think I'll try them again another time.
Our seeds have arrived from the Organic Gardening Catalogue so the next few days before we go on holiday will be spent sowing seeds so that they have hopefully have germinated by the time we return.
The beetroot, radish, and turnips will get sown direct into the beds (I will harvest the beetroot and carrots that are in at the moment), but the spring onion, endive, swiss chard, and lettuce will get sown in trays for later transplanting outside. I'll probably only be able to do that with one sowing unless we have a very mild autumn, but after that I hope to be able to continue with lettuce and endive in a cold frame or the lean-house™ through the winter. I already have some little gem lettuce going which I'm going to put in all the gaps that are emerging as things get harvested. They aren't quite big enough to go out yet, but they are getting there.
I'm also considering a fig tree, I've been wanting one for ages and I don't think I can stop myself any longer. The choice is now Gardening Express or Guardian. I had some lovely witch hazels from Gardening Express, so maybe I should go with them. Hopefully the tree will come with small fruit already on it.
<edit> Just noticed that you get 15 free Purple Alliums with the Guardian, so that might swing it!
Well it was throwing it down today so the work day and BBQ didn't happen. So we now have a freezer full of burgers ready to go for a couple of weeks time when we will try again.
However, even with the rain, we managed to get something useful done today. Our seed potatoes arrived for our mimi 'christmas' potato crop, so we got them in rubble sacks and an old compost bag.
These are sat in the lean-house for now, I didn't want them to get completely drowned before they had even started going in the bags (although the bags do have drainage holes pierced in them it really is far too wet today).
We also took out the remaining broad bean plants, as they were covered in 'rust'. This is fine in itself at this stage in their lives, but we have just put some dwarf bean plants in nearby and didn't want it to transfer to them too, as they are only small. Some of the beans were quite young so I've left them in their pods and will just slice them up and throw them in a stew, rather than opening them up and being rewarded only with a couple of beans the size of dried lentils.
And today I also brought home a courgette and courgette flower. I keep reading about deep fried courgette flowers, so that is what I'm going to do with this one, I'm looking forward to trying it out.
My huckleberries are starting to form berries, which is exciting. I didn't think that they would start doing it so early as I thought that they would be ready around November-ish.
I'm looking forward to Huckleberry Jam now.
I collected some apples from a neighbouring plot the other day, after OKing it with the secretary. The plot isn't being used at the moment and the apples were starting to fall off the tree. I can't cope with needless waste like that so went and rescued some of them.
I had about 5 pounds in the end. I divided that up, the ones in the silver bowl are for tart tatin, the ones in the clear tub for apple sauce, and the ones laying down on the board for apple jelly. So far I've only made the apple jelly , I cooked up the apples with water and a star anise, then let the liquid drip through muslin to strain it. Then added sugar to the liquid (1 pound of sugar per pint of liquid) , stir as the sugar melts and it comes to the boil, and then you boil rapidly for 10mins . I allowed it to cool a little and then added a bit of whisky ( I used Talisker). Tastes quite good so far, but the recipe advised waiting 3 months before use.
The tart tatin is under construction as I write, I will post pictures once it is done.
I'm going to try and harvest the rest of the apples on the community work day this saturday and then anyone who wants any can take them. I'm also going to do the sauce by then so we can eat it with our sausages.
The tomatoes seem to be doing well in the lean-house™ , quite a few flowering and some have some fruit too.
Also in there now are some strawberry runners which we have potted up. We have left some to just root themselves in the existing patch but we want to have another patch as well, so nine have come out to get moved later in the year when the bed becomes free.
As you can see they are sat on bricks. We have added these as a drainage aid and heatstore to the lean-house™. We had to dig a trench to put the back wall in (to get it level and to get the right slope on the roof) this has been filling with water a bit so we have moved some of the rubble that is on the plot into it. This means we can then sit plants on top of this without them having to get soggy bottoms. Hopefully this will act as a heat store too, and keep the night-time temperature up later in the year.
We haven't put the ends on yet, but the temperature is still pretty god so we are going to leave it for a while.
You can now see our cabbages and onions a bit better, as we had a massive weeding session around them, they seem to be doing rather well, although there are only a few onions still in.
Most of them are drying on a rack in the greenhouse. I'm glad we did it, they are the first two beds we see as we come in the gate and it is much nicer now they are free of weeds. It was also nice not to be building something, but actually getting up close and personal with the soil and plants.
But . . . on the drying and building front, we are thinking of trying to make a solar airer/dehydrator. Saw a thing on TV on the "it's not easy being green' programme, and I think we have all the bits we need: wood, glass, black plastic, wire mesh. And hopefully soon we will have lots of tomatoes, so it would be good to be able to dry some and have our own dried tomatoes to put in pasta and on pizzas. Might as well make use of the warm sunny weather while it is here.
I thought I was imagining things the other day, and then remembered that tomatoes and potatoes are both of the Solanaceae family. My potatoes had little berries that looked like tomatoes!
They are inedible, in fact somewhat poisonous. I've been told the berry production is unusual, but about 6 of our plants seem to have fruit. I think I'll remove them so that the plants concentrate on the tubers rather than trying to produce a new generation.
Although we grew potatoes as a child I never remember the flowers setting and producing fruit.
Somewhat more worryingly I thought we may have blight, but having looked at the plants it looks like early blight, which isn't too damaging, rather than late blight. Early blight is also supposedly unusual, so we obviously have odd potatoes. The difference is explained here but one of the main differences seems to be early blight being shaped on the leaves by the position of the veins.
I cut the leaves with signs of it off and burnt them, just in case, and will keep a close eye on them to see of anything further develops. I also signed up for the blight forecast here from the British Potato Council, this uses temperature and weather forecasting, and local sightings of blight in your area to alert you to the risk.
All our tomatoes are unaffected, both indoor and outdoor ones.
I wanted to get some Ransoms (wild garlic) which started an order with the Organic Gardening Catalogue and turned itself into an order for various things to grown from late summer through til the end of the year. On the list are turnips, 'spring' onions, some fast growing beetroot, rainbow chard, endive, some long spicy radish, and some lettuce to grow first outdoors and then in the Lean-house™ later on. That should keep us going through the winter.
We also want to grow potatoes for Christmas. I know that if we put some second earlies in now they should be good in time for Christmas (some ready as early as October), but getting hold of the seed potatoes was quite tricky. A wild goose-chase to somewhere with no stock via the Telegraph, a cancelled order somewhere else, and then finally Dobies seem to have the goods.
We plan to grow them in bags, maybe on one of the beds that is having some down time, some maybe in the lean-house™ to keep them warm. Then hopefully home grown new potatoes on Christmas Day.
Our beans are doing rather well in their drain pipe, so we decided it was time to prepare a bed for them to go into. To one side of the potato, bean, and cabbage beds there was a space next to the fence, filled with weeds and grass and an old chair. A frame was constructed, the space cleared and a new bed installed.
We haven't put the beans in yet, we are going to let them get a bit bigger, but we sowed some peas in there. Hopefully we will get some autumn peas and beans from that bed to freeze for over winter. We've surrounded the place where we've sown the peas with copper mesh tape to try and keep the slugs off the seedlings.
We have harvested our first aubergine!
I'm so proud! It is off the plant that we bought as a little seedling, so it isn't quite all our own work, but I have high hopes for the ones we have grown from seed as they are flowering now.
It went into a curry but I'm thinking of Baba Ganoush for the next one.
We had loads of peas yesterday so decided to pod them at the plot so that we could fit them into our tupperware. Which is when ended up discovering the pea moth larvae. The cheek! Eating our peas!
Fortunately they were only in a few pods, maybe 6 or 7, but I think it might be time to take in the rest of the peas in case more damage is being done. We'll have to remember to net the peas next year when they flower.
However there were still plenty of peas left.
Along with broad beans, tomatoes, and salad. I think this is the first 'pest' attack we have had really (excepting wood pigeons and slugs), which is incredibly lucky I think.
A little post to just compare where we are now with where we were when we got the plot this February. It is nearly 6 months now and I came across the 'panoramic' pic we took in the early days, so I took another from the same position the other day. The 'now' is at the top in case you can't tell!
I guess it might not look that different to someone who isn't there most days, but it just seems like such a huge difference to me. I had forgotten what a huge overgrown mess it was. The ground was covered in layers of carpet and metal and wood, all grown through with weeds.
And on the 'architectural' side we have moved the compost heap from one side of the site to the other, put the fruit cage in, covered the roof of the shed, created and edged beds. And of course all the sowing and planting, and the recent addition of the leanhouse.
I'm feeling quite proud of us today. We just have to make sure we keep up the good work.
After reading the My Tiny Plot blog my new resolution is to try and take better pictures. She has some beautiful close ups. I'm not sure my camera phone is up to it, but I'll give it a go rather than taking a few hurried snaps before I leave.
I've plaited our shallots today, into 2 long plaits.
I'm not sure I've done it the way it is meant to be done, but it seems to work. I did a kind of french plait: starting off with 3 shallots and then weaving more into the plait as I went along to keep it going. I knew having long hair as child would stand me in good stead one day!
They are now in the greenhouse drying off a bit more; red onions are now on the drying rack.
We now have all the walls and roof cladded. We just need to put walls and doors on the ends, but we need to build wooden frames for that and our drill ran out of power again.
But it is sheltered in there so we moved in the tomatoes that have been getting a bit crowded in the cold frame. Because of the bars on the ceiling we can run strings from the tops of canes or grow bags up to the ceiling to stabilise them, which is great.
So we have 15 tomatoes (5 varieties) and 4 aubergines (2 varieties) in there now. I hope they like their new home.
I mentioned a salad a few posts ago, pea, bean and mint. We are going to have it again tonight with a little paté and bread on the side.
These are the raw ingredients from the allotment (well we won't use all those peas and the tomatoes will be with the bread and paté). I'll pop back and post another picture once I've assembled it all with the lidl feta.
[edit to add photos]
Check out those colours! The plates have orange and red tomato slices laid out alternately.
We were just musing the other night how great it is to be popping to the allotment in the evening to collect food, rather than popping to the supermarket. Stuff is so fresh and tasty, and it is really relaxing too just wandering around seeing what is ready. It makes for slightly random meals, but that is quite fun too.
I'm really enjoying it, and plans for how to fit more beds in are afoot. More beans and peas are definitely on the cards, I think we might ditch rocket and spinach (but stick with perpetual spinach) and have more lettuce - which can go inbetween lots of other things. Carrots we are dithering about, they take up quite a lot of room, but carrot cake with fresh carrots is lovely!
And more strawberries, the plants are now sending out runners which is good.
All in all I think these first few months have been good.
The leaning greenhouse ( leanhouse™ ) is coming along. The batteries on the drills are getting past their best, so we can only do a bit at a time, but it has a bit of plastic on it now. We can clad it bit by bit though.
We are going to fill the trench that the back wall is in with the brick rubble we have, that should act as a bit of a heat store and help with drainage too.
Harvests continue aplenty.
Latest recipe is a pea, bean, feta and mint salad. Equal amounts of peas and broad beans, then proportionally slightly more feta, and as much mint as you fancy (lots!). Mix in with salad leaves and add lemon juice and olive oil to dress. It's fantastic.
Also good were noodles with chilli (3 tiny ones from our plant), bacon and peas, topped off with caramelised shallots and finely sliced plum tomato. The tomatoes were the first from one of our plants and they taste fantastic, really fragrant.
I'm now wondering what to do with cucumber (no sniggering at the back) as we have two approaching readiness. I've seen a garlic chicken and cucumber recipe on the beeb site that looks promising, and also cucumber salsa to serve with fish, so I might try those. And there is always tzatziki (sp?) and raita.
We also made raspberry and strawberry cheesecake, doesn't really count as from the allotment as only the fruit on top didn't come from the shop, but I had forgotten how good proper homemade cheesecake tastes. Really simple too: digestives, butter and sugar for the base; cream cheese, greek yoghurt, double cream, and icing sugar for the top. Just add fresh strawberries and raspberries.
Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm
