Coming up: homegrown Thanksgiving

Cauliflowers in front, Brussels sprouts behind, Oct 2020

I'm kind of impressed with myself and the family for getting enough work done on the garden and allotment this year to still have measurable fresh food out there.  It's mainly brassicas, celery and some leeks;  however there are also a few more runner beans and tomatoes, and the winter self-seeding greens are now coming up:  mizuna, miners lettuce, lambs lettuce.  That's not counting the potatoes, pumpkins and squashes still hanging out in the kitchen (and living room)!

I really can't take all the credit for this, as the husband and son did step up this spring and summer while I was recovering from anemia.  I did my part too however, and we're all looking forward to some homegrown holiday eating. 

This year our Thanksgiving menu will feature:

• Mashed or roast potatoes
• Brussels sprouts, cabbage, leek, green beans (frozen from earlier this year)
• Gravy with herbs and garlic 
• Pumpkin pie (including our own hens' eggs)
• Blackberry/elderberry wine (while I did not grow these, I picked them and brewed the wine myself)
  

We're only feeding our own family of four, as the country is in lockdown and we're not allowed to meet our friends as usual.  I've suggested a pie swap as a consolation--we normally both bring a pie, and my offering is always pumpkin of course.

Bonfire Night at the allotment

A photo of my allotment! That's me in the center, Nov 2020

We're back in lockdown, starting on Bonfire Night (5th of November), so what better way to celebrate/commiserate than take our bonfire to the allotment!

We had a good view of the our neighbors' overly large fireworks, being somewhat central to the village but just on the edge where it meets the fields, so no pesky streetlights obscuring the explosions, but also far enough off for it not to be overwhelmingly loud (which they were as we walked both to and from the allotment that evening). 

I expected to see a few more bonfires than just ours there, as they are permitted after dark except in high summer, but the only other one we saw was not on the site.  

That morning, the son (and daughter in her buggy) and I carried three plastic garden chairs up to our allotment, and after he had cared for the chickens and gone on to school, I collected some discarded sunflower stalks from the communal waste area, along with a very large branch with a lot of smaller branches and twigs on it.  These I broke up and separated into kindling and wood.  After digging up a few clumps of grass for the chickens (which I try to do every morning when I visit), the daughter and I went home to prepare there.

I put together a sack of newspapers with matches, and another with hot dogs and marshmallows--and hot chocolate in a thermos later on.  When the son got home from school he collected one more sack of small cut wood from our woodpile plus three green bamboo lengths (to skewer our dinner on) from the Perennials section out back.  We were ready to go!

And go we did.  When the husband got home from work we walked straight out and started the fire, toasted our hot dogs and marshmallows, drank our hot chocolate, and enjoyed the night.  Even the daughter at eight months was content to sit and watch the fire and have a bite or two of hot dog.  We stayed until the fire was down to embers.

Speaking of embers--that was my main motivation for celebrating with a bonfire (well, it was more campfire size than bonfire) this year.  I had a bright idea that burning one at the allotment would put a check on the grass and weeds there.  In fact, I've suggested we have a little fire there every weekend this winter, in a slightly different spot, and maybe that'll knock back the grass long enough to get the vegetables going next spring. 

Some pumpkins from the allotment

Not all of them, Oct 2020

The son and I picked most of the pumpkins and squashes last week and brought them home from the allotment over two days (we were walking and couldn't carry them all in one go).  The above photo is the first day's haul;  after the second trip the bench was covered completely, despite the fact that we'd carved one and eaten three small ones.

RIP, Oct 2020

We were given a pumpkin two years ago by a fellow allotmenter and have growing and saving seeds from that one specimen since.  I don't know the variety, other than it's a culinary pumpkin with very thick flesh--not thin-walled like the carving varieties.  For Halloween we carved the orange-est one anyway, then baked it the next day for our Sunday lunch, plus pumpkin pie.  A very tasty pumpkin.

They all had several days to dry out and are now inside on display, to be gradually eaten.  I'm a little disappointed in the squashes:  all pretty small, and most not fully ripened unlike the pumpkins.  We'll eat the unripe ones first and I'll dehydrate some for later this winter, to go in stews and casseroles.  I'm going to try and dry a batch of "zoodles", long thin strips to be used like pasta.

State of the flock, October 2020

A few Brussels sprouts, Oct 2020

I had expected a certain rescue hen to die over summer, as she was looking tired and sad, but she perked up after a treatment of Verm-X, an herbal remedy for parasites.  She's with all the rest of her nine friends at the allotment, hard at work making us compost from all the grass clumps and weeds I've been digging up and chucking in.  Still a lot more to dig up--but the chickens will be there all winter, unless something untoward happens.  I'm actually planning on bringing them home next summer in order to grow stuff in their yard at the allotment.  Pumpkins and squashes maybe?

At home we are down to three quackers.  One of the females was found dead last week, in unexplained circumstances.  She may have met with an accident;  maybe she had an internal problem or maybe she just wore out, like many of our rescue chickens do.  I believe that the high production breeds just don't live too long because it takes so much out of them to keep laying so many eggs--perhaps this is the same for ducks.

As it is, the two drakes have been kind of agitated since they lost their friend (the other duck doesn't seem so bothered).  It's hard to tell with ducks, but it does seem like they miss her and are searching for her.  Maybe just a coincidence. 

Egg production in total is around 4-5 eggs a day now, from eleven female birds.

Keeping the dehydrator fired up

Runner beans and apple slices, Oct 2020

My first dehydrator met with a terrible accident involving a stand mixer and a water jug.  There were no witnesses and tragically the dehydrator perished in the event.  It was such a useful appliance that the husband went out and bought a new one within a few weeks, pictured above.  Like its predecessor, it has gone through some heavy bouts of drying (followed by prolonged periods of quiet).  This past week it's been churning through three sacks of apples given to us by a neighbor.  I'm finally working on the third sack now.

Saved the nicest for eating, Oct 2020

I peel and halve the apples and core with a melon baller;  then I run the halves over my small mandoline to make thin, uniform slices.  That's all:  they go straight onto the drying trays from there.  The son and husband occasionally help out with the preparation--the son is pretty good at peeling (he's ten).

My dehydrator holds slices from 10 apples at once, although when two trays have become partly dry I combine them and put two more apples on the freed up tray;  I also rotate the trays every hour or so and the slices will dry in around six or eight hours.  It works out I can generally dry 16 or more apples in a day this way.

Also dehydrated recently: runner beans.  These I chop and then blanch in boiling water for about four minutes;  after draining they go straight onto a tray.  About a pound of pods fits on one tray, and they take at least a day and a half to dry.  Similar treatment for cabbage leaves, though they dry much more quickly:  maybe six hours tops.

Some almonds, some to come

Not every almond, Oct 2020

 My almond tree, like the grape vine climbing it, is getting away from me!  It's been producing 100-150 almonds a year for the last few years, and this year looks to be similar--only quite a few are now out of reach.  The husband and son went out and picked a sackful with a ladder;  the husband even climbed onto the garage roof.  

However, some almonds still remain.  We may still get some yet once they fall--if we find them, that is.  The tree is tucked away in a corner we don't visit very often this time of year, though the husband has made it slightly easier to access by putting down a little patio there, next to the newly enlarged duck pond.

New patio next to the duck pond (almond tree trunk at the very back), Sep 2020

Sowing and (hopefully) growing in autumn

Radicchio seedlings, Sep 2020

 I've since planted out some of my late summer seedlings, including radicchio, kale, pak choi and iceberg lettuce.  Some have gone in at the allotment, some at home.  To be honest, I'm not too confident about their chances--particularly at the allotment, with the slugs and pigeons there.  The ones here at home have been in long enough to have grown a little, so maybe they're established enough to withstand the slugs (no pigeon pressure here, thankfully).  I hope.

The husband has put in the new garlic crop, using the biggest heads saved from our harvest earlier this summer;  it's all at the allotment.  As the heads weren't very big or plentiful this year, he's on assignment to buy a few more from the shop for planting out, too.  I anticipate we will run out of our own garlic this winter unless we really ration it.

Still growing in seed trays:  spring cabbages.  Still to sow:  peas (got a few volunteer seedlings already), cauliflowers, broad beans.