Trying to keep up with the harvest

I spent most of yesterday harvesting and then podding and shelling and trying out a new recipe for broad beans. I had intended on doing a veg patch update but the weather was so dull, gloomy and cool that I wasn't in the mood for taking photos and wanted to stay inside as much as possible!

I have to say the broad beans, peas and mange tout are doing amazingly well, probably thanks to the above average rainfall since April and the wonderful thing is I haven't had to water them once! I can barely keep up with picking the mange tout whilst it's young and fresh and now have way too much in the fridge. You can probably guess what we're having for dinner. I don't know right now what with - probably lettuce! Oh yes I have lettuce. Lots of it. Many varieties. All almost at perfect hearted readiness. All at the same time. :-)

Back - broad beans, Middle - peas, Front - mange tout

The Belle de Fontenay early spuds are ready and are delicious. The way we like them best is a recipe I found in one of my Delia books. Just a tip though - add about 1/3rd teaspoon of sugar as it cuts through the lemony acidity and ignore Delia's salt and pepper - for goodness sake it doesn't need either as you have the strong flavour of grainy mustard in it!

I often make large amounts as this recipe is great eaten either hot or cold and will stay good for several days if kept in the fridge. If preparing in advance for eating cold then wait until the potatoes are cold before adding the snipped up chives, to keep their colour. You can also add chive flowers broken up into their individual little flowers, just to make it look a bit prettier. This recipe goes very well with fish.

A bit overcooked but it's hard sometimes when you have all sizes of spud.
It doesn't matter though as the broken potatoes soak up all the lovely vinaigrette.

Peas are all going straight into the freezer as they do freeze well. They're also getting away with me and have got a bit on the large side; no matter as I mostly grow them for my OH who will eat them any size.

Shelled broad beans next to peas still in their pods

Peas ready for the freezer (I don't bother with blanching - makes no difference)
and raspberries which I'd just picked

Anyway. Something I'd meant to try last year but never got around to it is broad bean puree, or hoummous, or hummus, or however you spell it. Not to be confused with humus or hummus or however you spell it, that is composty type of stuff you put in the soil to enrich it!

I sort of followed Nigel Slater's recipe which was the first one I saw upon googling and his recipes usually sound pretty yummy. Only I stopped adding olive oil after a couple of glugs as I felt that was enough as I was using middle range, bought in Spain, therefore cheap compared to here, olive oil. Nigel as we all know only uses the best of everything, and can afford to put OTT amounts in. I have no idea why his puree looks so pale in the photo? Actually it tasted rather bland, so I added half a large clove of crushed fresh wet garlic which finally gave it some oomph.

I think mine looks more appetising than his!

The verdict? My OH says: odd. I say: not bad, in fact quite nice. But would I make it again, with all the faffing about taking off all the skins? Probably not!

A last photo as this is an indoor post - just wanted to show you how my windowsill basil is coming along. I have far too many plants and can't keep up with using them so they tend to get leggy as I hate to snip them back to make them bush out and then throw away the basil! I'll have to repot them soon so will only keep some of them.

All but one here is Thai basil which I have been keeping well snipped so it's branching nicely.
The regular basil is the one on the left. I have loads more plants not in this photo!

Indoor gardening

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get my maincrop spuds in which are getting a bit overchitted but it's just not worth even trying at the moment. We've had some really good rain the last 3 days, about 35mm which is brilliant for keeping the stream running and doing my garden a world of good, but it's too wet to try doing anything involving soil outside. 

We managed to get a new tap and all the paraphenalia needed for our out of use IBC (the taps don't last very long - about 5 years before they start cracking/leaking which is a nuisance) and although the tap and postage from the UK cost about half what the 2nd hand IBC cost in the first place it's still cheaper than buying a new one. It's now full!

So indoor gardening is probably the best thing I can do right now. I've even sown some mustard and cress out of desperation to see something grow!

I always grow and keep basil indoors all year round - Thai basil because I love the flavour and it doesn't seem to like getting wet outdoors, and regular basil because although it grows very big in the veg patch it gets quite woody and the leaves become tough, and they are not nice to eat like that.

Thai basil sown in March; I'm already pinching it out.

Tomatoes on the other hand are difficult to raise inside as they grow very leggy. I have to start them, chillies and basil in a heated propagator but the basil and chillies don't seem to suffer from the legginess anywhere near as badly.

Tomatoes, chillies and 10 year old Lemon Grass seed - I think one has germinated!

Yesterday I brought my potting thingy into the cellar-cum-mud-room as I didn't want to take my little seedlings outside in the cold to the potting shed and got on with the pricking out.

 
I've just raised two kinds of cherry tomato from seed - Gardeners' Delight and Apero, from saved seed from a self seeded plant from last year. It came originally from a F1 plant but I couldn't see any difference at all, even though F1 plants are not supposed to come true from seed. Apero is one of those oval shaped cherry toms and is prolific and tasty. I've pricked out 10 of each and hope to give some to my neighbour as I certainly don't need that many!

Once I start getting them out in the cold frames next month to harden off they will start to thicken up and in a month or two you'd never know they started off so thin and leggy. What I also do is every time I pot them on I bury the leggy stems; it doesn't seem to do them any harm whatsoever and that way they don't get too tall.

I've also pricked out my precious and exceedingly expensive Gorria chillies - these are the variety of only slightly hot chilli which are better known as the famous Piment d'Espelette. 

Piment d'Espelette

I also have Jalapenos which are not hot despite what it says on the packet, but I'm happy with that as they are short thick skinned chillies brilliant for stuffing and quite delicious. I sowed Cayenne too but only 4 have germinated but that's fine as I have tons of dried ones from last year which will probably last me a couple of years. They make quite good decorations strung up with cotton and are still adorning door handles around the place....

Dried Cayenne Peppers

My windowsills are getting full and I do have to keep turning the trays around several times a day as the plants grow towards the light.

This isn't even all my seedlings! Need some plant swaps!!

As well as indoor gardening I guess this is cooking weather. I was amazed to collect this monster duck egg a few mornings ago. It weighed in at 155g - normal duck eggs are large but weigh on average 90-95g......

Ow!!!!!

It was a lovely double yolker, so that plus another two duck eggs made up the 5 eggs needed for a quiche recipe, so with the grotty weather I had plenty of spare time to make shortcrust pastry, all by hand (even blind baking and all that malarky!) to make a quiche out of it.

OK, so I won't win any contests for the prettiest looking quiche.....

Left over pastry is brilliant for using up my jam and jelly by making jam tarts! The very last of the bits of pastry gets put out for the wild birds who love it, so there is no waste at all. That quiche was supposed to feed 4 according to the recipe but boy did we struggle eating a quarter each over two nights! Consequently the jam tarts are now in the freezer as that would have been overkill.  :-)