Horticultural

Winter squash: free and surprisingly easy

Sometimes it's the things you slave over that fail, and the things you do carelessly, while sleepwalking, that come good. A single squash 'Sweet Dumpling' seedling, sown from a free packet that came with Grow Your Own magazine, filled out half of one of my big raised veg beds this summer and produced six of these beauties. I didn't water the plant or give it any special treatment, and it quietly got on with making fruit. That's the kind of growing I like.

In line with my continuing obsession for weighing crops, I am pleased to say that the largest two exceed Mr Fothergills' guideline weight of 200-500g per fruit. I've grown pumpkins before, in abundance when I had an allotment, but now, with more limited space and time, this harvest of Sweet Dumpling seems sweeter than the rest.

I'd recommend curing and storing winter squash and pumpkins as explained in this post I wrote for the Guardian a while back, but I suspect these won't last long enough to get a chance to rot: as you can see, the household tortoises are already partaking of one ...

Winter salads for free: how I kicked the supermarket salad bag habit

A while back I made a decision that I wasn't going to buy supermarket salad leaves any more. It wasn't one of those big, announce-it-on-Twitter-and-write-a-blogpost-about-it things. More just a gradual realisation that I was fed up of drab lettuce that cost 10p a leaf when there was a world of green stuff to be grown and gathered without recourse to the shops. I already knew that bagged salads cost a packet, to the consumer, to the environment and to the workers who are exploited in their production. Then I read Charles Dowding's How To Grow Winter Vegetables and realised that, with a bit of planning, I could use my potting shed to grow greens year-round to supplement the foraged stuff.

Around six months on, it's so far, so good. I am eating homegrown/foraged salads three or four times a week, rather than letting a sad plastic bag of pricey leaves go limp in my all-too-tiny fridge. The picture above's fairly typical of what I am eating right now: there's some hairy bittercress, which is a weed that's growing in one of my raised beds and providing a fantastic crop of watercress-flavoured leaves; baby chard; 'Red Streaks' mustard leaves, 'Bulls Blood' baby beet leaves and some baby lettuce leaves.

Dowding's method is simple: pick the right varieties (winter lettuce, Chinese leaves and chard all do well over winter), fill any old container (a washing up bowl with holes cut in the bottom or a wooden banana box are good) with well-rotted cow manure, top with a thin layer of compost, then sow your seeds. (It's a bit more complex than that, you need to be aware of timings and sowings now may struggle more than those done in, say October. I'd recommend buying his book, it's a great read that will inspire you to extend your growing season into winter).

I didn't have any manure, so I tweeted @charlesdowding to ask if wormcasts from my wormery would be an acceptable alternative. "Even better!" he tweeted back, and we were off! I've sowed about six trays between September and now, and probably had 5-10 croppings of cut-and-come-again leaves off each. I guess I've been lucky with the mild winter we've had so far, but if the cold sets in my salad trays will be fine swathed in a layer or two of horticultural fleece. The quanitites aren't huge - somewhere between microgreens and cut-and-come-again leaves, but topped up with foraging finds, it's been plenty.

It's amazing quite what's still fresh and green and available for the picking right now in December, both the"weeds" in my garden and in other local green spaces. The aforementioned hairy bittercress is a banker, but I have also discovered that the leaves of the ubiquitous garden weed Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea or creeping wood sorrel are just as deliciously lemony as cultivated sorrel (although you have to be a bit careful not to eat tonnes of the stuff as it can (like a lot of things) be bad for you in very large quantities. Then there's dandelions and cat's ear (bitter but good in small quantities, who needs chicory?) and nettles (select only the fresh green tops) and chickweed (good for you) and violet leaves (a bit bland but a great bulking agent).

I was planning to get the seed sprouter out if the foraging got lean or the cultivated salads failed, but so far I haven't had to. Alfalfa's ok, but my own saladings are better. Now I am just waiting for an opportunity to feed all my friends and relatives a big ole plate of weeds at the next family gathering.

 

 

My new garden: plums and pears galore

If I had to pick just two fruit trees to cultivate, I'd choose a plum and a pear.

In a rare bout of happy coincidence/fate/God's will being done (delete according to your prevailing ideology) the garden of my new house contains those very trees. Even better, the plums are at their peak right now: the tree is dripping with them and the lawn beneath is littered with windfalls. My daughter, who has up until now been in thrall to the organic desert pear ("PA" was one of her first words), spurned her cereal this morning in favour of three plums. The pear tree looks equally productive but the fruit isn't quite ripe yet. No pictures as yet, until I can locate a camera amid the wreckage of boxes that is every room in the house right now.

I've never owned these trees before so I'd love some guidance on good books for fruit tree care (idiot-proof guide to pruning, please) and also on how to identify what varieties they are. I suspect the plum is a Victoria and the pear a comice or similar but it would be good to have a definitive answer.

In the meantime, it's fresh fruit all round and some serious jam making at the weekend - unpacking will have to wait.

Also - don't tell Rick, but I have a blue hydrangea. A small one. As Garden Monkey has pointed out, these are controversial plants. My plan is to get some Hydrangea 'Annabelle' to convince him of the worth of this group of plants, and then convert him to the more 'old school' varieties in time.

A fit of pique over unharvested apples

Out walking with the baby yesterday - something I spend a lot of time doing these days - and I became (possibly irrationally) annoyed.

Walking down a posh private road some distance from my own slightly less salubrious area, I spied a big house with several apple trees dotted about the large front lawn. They were smothered in unpicked fruit. I am not an apple expert but I do know they should have been harvested long ago. What a waste! I guess it seems like a lot of work, but how rewarding to eat (or juice, or cook with) your own fruit harvest.

On the upside - the apples will be a welcome food source for many birds and insects this winter. I wonder how long they'll stay on the tree for?

Bartered apples

Without room for any apple trees myself, it's fantastic to barter for some fruit from people who do.

I got one bagful from a colleague of Rick's, to whom we've promised a pumpkin in return. She also gave us some eggs from her two chickens so I'll have to make sure she gets the pick of the pumpkin crop.

Another bagful came from an aunt who lives in London: this wasn't a barter exchange as such, but she did get a copy of my book in return! These, she told me, were James Grieve. I had never heard of this variety, but I found a great site called Orange Pippin which filled me in on all the details about this apple:

James Grieve is a justifiably popular dual-purpose apple variety, raised in Scotland at the end of the 19th century, the height of the Victorian period of English apple development.

Some of the James Grieve went into a blackcurrant, blackberry and apple crumble - the rest has been turned into puree ready for when my baby starts weaning a few weeks from now. It's a lesson in using things up - a theme I am going to return to in my next post. Meanwhile, your homework: check your kitchen cupboards and make a list (in your head or on paper!) of everything that needs using up.

Corn on the cob: sweet as ...

The key to harvesting is picking the optimum moment - for no crop is this truer than sweetcorn.

I've grown corn several years in a row, and it's always been a huge disappointment: unfortunately we've always been on holiday in late August/early September when the ears are at their prime, only to get back to kernels like cardboard.

This year, the arrival of our tiny person has meant our usual late summer jaunt hasn't taken place. It's a shame, but it has meant that - hallelujah! - the corn could be harvested at just the right moment. This year we took a shortcut and bought young plug plants to put on the allotment, but I was heavily pregnant at sowing time and just didn't have the time or energy to grow everything I'd planned. No idea even what variety these are, but they taste beautifully sweet and juicy.

The key with corn is getting it from plot to plate in the minimum time to ensure that the sugars have as little time as possible to turn to starch, resulting in a cob that's supersweet. The ultimate is taking a little camping stove down to the plot and cooking them there and then, or you could chuck them on a barbie.

How's your corn doing this year? Do share in the comments below.

The smell of swede success

This year's allotment harvest has been, to use the techical term, pants. Well, I should qualify that - the soft fruit was pretty good, as were the shallots and onions were decent too.

I braved the heat to pop down the plot with the baby in the sling yesterday and drop off some kitchen waste on the compost heap, which is about all I can manage these days (as I've mentioned on here before, who knew babies were so time consuming). Parts of it now resemble a jungle, other bits aren't quite so overgrown. It's depressing, but there's always another year - and I've warned the council that my plot isn't at its best so I should have staved off a letter from them demanding I straighten up and fly right.

Anyway - as you can see from the picture that accompanies this post, all is not completely lost. Mysteriously, my little row of swedes - a vegetable I've failed to grow several years on the trot - has done rather well, as has a single white beetroot, which has turned into this cricket ball sized item. The little orange things in the middle aren't carrots (they were abysmal this year too) but a beetroot called Yellow Intermediate Mangel* - they're not ready yet, these are just ones I thinned out to leave more room for the others.

I have soup plans for the beetroot but am not sure what to do with the swede. Any suggestions?

*Yes, I did buy them solely because they have a cool name.

Blackcurrant bonanza

Finally managed to get to the plot on Sunday when the rain stopped, to find a cornucopia of soft fruit awaiting our attentions. The blackcurrants were particularly fine - some were the size of marbles and sweet enough to pop in your mouth like, well, sweets. We picked several pounds, and that was from a single bush. I am hoping we can barter a box or two for some freshly laid hens' eggs ...

There were also strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries to pick, plus the shallots are ready, which is fantastic. Considering how little time we've managed to spend at the allotment this year (and most of the hard labour hasn't been done by me, I hasten to add), it's nice that it's still rewarded us with some produce.

If I have time, I plan to make some blackcurrant ice cream, raspberry jam and, of course, blackcurrant jam, my old favourite. But that's all dependent on how long I can persuade my little one to sleep for ...

Also, weirdly, we found that after several failed attempts our swedes are actually looking like swedes rather than weedy, woody roots. Perhaps it's all the rain we've had this year, or the fact they're in a raised bed this year where the soil's looser?

What's left in your fruit and veg store?

My work colleague Neil Perry described the experience of tasting my blackcurrant jam as being "like an angel crapping on your tongue".

Thanks Neil! I guess that's a thumbs up ...

It reminded me of another of those many posts that falls into the "things I've been meaning to write for weeks" category: what's left in your produce store?

Here's a summary of my remaining allotment harvest.

My potatoes, pumpkins and onions are finished, but the shallots and squash are still going strong. In the freezer, the last batch of gooseberries became a crumble, the last shavings of horseradish was whipped up into some horseradish cream with a roast beef dinner, and I am still valiantly working my way through my personal frozen  blackcurrant mountain, ie churning out jam. The only other freezer occupant is a bag of courgettes that I don't really know what I am going to do with - tip into a vegetable stew, probably.

I am also hoarding the last two specimens from the haul of delicious Bramley apples we bartered for a squash earlier in the year. They're sitting on a table in the garage next to the squash, robed in newspaper.

Then of course there's the fresh stuff: when I get around to updating it, my "now harvesting" list includes florence fennel, chard, cavolo nero, brussels sprouts, Romanesco cauliflower, and some very persistent chicory. That's despite the fact that my plot is looking rather down in the dumps at the moment: waterlogged, weedy and sad. I am hoping the weather will cheer up soon - I need one of those crisp winter days to get some serious tidying up done.

Harvesting my first ever cauliflower

I ate my first ever homegrown cauliflower tonight. Given that it's been comprehensively neglected this year, I was amazed to find two very photogenic, acid green spires on the two plants that managed to germinate and grow despite my best efforts to completely ignore them.

They really are marvellous to photograph as well as to eat: all those fractals!

This is probably completely verboten but I turned the cauliflower into a cauliflower cheese. Not very sexy, but deliciously comforting on a wet Sunday night ....

The variety? An unusual autumn-maturing Romanesco called Ottobrino, available from the Real Seed Catalogue (scroll to the bottom).

Tangentially, I must say that learning how to make a good roux - the basis of my white sauce for the cauliflower cheese - was one of the most useful lessons my mum ever taught me. I must have been about eight or nine, and as I stood by the stove she showed me how to melt the butter in the pan, add just enough flour, and gently stir while it "honeycombed". Then add the milk, gradually, stirring all the time and  watch it thicken. Magic.