We enjoy making wines and jams, so any fruit we can find for free is a bonus. Friends normally give me bags of apples and plums, or they pick tubs of blackberries for me. This year, it seems I'm the only one with apples, and nobody has plums or blackberries.
We've taken a couple of trips out to the countryside recently. After driving about 30 miles on one trip, we finally found one blackberry patch that gave us 2lbs of blackberries, and another place where we picked 3lbs of cherry plums. It was too early for the blackberries, hence only 2lbs. We couldn't get to the rest of the cherry plums as they were deep inside a hedgerow.
One of the small spots on our street has been stripped bare - the brambles are all gone. The house owners preferred everyone to see their bare fence than the brambles that were hanging over. Never mind!
My huge elderberry tree is completely bare. Not a sign of any elderberries at all. And very little we can find out in the wild.
On the plus side, we found some sloes and we've picked 2.5lbs so far. We'll need 3lbs for sloe wine and more for sloe gin, so the more we can get, the better.
I've found rosehips dotted all over the place, so hoping to get loads of these soon.
Me and the missus are out on a mushroom hunting course on Sunday, looking forward to it!
Wednesday 19 September 2012
Harvest Festival!
Been busy over the last month - the mother-in-law was ill, so I haven't had time to post on here. This is a quick update.
Beans
We've been able to pick and eat beans straight from the veggie patch, and we have 2 or 3 dinners worth of beans frozen for later. At this time of year I would have expected to have 2 or 3 carrier bags full of beans in the freezer. Mice eating the seeds followed by poor weather and then losing my seeds put paid to that. Hoping next year will be better.
Parsnips
They looked great on the surface, but they're all stunted at about 2 inches. Some people have theorised that it's because I started them in cell modules and planted them out. I'm going to try the toilet roll middles next year.
Brassicas
All very slow and late this year. Caterpillars shredded a lot of leaves, but ordinary bug spray got rid of them Must use the spray more often.
We've had broccoli with two dinners now. I was hoping to have a few bags of broccoli in the freezer by now, but it wasn't to be. It'll be a few weeks before any more is ready.
Our first cauliflowers are hearting. One white (All Year Round) and two Romanesco. We're still several weeks away from anything worth picking.
The kale in pots is very small. I've started feeding with Miracle Grow. This is my first year of growing brassicas in pots, so feeding wasn't something I'd thought about before.
Squash / Courgettes
We've had loads of courgettes, some up to 2ft long. Yes, I know we should pick them smaller, but they grow so quickly and with the shortage of other veg, we thought we might as well let them grow bigger. We now have a couple of bags of lightly fried courgette slices in the freezer. They're great for bulking up stews and things.
We know we've had a couple of Lebanese courgettes as they are a different colour and shape to the other courgettes (Green Bush).
We had nothing from the butternut squash, the outdoor cucumbers, the marrow or the pumpkin. We want to be as self-sufficient in veg as possible, so we might skip marrow and pumpkin next year. A butternut squash would be nice to have though, and hopefully we'll get a cucumber next year.
Leeks
Transplanting them into pots seems to have worked well. They're thickening up nicely. Still 3 more pots of them that I haven't had a chance to transplant yet.
I'll be digging over another bed for them to plant them out properly over the next week or two.
Onions, Garlic & Shallots
We've pulled most of these up now. They're all smaller than normal, probably due to the poor weather this year, but still good to have them. I doubt we'll have enough to last through the winter, but some is better than none. I'll keep some winter onions growing in the greenhouse so we get them as early as possible next year.
Potatoes
We've scoffed the two sacks of Desiree. We still have 8 sacks of Charlottes to get through, plus the potato bed of King Edwards and Desiree to dig up. Lesson for next year - more maincrop, fewer salad spuds!
Beans
We've been able to pick and eat beans straight from the veggie patch, and we have 2 or 3 dinners worth of beans frozen for later. At this time of year I would have expected to have 2 or 3 carrier bags full of beans in the freezer. Mice eating the seeds followed by poor weather and then losing my seeds put paid to that. Hoping next year will be better.
Parsnips
 |
| Stunted parsnips |
Brassicas
All very slow and late this year. Caterpillars shredded a lot of leaves, but ordinary bug spray got rid of them Must use the spray more often.
We've had broccoli with two dinners now. I was hoping to have a few bags of broccoli in the freezer by now, but it wasn't to be. It'll be a few weeks before any more is ready.
Our first cauliflowers are hearting. One white (All Year Round) and two Romanesco. We're still several weeks away from anything worth picking.
The kale in pots is very small. I've started feeding with Miracle Grow. This is my first year of growing brassicas in pots, so feeding wasn't something I'd thought about before.
Squash / Courgettes
We've had loads of courgettes, some up to 2ft long. Yes, I know we should pick them smaller, but they grow so quickly and with the shortage of other veg, we thought we might as well let them grow bigger. We now have a couple of bags of lightly fried courgette slices in the freezer. They're great for bulking up stews and things.
We know we've had a couple of Lebanese courgettes as they are a different colour and shape to the other courgettes (Green Bush).
We had nothing from the butternut squash, the outdoor cucumbers, the marrow or the pumpkin. We want to be as self-sufficient in veg as possible, so we might skip marrow and pumpkin next year. A butternut squash would be nice to have though, and hopefully we'll get a cucumber next year.
Leeks
Transplanting them into pots seems to have worked well. They're thickening up nicely. Still 3 more pots of them that I haven't had a chance to transplant yet.
I'll be digging over another bed for them to plant them out properly over the next week or two.
Onions, Garlic & Shallots
We've pulled most of these up now. They're all smaller than normal, probably due to the poor weather this year, but still good to have them. I doubt we'll have enough to last through the winter, but some is better than none. I'll keep some winter onions growing in the greenhouse so we get them as early as possible next year.
Potatoes
We've scoffed the two sacks of Desiree. We still have 8 sacks of Charlottes to get through, plus the potato bed of King Edwards and Desiree to dig up. Lesson for next year - more maincrop, fewer salad spuds!
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