Winding down? Not quite yet

Much of the summer harvest is done and gone now, like zucchini, cucumber (almost, anyway) and tomatoes;  despite this, I still manage to walk out my back door every day and pick enough veg for dinner (yesterday it was baby squash, chard, celery and herbs).  The allotment too is still yielding a regular small harvest of things such as beets and green beans.

Some of the harvest is an all-at-once job like the squash and corn;  these are still on the plants, maturing away.  I hope to get them in by the end of October, weather permitting.

There are a few plants just coming into their own now (the end of September!):  achocha (a spikey little green fruit on a very vigorous vine) which has self seeded for years now;  and the Lazy Housewife climbing beans, only just now producing pods.  The other climbing beans have been producing all summer (a pretty purple variety), and both were sown and planted out at the same time.  Well, better late than never I guess.

I am hopeful for a some autumn/early winter veg, looking promising now:  the bulb fennel, parsnips, pak choy and black radish (a cooking radish).  Also hoping for some spring onions, a few last kohl rabi, and some daikon radish--not quite as forward as the others, but we'll see.

Pickles everywhere

After a lot of back and forth, I decided to pick all the remaining green tomatoes at the allotment;  while most of the plants show evidence of blight, it's still pretty mild and hasn't affected much of the fruit (yet).  Well when I say all the tomatoes:  that was indeed my intention, but after filling a big bag full I had to stop at about halfway.

I made my usual green tomato pickle with them, but ran out of jars--again--before I ran out of tomatoes.  I absolutely love this pickle, which is more like a sour salsa really.  In fact, for this batch I used the same pickle ingredients but blended it up into a chunky paste like salsa, and left it to ferment for two days on my countertop.  Now it is so so tasty--even tastier than the chunky pickle I love so much.

I am also still not quite finished making cucumber pickles, as the plants refuse to give up:  I'm reduced to making them in a large plastic ice cream tub from my work, as I'm completely out of jars.  Currently I have three each of the 1.8 L jars of green tomato pickle and cucumber pickles, plus a 3.3 L of cucumber and another 3.3 which is mostly cucumber but has some other random veg (this is a fermented pickle rather than a vinegar pickle, and the one I keep dipping into and topping up again).  My fridge and countertop are both full--the husband is even hinting about getting another small fridge just for pickles...

State of the flock, September 2023

After spending a rather large wad of cash on materials, the husband and son have revamped the at-home chicken coop/run to make it potentially impervious to wild birds.  It still needs to be netted on top to be so, but as we are not yet under a government housing order for poultry, I'll keep it unnetted (and because there is a big horse chestnut tree currently shedding conkers and the start of its autumn leaf fall, right above the run).

Now because of this turn of events, we have now adopted another four rescue hens, bringing our total to eight chickens.  These new ones are settling in at home;  unlike some rescues, they seem pretty calm and are curious rather than nervous.  They are a bit ragged looking with maybe more bald patches than some we've had.  But they seem healthy and should be back to full feather (and bright red combs) in a few months.

We'd arranged to pick the new ones up a few weeks in advance, but it turned out to be the hottest day of the year.  I was really concerned about them dying of heat exhaustion in the box on the half hour drive home, so in addition to large ventilation holes, I also put three big ice packs on the floor, covered with an empty paper feed sack.  All four made it home alive;  I set their box on its side inside the run and left them to find their own way out.  Within half an hour there were two scratching a nice new dustbath, one having a big drink, and one flapping up to perch on various surfaces:  obviously they weren't too bothered!

The old lady hens are still at the allotment with the ducks for another week or two at least;  I'm not quite ready to introduce everyone until the new ones have completely settled in.  Integrating new chickens is hard on everyone.

The two ducks, boy and girl, rule the run at the allotment I'm sorry to say.  Every day I visit, I have to peek inside the little coop to count all the hens, as boy duck won't let them out!  Well, they are allowed if they sneak out, but when he catches them he chases them back in.  Naughty duck.  I would particularly like the ducks back home to go on a little slug hunt in the veg patch, but again I'll probably wait another week or two at least.

Eggs;  two old hens are still laying once or twice a week, as is girl duck.  The new ones (the son has chosen "the Specklies" as their cohort name--we've run out of individual names) have produced six eggs in two days.  Not bad. 

Harvesting from the park

These past few weeks have seen me and the kids at our local country park, just a few streets away from our house, foraging for some wild food.  There are quite a lot of wild edibles there that we know of:  mint, bullaces (a small wild plum), oregano, raspberries, hazelnuts, pears, and even an invasive species of crayfish.  However, we have been picking:

Blackberries

It's been a good year for wild blackberries.  Often they turn out small, sour and seedy;  but this year I've picked a lot of big, sweet juicy ones.  Still seedy of course!  But more juice per seed.  In the past I've made jam, put them in smoothies and used the puree in ice cream.  I've also combined them with wild elderberries to make wine, which is my plan for this year too.

Apples

It seems it's not been a great year for apples however.  My own trees have been producing biennially, and this was the off year:  no apples.  There are quite a lot of wild trees at the country park, and most are nice enough to eat though nothing spectacular (we only know one phenomenally bitter tree).  Unfortunately, the trees there haven't produced much either, and most of it quite small.  The son and I went picking at the weekend and came back with a sack of which the largest were golf ball sized.  These will be for eating only--at least they are free and the kids don't mind the size.  I know of another couple of trees we didn't visit so we'll have to check them next.  

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Our country park used to be a coal mine, and our village a mining village.  When I moved here almost 20 years ago, the park was mostly just a flat grassy field with a small memorial to the miners and a largeish fishing pond at the far end, with a young weedy forest around that.  The whole park has since been planted with many trees;  other plants have recolonised to make it a real haven for wildlife and local people alike.

I have in the past harvested quite a lot of different things at our park, including herbs for simple remedies such as plantain and alder to make a soothing skin cream.  I've even gathered reeds for basketry and old dead wood to use as kindling in our wood stove:  it's a bountiful resource practically at our doorstep. 

Summer's end

I hope it stays warm for the next month but I have my doubts.  I've got at least three big squashes at the allotment plus another one at home;  there are also an undetermined number of smaller ones--all at the allotment--and I want them all to ripen!  Also on the ripening wish list is my corn:  some stalks still have cobs just starting to emerge, and they'll need all the light and warmth they can get.

Surprisingly, I'm still getting a regular harvest of pickling cucumbers;  twice a week all summer and no sign of stopping just yet, though I think they hit their peak in mid-August.  I have so many jars of pickles now, both fermented and vinegar brined.  I had to rearrange my fridge to fit them all and despite that I still have two large jars on my counter;  the bigger of these jars is absorbing all the newest harvest, to ferment for winter--it's got a mix of all different kinds of veg, whenever I have a small harvest that isn't worth dehydrating:  kohl rabi, cucumber, French beans, etc.

I made a second sowing in June of some old cucumber seed;  it was either sow it or throw it and I was again surprised that several sprouted.  Now two of these plants have been producing little cucs:  they are meant to be a mid-sized eating variety, but so far none have been much bigger than the pickling cucs.  Tasty though:  a nice pale yellow variety.  Incidently, I found an over-large, over-ripe pickling cuc that I somehow missed in time and have left it growing in the hopes of next year's seeds.  The yellow cuc variety was from my own saved seed too though I don't know if I'll be able to save any from it again this year.

I made an executive decision to hold off pulling out the allotment tomatoes in the hopes I'll get some more red ones before they blacken--so far so good, although I've picked only a handful so far.  They still look pretty healthy actually, though the cherry toms are goners.

And in other news, I've got two kinds of radishes sprouting up;  the daughter and I sowed two rows of daikon radish after the cabbages all came out, and we broadcast black radish and spring onion seed over the zuc bed after I pulled up most of those last week.  I still have a couple zuc plants at home and the allotment but they nearly are at the end now. 

Blight again

After such a wet July, I guess it's not too much of a surprise that my tomatoes have been infected with blight.  It doesn't happen every year, but it's not particularly uncommon either:  just as they were starting to ripen too.  The ones at the allotment are showing early signs of it, but the ones at home have been blackening for longer;  these I have mostly pulled up, leaving two plants which have clusters of yellow/orange tomatoes, not yet blighted (though the plants are).  I'll give them another couple of days with my fingers crossed.

The cherry toms at the allotment are all sorry with it, though I've gotten a few ripe ones off them;  the regular toms are sprawling all over them.  I sowed a tray of each and planted the regular and plum toms at home and the cherries at the allotment;  except somehow most of the cherry toms ended up being regular toms.  None of the regular toms turned out to be cherries, so I definitely didn't mix up the trays.  Anyway, the regular toms are only showing the first signs of blight, but if I want any harvest off them I'll have to pick them within the next few days, green though they are.

I've made two 1.8 L jars of green tomato salsa (brined/fermented) and put what red tomatoes I could salvage into the freezer for future pizza sauce.  I'll probably make a big jar of pickled toms and cucumbers with the rest of the green ones at the allotment:  I've run out of those 1.8 L jars but I still have a 3.3 L jar, and while there's probably not enough toms to fill it, there's definitely enough cucs.  I have a great recipe for bottled green salsa, but I like the fermented kind even more;  I just need to make room in my fridge for it.

The cabbage bed

A splash of color in the veg bed, July 2023

I'm even busier than last week!  But at least I've got the cabbage bed cleared and replanted (finally) and all the cabbage either dehydrated or brined for later eating/cooking.  As I may have mentioned, they were meant to be spring cabbages (harvest in spring), and none of them produced much of a head.  But I needed the space so I pulled them all, and of course a little harvest is better than no harvest.  The oldest outer leaves went to the chickens and ducks, and I put the stalks in the compost.

After hoeing and raking off the bed, I put down the pak choi and fennel transplants, and two rows of daikon radish seeds;  as a precaution I draped insect mesh over the whole bed--against both cabbage butterflies and pigeons.  

Speaking of cabbage butterflies, the carnage wasn't so bad this year.  Only one spindly little cabbage got badly munched--the rest only lightly, with just one or two green caterpillars per plant it seemed (at least, that's how many I found at the bottom of the sink after soaking each head).  Usually the first wave consists of many many single green caterpillars;  then come the armies of black and yellow ones.  Except they didn't. I have seen a couple of husks here and there where the parasitic wasps have been busy, so maybe other predators have been working on it too?

I've done a couple of quick sweeps at the allotment; the brassicas there look a little more tattered, but I think it's more flea beetles and slugs than caterpillars.  Still, I'll try and keep on top of it, as those black and yellow caterpillars can completely defoliate plants if not stopped in time.