All systems go! I've gone from picking a little here and there, to all things at once: lettuce, cabbage, mange tout peas, broad beans and onions (just harvested all of these), beets, new potatoes, gooseberries, raspberries, currants, cherries.
In addition to harvesting all of the above (mostly at the allotment), I'm still in the last stages of planting out. I've finally put in all the last cucumbers, split between home and the allotment; same deal with the pak choi. My patio table, full of trays since spring (I kept transplanting out and then refilling the trays) at last has empty spaces. I'm not quite done sowing seeds: I'll do a batch of Chinese cabbage and at least one more of lettuce and maybe beets; and a little later on hopefully some spring cabbages and possibly onions to overwinter. I'm also planning on direct sowing some radishes and turnips later in the season too.
The whole family helped clear away the broad beans in order to replant the bed with leeks, all three trays waiting patiently since March. Though it was a hot morning, we got it done (mostly me actually--the husband's leg isn't quite better, the daughter's only six, and the son was dragging his heels): we pulled all the plants, stripped the pods off, forked the bed lightly to remove any weeds and grass roots, then mulched heavily with wood chips. My composters are full to bursting.
Actually, this bed has had two more crops since I grew potatoes there last summer: Chinese cabbage in autumn/winter and broad beans this spring. So this is the third time I've sifted out grass roots and actually there were a lot fewer this time--it was teeming with them after the potatoes came out last July. There were some clumps of grass growing amongst the broad beans, but it wasn't completely swamped and the soil was fairly soft under its light mulch of wood chips--I last topped it up when I sowed the broad beans in February. I spread a much thicker mulch on top this time.
I'm still doing weed maintenance on my wood chip mulch, little by little: just loosening roots out with a fork (almost exclusively bindweed and couch grass, no other weeds). However the newest sheet mulched bed is sprouting grass and it's not yet soft enough underneath to simply loosen it out. Instead I've been topping up with more wood chips, but until it really composts down below, it may have to stay grassy. Unlike the broad bean bed, which had no existing growth when I deeply mulched with wood chips, here I'd laid down cardboard sheets over some very vigorous grass/weeds and mulched on top of this.
What do I do with gooseberries? One year I made jam--then gave it away as we are a mostly no-sugar family. This year I experimented with making sugarless gooseberry fool using sweetener (we prefer a stevia/erythritol blend), only I may have gone a little overboard with the whipped cream. As I sampled it after folding it all together, it reminded me of ice cream, so of course I immediately popped the whole tub in the freezer. It turned out great! A little sour, well balanced by the creaminess. It was literally just gooseberry puree (cooked, cooled, then put through a food mill), a spoonful of sweetener, and a lot of whipped cream. Delightful.
No comments:
Post a Comment