Preserving frenzy and veg patch update

In between swanning about playing with butterflies, I've been spending time in the kitchen dealing with monstrous amounts of fruit and veg. No really, actually this year everything has been pretty well under control; I have managed to keep up with nearly all the veggies, and the fruit that can be frozen for later use has been bunged into my freezers until I had the time to do something with it all.

Raspberry jam. It was supposed to be seedless and I spent ages pushing
all the pulp through my mouli thing to get rid of the seeds!
Never mind, it's an acceptable level of pippiness.

The orchard is brimming with fruit and nuts. It's mostly an autumn type of orchard with pears, apples and walnuts planted, as well as wild hazels and elderberries. My two newish plum trees are about as rubbish as the other ones in the main garden though, but I've found over the years that plums and peaches are dodgy fruit to grow and succumb to disease very easily; that's if they ever get pollinated and produce any fruit in the first place. Apples and soft fruit are much easier! This year is probably the best ever for pears though (also a bit hit and miss) so we've been making the most of it!

Three different kinds of pears ripening at different times, thankfully.
On the left are Conference and the other two are unknowns.

Just to give you an idea of what I've been harvesting on a regular basis as far as veggies and soft fruit go..... this photo was taken at the end of August but the French beans have only recently finished, there's little left in the way of lettuce and the cucumbers are history now, but only yesterday I picked a load more strawberries and tomatoes, the courgettes are still producing and there's tons more beetroot. And we are so sick of raspberries because we've been eating them non-stop since mid June!

Note the two greengages!

Elderberries, different apples and Pear Clafouti,
which is one of my favourite desserts.

The next two photos (this is all rather random and in no particular order, date, fruit or anything else-wise) show me having a blitz on every courgette clogging up the fridge by making two savoury courgette cakes (recipe here from last year), a vat of courgette, basil and parmesan soup, with blackberries dripping through muslin in the background to make bramble jelly. 

The pic below that is yet more courgettes in a sort-of-ratatouille using the tomato sauce which I've already bottled, cooking down loads of frozen tomatoes to make said tomato sauce (method here from ages ago) and a spicy mixed fruit chutney which I usually add damsons to but this year just used tomatoes and apples. The recipe for the chutney is here but this time I used 2kg of tomatoes instead of 1.5kg damsons and 500g tomatoes - it's fairly easy and safe to adapt different kinds of fresh or dried fruits in a chutney recipe, so long as you keep to the same quantities.

I will get through these courgettes if it kills me!

Ditto the tomatoes!!

I have to mention something regarding the photo below of beetroot and apple relish from a recipe never tried before and elderberry syrup. I spent hours picking the elderberries off the stalks and my hands turned black. I duly made the syrup, the recipe for which I'd got from the great Greenside Up blog (later to find I already had that cookery book here!). So, bottled up the relish and left the syrup to cool because I was going to freeze it, then went off to do other things. 

A little while later a very sheepish husband came to find me and said "oops". He'd only gone and thought my syrup was the beetroot boiling water and tipped it all down the sink! And if that wasn't funny enough, I had to remind him that actually, I had boiled the beetroot the day before, and he had already washed up that pan! I guess I should just be grateful that I have a hubby who clears up my mess and regularly washes up my preserving pans..... but oh, I've just remembered, there was also the time he chucked my Tom Yum Goong (Thai hot and sour prawn soup) down the sink because it looked like 'dirty dish water' in the pan.... hmmmm. :-)

Beetroot Relish and Elderberry Syrup.

Back in the veggie patch for a few more pics. There's still plenty to eat and loads of colour from my various strips of flowers for pollinators or butterflies. I'll do a report on my Pollinator Meadow Year 2 at some point, because it's been a huge success both visually and for the bugs.

Various veggies with various flowers in the background.

I found a third, much larger Swallowtail caterpillar which I put on the same plant as the other two. Since then the smallest has disappeared and the middle sized one is the same size as the big one now, and they have chomped through most of a plant and I've moved them to another one. They have a tendency to just sit on a stem which they've eaten all the leaves off. Maybe I should leave them to it but I like to mollycoddle my 'babies'!

Swallowtail caterpillar, tomatoes, a strawberry and a late squash which I don't know if
it'll have time to ripen (I've already picked the two that had turned orange).

Physalis, a fruit I have never grown before. The jury is out really as I've
only eaten a few and I'm not sure this is something I would regularly grow.

I've decided to take out the peach tree that grows in the veg patch. I've kept that one because peaches need so much water that it has to be irrigated with a seep hose, and whilst it's got a bit too big despite pruning, it does provide some much needed shade for lettuce in summer. But two years in a row and no fruit at all due to brown rot setting in (which affects our plums some years too), and all the fruit has scab anyway. I already buy peaches and nectarines all through the summer season and if mine were good, they'd all come at once in a big glut at the end of September and I can't freeze them, and they are no good for bottling due to the scab. And the biggest problem with brown rot is that you don't know you've got it until the fruit is almost ripe.... so you can spend all summer nurturing and watering your fruit, and then the whole crop is lost, just like that. It's just not worth it.

Brown Rot or Monilinia on a peach. Not pretty.
The black freckles are scab.

Not my hairy arm.
This tatty old Peacock really did just land on my OH's arm
whilst we were standing in the veg patch!

You may have to look hard, but you never know
who is sheltering under your cherry tomatoes!

"Holy Cow Bertie, what on earth is THAT?!"

We had a good amount of rain yesterday and the weather forecast shows mostly sunny and still very mild for the next week, and my tomatoes continue to ripen. If only autumn was always like this!

Soft fruit

Whilst tree fruit is notoriously unreliable due to the vagaries of the weather and diseases (notably brown rot here), the same cannot be said for soft fruit. It's for that reason that I grow so much of it, because when a lean tree fruit year comes along such as this year, I know I'll still have tons of fruit.

The soft fruit this year is abundant and loving the wet weather. Normally I have to irrigate the raspberries with seep hoses and continually water the strawberries. The wild blackberries here rarely produce decent fruit unless there is adequate rainfall so I now have cultivated thornless varieties in the garden, way too many in fact having seen how many are forming on just two plants, and my friend gave me five of the things! I see a lot of bramble jelly being made; just as well I'm going to England later in the year as my gifts to friends and family are usually home made jam, jelly and chutney!

I also have a new raspberry bed so I've twice as many raspberries as I usually do.

New raspberry bed. Netting wasn't easy and it's not well covered, but so far
neither wild birds nor ducks have taken any interest!

This I've situated along beside the chicken run as it's quite hard sometimes to find the right place to put something like this. It's not ideal for picking the fruit with the fence behind but I thought some canes can grow through into the chicken run and the chooks can have fun jumping up and eating them. I know there will be plenty to share. They absolutely adore raspberries and whenever I go to pick them I get an overexcited squealy audience.....

Two for me, one for them

Actually it works out fine, because there are always some grotty ones which I would normally chuck out for the wild birds to eat so I chuck them to the chooks instead.

Raspberries, like the currants, have very insignificant flowers and I normally only notice when it is flowering time by the buzzing of the bees, who adore them.

Honey bee on raspberry flower

Bumble bee on raspberry flower

Next to the raspberries I have two blackberry plants. I planted these last spring as small plants and had just a few fruit off them (the ducks ate most of them). I will probably have to fence this area off from the ducks with a temporary chicken wire fence again. The fruit are huge and sweet and miles nicer than the wild ones, plus there's the added bonus of not getting snagged on thorns!

Pic taken about a month ago. They keep on growing.....

Blackberries do have pretty flowers, also as much loved by the bees as the raspberries.

Bumble bee in the blackberries. And a fly!

Now. Still producing flowers even though the first fruit are starting to turn dark and ripen!

There's also the one blueberry bush which lives in a pot. Because it likes very acid soil, I had to dig it up as although I had originally planted it with tons of ericaeous compost, it just wasn't enough to acidify my neutral soil. Since putting it into a good sized pot it has grown enormously and whilst I'm not harvesting kilos worth from it, there's a good couple of handfuls every few days which we just eat raw as they are so sweet and delicious.

Delicious blueberries

Last year, as well as acquiring the blackberries I was given some gooseberry canes to take cuttings from. Thankfully this spring I managed to give away all but two of the plants and each of them are now growing fairly well, in a semi shaded position along by the farthest chicken run. The fruit is still quite small and hard though and they are supposed to be red gooseberries, so I'm just checking them regularly and hope they will turn red at some point. Otherwise they'll be green ones!

Either green or red gooseberries!

And then there's the currants! These have been going strong for years now and I have two bushes each of red and blackcurrants. This year the blackcurrants have produced masses of fruit and I've had to prop up the stems as they were so heavy they were trailing on the ground. 

I've so far picked, cleaned and frozen over 8kg of blackcurrants and there's still loads more on the plants. Last year was 7.7kg and the year before 4.8kg (yes I made a note!). Just hope to god I don't get more next year..... Actually I enjoy picking blackcurrants but really loathe doing the redcurrants as they are so soft and squidgy and really hard to pick and get off the stalks. It's not my favourite time of the year but needs must and if I'm to make some more of the famous Susie Gee chilli jam I need redcurrants for it. (Chillies and tomatoes too so hopefully I will get some at some point).

Blackcurrants

Redcurrants at the stage where the flowers start turning into fruits

Ripe and very attractive

Last, but not least, I have strawberries galore too. The early non remontant Gariguettes are over now but the remontant variety called Charlotte will continue to produce fruit until the frosts, though luckily more in fits and starts through the rest of the summer and early autumn. I can't cope with all this harvesting!

Charlotte. Taken in the rain this morning!

At some point I hope to be able to turn my attention back to my non edible garden as it's rapidly becoming a bit messy and in need of some weeding and deadheading and general tidying up, not to mention my house which is in dire need of a clean! But harvest time comes first, and once all those currants and the excess raspberries which we can't eat fresh are in the freezer, I will be free to get on with other things, and the fruit can be dealt with as and when in the future for various recipes such as ice cream, coulis, jelly and cordial. 

A tip: I weigh my fruit before freezing it so I know how much to get out of the freezer for specific recipes. It helps!

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!

Red thing lurking in my raspberry patch!

This is my old raspberry patch, which is onto its 7th year now. For that reason I started off another patch about 18 months ago which is going great guns and we are going to be absolutely inundated with berries this year. According to my RHS fruit book, a raspberry bed should be in place for 7 years, but strangely enough there are no instructions as to quite how one gets rid of 7 years of raspberry roots which go off metres in all directions? So, I think I'll just let this one keep on going until maybe one day it peters out......

So what's the red thing you are wondering? Raspberry? See if you can guess before scrolling down.

It's one of these!

Yeah I know, I'm a total sucker for self seeded flowers! The thing is, this bed has a good amount of space in front of the raspberries where once grew strawberries for 4 years, followed by borlotti beans, followed by annual flowers last year with a space to put in a blackberry that a friend gave me. As well as these poppies I threw in corncockle seeds, both of which were sent to me by a friend in Brittany. I also added in some orange cosmos, pot marigolds and even some black-eyed susan and morning glory to grow up the posts.

Only they all came back. This year the poppies are at least a foot taller; some are taller than me! I couldn't bear to pull all of them out so now I'm faced with a dilemma as I need to GET in there to pick raspberries soon, as they are just starting to turn colour.

Also I know the tension wires have gone all loose. I think the posts, which were already 'rustic' (a euphemism for wonky - well what can you do when you hit granite all the time?), have moved since we redid all the posts and wires here last year. A bit like the self seeded things, I'm quite blase about it all, que sera sera and all that. I'll get raspberries, that's all that matters, although I'm not quite sure how at the moment!

Couple of pics to give you a better idea of the space that I am on about. There are now three blackberry plants in front of the raspberries, two of which are starting to produce flowers. Obviously next year I will be very sensible and pull out any self seeding poppies as the blackberries will be needing space and wires to train onto.

Not just wonky but couldn't even get that middle left post in the ground any further! Believe me I DO use a spirit level whilst the OH is bashing them in from up a stepladder!

As these poppies are so much taller than last year it's really hard to photograph them. The ones which aren't double ones are loved by the pollinators but this chap/ess here is going to have problems trying to find any pollen on this fluffy one.

I've searched back and found a few photos from last year when they were small enough to see inside the flowers. This next one is taken by my OH on his phone. I couldn't crop off his legs!

The seed heads are really decorative too and I dried some of these which are still looking pretty in a vase indoors.

I sent some of these seeds to a friend and she sent me some of hers which were a different colour but I am ashamed to say they are still in their envelope as I didn't know where to put them, once I'd seen that these ones had self seeded. Ideally I think these large poppies need pride of place at the back of some fancy herbaceous border. I do have one plant that came up in the veg patch which is in bud, that one was very well behaved and came up beside the perimeter fence so it's staying put to look pretty. As they take up so much space it is hard to find the right place for them but they are well worth it, if you do have the space!