September seed status and the finished picalilli

Steven went through a cupboard tonight that hadn't been looked into since we moved in!! Anyway it's nice and tidy now and a couple of things that were in there are now up around the Aga. The fork and spoon is from Ste's Gran's house when she was alive. The clock is from our old kitchen. 

What do you think?

I also wanted to give you an update of what seedlings I have growing. Please bear in mind that these are trials as I want to know what I can grow through the autumn and winter and what I can make use of the polytunnel for.

There's the different calabrese that claimed they could be late planting.

Different lettuce and perpetual spinach varieties. These will be for the polytunnel.

More winter salad varieties and the cauliflower that simply won't germinate well.

Cut and come again salad varieties, Kale and pak choi I think here.

There's some other seedlings that are outside that I didn't photograph that are ready to go in the ground so that's a job for the weekend.

I managed to get the picalilli done tonight. I never knew you didn't cook the veg, or if you do I missed that step! Another month and I'll taste the first jar. I'll make some more in the mean time now I know how easy it is.

I'm going to invest in a label printer I think, to give the jars a professional finish. 

Today's been a long day at work but we got out for a nice walk with the dogs as a family and I had an hour in the kitchen so I can't complain.

Monday night preserves - the start of the picalilli and some questionable runner bean chutney

I've got a load of courgettes at the moment and I am fully aware that it's September and Christmas is creeping up. So what better way to use them than make picalilli for the Christmas hampers and to use through the autumn and winter.

I've made a start and decided to use Pam's recipe with the following choice of veg: courgettes, cauliflower, carrots, green beans and green tomatoes. Only problem is it starts off with 24 hours of salting!

School girl error, always always read your recipe in good time so you're prepared. 

So I quickly moved on to see what else I could preserve. Now something we have by the bucket load is runner beans. I found some recipes for chutney pickle online but they weren't suitable for one reason or another so I loosely followed a combination of some I found online. I chopped up 3 onions and a kilo of green beans. 

The onions were simmered for 10 minutes in 275ml of cider vinegar as that's all I had, whilst the beans were boiled for 5 in salt water.

I drained the beans and added them to the onions and took them off the heat to sit as the vinegar had burnt off and I didn't want to risk the pan drying out.

In a jug I added another splash or two of cider vinegar to 2 tbsp cornflour, 1 tbsp mustard powder and 1 tsp ground turmeric and mixed to a paste.

Adding it to the onion mix and another 500ml cider vinegar. It stinks the house out but it actually tastes delicious already. It's currently simmering away in the Aga and I think it'll be a while before it's ready to jar up. It'll be November at the earliest before we can taste it as it'll need to mature but rest assured I'll let you know how it tastes.

Soup, potatoes and juicing the plums

Saturday is a doing day here. I made the soups I wanted to, some portions were froze and some eaten there and then. Tomato soup and split pea and ham soup. I'll have some of these for lunch this week at work.

I was telling Ste I needed some shelves in the greenhouse for the seeds I am sowing and look what he knocked up for me. I'm really pleased as they look good and are practical. 

Finally ste got to use his Christmas present from me. A fruit crusher and press. We decided to put the 3 zillion plums we have through the crusher, stones and all, as we've tonnes left on the tree for the rest of the recipes. It worked really well and we now have 2 demo johns of plum juice being turned into yet another alcoholic drink!

We all had a go at the press.

The drink we're making is called plum jerken. I'll let you know how it turns out!

I thinned out the lettuces in the veg plot, cut the foliage off the potatoes that have blight and took the leaves to the local tip. 

Ste got a shot of me at work!

Below are the leaves showing blight. If you zoom in you can see the chocolate spots on them.

Apparently anything with blight must be burnt or taken off site so we bagged it up and removed it as green leaves would be hard to burn.

We harvested one of the small beds of potatoes as Ste wants to get on fixing it and who am I to stand in the way of a man wanting to work?  I'm pleased with the harvest. They're drying out and we'll put into the sacks which incidentally I got off eBay for £1 each. Bargain?! This potato is Carolus and so far looks good with a reasonable yield. This one did not succumb to blight and they all seemed healthy so I'm pleased, we'll taste them tomorrow with Sunday lunch.

Tomorrow we're at a christening so have limited time in the day. I'll spend an hour outside before we go getting tidied up and make sure everything is hoed. We're not sure what time we'll get in so I won't do a Sunday dinner. Maybe a jacket spud using some of today's harvest.

I'm hoping to do something with elderberries shortly as they're in full swing here.  Pontack sauce is up first. 

Anyway, bed for me now, goodnight 

September is here

What a beautiful start to September. The weather has been glorious here in north east England. It was chilly until about 8:30/9 and then warmed up. It was lovely to see the sun each time I looked out and to feel it on my back when I stole an out outside at lunch time.

The weekend is here, the soup is on for tomorrow's lunch. This is the first time I've made tomato soup so I hope it turns out well.

As it's getting cooler on a night, I am going to start closing up the polytunnel doors and windows when I lock the animals up. Eventually the doors will remain closed again except to let some air through but not yet.

This weekend we have the usual smallholding jobs to do: clean the animals out, hoe the veg beds (notice the hoe instead of weed!), harvest anything that's ready, preserve what we can, start the next project and in the house I need to cook and bake for the week ahead plus the usual chores.

We've got family visiting as usual so we'll take breaks to spend time with them as and when they arrive. 

I wanted to share with you something my daughter drew...

She was with me when I was drawing up the plan of the veg area but she didn't comment. It's obviously sticking with her which pleases me.

I can't figure out how to rotate the photos on my phone. Finally I though I'd share with you a tired but cheeky pony. Since being in the field for the summer he's looking unkept but he's happy! 

Have a great weekend and enjoy every moment. I'm off for a glass of vino and to relax for the evening. After making pizzas and walking the dogs that is.

Sick of the sight of cabbage

I noticed yesterday that it's now dark when we get up at 5:15, something that's happened whilst we've been off. The nights too are lengthening. It's dark well before 9 now so we're locking up earlier. It does mean that we're getting chance to go to bed earlier some nights though. The nights are cooler now too but the days are staying warm with some decent sunlight. 

However it's also the time of year where there's a steady pace of all fruit and veg. Now I didn't think I'd complain but when you mix up your brassica planting and end up with a shed load of cabbages only, you can very easily get sick of the sight of them! 

Tonight I blanched and froze 20 individual bags of cabbage all ready for when they're needed. It'll be a while before I use them as I never want to see a white cabbage again! I have the feeling I'll be saying that about the plums soon! 

Plum wine started tonight, I'll share more on that in my Monday preserving post.

In the mean time, our 3 wellsummer hens seem to have started a little club of their own as the 3 of them have started going to bed in another empty coop all on their own. Funny girls.

I also wanted to mention that I'm really pleased with the service from the aga cook shop online.  I bought some chefs pads a few months ago and when they disintegrated after their first wash, they replaced them with a different set that I asked for. So I'm now the proud owner of 2 new dog themes chef pads and a happy customer.

End of the summer holidays

Rodney is like my shadow. He follows me round, lays near me and watches me work. I'll miss him and Buster when I go back to work tomorrow. As I did my evening chores he was sat in his favourite place in front of the Aga watching me. I had to snap a photo of him as it reminded me of the Aga cartoons that you see. All it needed was a pair of wellies.

We've had a lovely last day off together as a family. We went to pick some more blackberries but unfortunately they've turned over and are no good now. I'm not sure if any more will come on those bushes.

However, we did see some elderberries that finally ripened and it reminded us that we need to bottle last years elderberry wine. Steven did that whilst I made tea.

We'll keep the elderberry wine for a couple of years as that's when it's supposed to be best. The other is this years rhubarb wine and that will be drank on Fridays and Saturdays now we're back to work. No alcohol during the week. 

Now a job we wanted to do asap was to prune the plum trees as you're supposed to do them but the end of august. We were cutting it fine. Now these trees haven't been pruned for quite some time, so there was a bit to do which we'll do this year and next. The good news is the tree was laden with plums.

Ste got the loppers and set to work.

Now.... what to do with 3 million plums. This is only half of them!!

I'll let you know what I decide to do but pleased shout up with any ideas and proven recipes!

So back to it now, Monday night preserves will start next week. This week I've managed to menu plan, shop to the plan which wasn't a lot as we've got so much produce of our own (yey), prepare tea in advance for a couple of nights and get the clothes and lunches ready for the week. 

Alarm set for 5:15 as normal. I'm going to struggle to sleep tonight, always do the night before the start of a new week but here we are.

I hope you've all had a lovely bank holiday. 

Making the most of our summer holidays

I wanted to post daily whilst on my summer holidays (time off, not actually away anywhere) but life doesn't always link in with what we plan.  We have had a lovely few days since I last posted.  We've had family days out, picnics, fun, sea, sand, dogs, friends and then at home, more weeding, fixing, cooking, baking, animals and general playing.

This bed took a lot of fixing, actually it was pretty much all replaced.  We decided to do it properly and buy new boards, then putting the yellow pipes in place which will allow me to put the mesh, fleece or net over them once we start again.  The intention is to do this for all of the beds and eventually we will get cages around the fruit too.

 

I weeded it and then Ste took over.

 

He did his thing and this is the end result.

 

Although some things haven't worked this growing year, others have.  This squash has doubled in size since I started my holidays.  These photos were taken a week apart.

 

I spotted some courgettes that had gone unnoticed, so they will be going into a chutney maybe.  Any others ideas welcome.

 

This golden zucchini has been a staple of our summer - they are delicious.

 

I harvested the tomatoes which are ripening thick and fast now.  I'll be doing something with these tomorrow when my son has his friend over for the afternoon.  I'll need to be close to them but not in the same room, so a cooking afternoon it is.

 

The piquant peppers are a funny old shape, but are starting to turn in colour.  A slight red tinge on the top there.

 

 

We have also managed to cure and dry our bacon.  It's tiny but it's ours.  The pigs were so lean that we ended up with bacon medallions, but my word were they tasty.  They also didn't shrink when we cooked them. 

 

We went to Whitby which is just over an hour from our place.  We took the kids and a friend of Grace's, plus the dogs.  Buster laid in my footwell in what looked like a very awkward position but he obviously liked it.  Rodney was sat with the kids, very proudly too.

 

 

 

In Whitby, I treat myself to 4 new mugs, one of which has an allotment theme to it which made me smile.  Perfect.

 

There is a Millbry Hill, agricultural store, near Whitby so I popped in and bought the little pony a fly rug as the flies are awful here and he's been plagued by them.  He looks a bit scary with that and a fly mask on, but it's worth it until the season is over.

 

 

I've been making lots and lots of home made food and really got my mojo back there.  I'm enjoying it so much.  Bramble and apple crumble....delicious.

 

The onions have dried out nicely and are ready to hang.  I practiced plaiting on the ones I lifted in the Spring/early summer.

 

I'm pleased with how they turned out.

 

 

I also harvested a giant swede!

 

And plenty of other things.

We've had scotch pancakes for breakfast along with our own bacon and bread.  What treats!

 

Its our last day of the holidays for Ste and I tomorrow and the kids are back to school on Friday here.  So back to it.  I'm feeling organised though, everything is done that I wanted to be done in time to go back.  I've a list to get through tomorrow, including picking more brambles !