We also had another marrow. The second in a week. In a week, we have harvested 8 different courgettes. Still have a patty pan, with which we need to so something.
Mama H curried the marrow, with striato di Napoli and summer ball courgettes. Making a 3 squash curry.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Is it a plane, is it a bird, no it’s a funny shaped courgette!
To most people, a courgette is a courgette. A nondescript vegetable, shiny, straight and available from your local supermarket. Alas, they have clearly never grown their own veg. I must admit, that I too started off with a straight, relatively typical courgette. The courgette Astia, simple, straight forward and green. Then, I moved onto yellow ones, rounds ones, stripy ones, as you are aware of. Only recently, was I aware of another creature. Yellow Scallop and patty pan. You can argue that these are the one and the same. They may well be, I’m covering my bases here, with synonyms and semantics.
There have been daily explorations of the Esther Bucklee bed. Trying to find down these curiously shaped creatures. These are housed, between the Incredible Sweetcorn, all eight plants of them. I have three of these, I think, and a sweet dumpling, in the confines of a raised bed. This bed is one metre squared, and foray into two out of three sisters. The bed is heaving, you’d think I was growing triffids. This is exactly, what it looks like. A mass of green leaves, the size of dinner plates. Vines making an escaping, with eight long, willow corn plants, standing above a parapet. When the wind blows, the bed appears to be dancing and shaking it’s thing.
As you can see, the courgette is tiny. I almost missed it, but espied the small alien saucer like shape; and had to inspect it further. Not quite sure what I will do with them. As it stands, there are two courgettes in the kitchen. Despite having chutneyed two yesterday.
In other news, have harvested some curly kale and nero di toscano for dinner.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Mama H cradling a very wonky striato Di Napoli courgette and a bush baby marrow. Only my mother would cradle it like a newborn. Have romped on over the last few days.
Bit of weigh in. 3lbs and 7 ounces. A very Bonny, bouncing, Bostin’ baby.
Ma plans to curry it, I’ll have you know.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
That’s Peace and Happiness, before you have to go translate it…
To the untrained eye, this looks a mess. However, if you were to ask me nicely; I could tell you what most things are and where. The gallery above, is a walking tour if you like of the half plot. I will try and get some specific bed pictures up. I appreciate that it looks like a great big green mess in the gallery. Today is the first day of the Summer holidays for me, so an opportunity to see what I need to do. It goes without saying, that weeds are a problem. This time last year, we had a deluge; and the weeds were well up to ankle height. As well as that, I didn’t have so filled raised beds. They are there now, and they contain crops.
Two more raised beds have, thanks to Pops, been constructed. I had scavenged last week, bags of garden waste. Sat on the plot for best part of a week, these were emptied today in the beds. I know that these are upside down, before you point it out! The pots are on the spikes, so that hopefully no one gets hurt. It is safe to say, that having raised beds has been a boon. Whilst the clay is fabulous, full of nutrients; the position of the plot means that the whole thing gets flooded. This brings pools of water, slugs and other things that eat crops. With the battle against the weeds. The areas of open ground where there are no raised beds, have been choked by weeds. The plan is to now pull up the weeds, cover with newspaper, and perhaps even black plastic on top of that. I have been avoiding that, thinking that raised beds are enough. At least the black plastic can be planted through, the newspaper and pulled up weeds can help the clay composition.
This is going to be one of the big battles. To be clear of as many weeds as possible, and cover the ground. With the beautiful weather that we have had, the clay is like concrete. There is now way a magic fork or spade is going to slice through it. It is just as bad, when it is winter.
As I sit here, the weather lady has just delivered her forecast. For the moment at least, the nice weather will remain. A bit of harvesting was done to today. A small amount of Florence Fennel. A crop, that I had forgotten that I sown. So was very surprised to the see the dill hovering amongst the leaves of the Astia Courgette right next to it. The Florence Fennel was sautéed with the Kestrel potatoes. Lovely looking first second earlies, with pink smudges that look like little faces.
In the wendy house, you will see the vast array of chillies and bells. We have in there a huge number. We have just to name a few, Nigels outdoor chilli, lemon drop, frauzauber, spanish mammoth red, early jalapeño, purple beauty and long red marconi to name a few. Those are the ones that were at least labelled. I think a few of them, have thrown a bit of a tantrum in the wendy, having moved from the classroom. They were perhaps not used to the different temperatures. As mentioned previously, we are having nice weather. A few of the chillies, have been a little burned, and perhaps are sulking because of that too. They are watered and fed regularly. I am still not convinced of treating them in a mean fashion. The resplendent purple rainbow chillis remain in the kitchen at home. There were seven of these altogether, only one of these is in the wendy.
Triffids rise again, on the plot. Not only are there squashes, but also sweetcorn and sunflowers. I had though that the sunburst sunflowers, were relatively small. Yet these are nearly as big as me. No quite giant, but bigger than I had expected. Very leafy, and yet to form any flowers. I do believe that the squashes may take over the universe. I have long expected and anticipated the leaves getting as big as dinner plates. In my experience, that is a good thing. That is happening, yes. Now, we are on flower and fruit watch. Already, we have had a few striato di napoli and astia already, in addition to two beautiful tennis ball sized summer ball. I have never sown a yellow courgette, so this was a lovely crop. Mama H and I are still at odds over the bush baby marrow. Resting on a brick, it is as big as it should be. Mama H wants me to wait for various dishes to have been eated, before I harvest it. If it explodes, it’s not my fault, all right.
Tomorrow is another day, and for the moment; it is summer.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Here we have the first batch of summer squashes. We have Striato Di Napoli-those would be the stripy ones, astia would be the uniform green ones, and summer ball which is the yellow one that looks a lot like a tennis ball. Is in fact the same size as one, so was harvested.
Striato Di Napoli is the product of seeds from Real Seeds, and I am honestly quite impressed by them. In a week, we have what four or five of them. Yes, I know that the the Astia look a bit tiny. I think with the last week or so, it has decided that it wants to produce babies. Only it was caught a bit off guard by the weather, and has only produce what would be termed baby courgettes. They’ve all been taken off, so that the one or two that remain on the plant might get bigger. I have know Astia to produce courgettes that are like truncheons.
Having never had yellow courgettes, we have one of two. This is summer ball, one ball is producing little babies as we speak. Beautiful round tennis ball thing, that was almost jumping off the plant. Mama H been huffing and puffing, that she’s not going to curry it. Of course she will, will not be left by its lonesome.
Now, I spoke previously about truncheons. Well, not one of these things, summer ball aside, is straight. Their beauty lies in their wonky-ness.
Today, was Mama H’s day of birth, so that mean bhajis. She’s just had some, made from the caulis, spinach and spuds from the plot. Were most definitely enjoyed. We have waiting on the plot, a bush baby marrow. It’s currently look at us, but mother is trying to work out when to cook it.
Yours in Anticipation
Horticultural Hobbit
All of the Squashes were planted out today. As were cucumbers. A couple of these were looking a bit ropey as I did so. The ghost rider was the ropiest of the squash. These were planted, with a small pot sunk next to to them; in addition there was a layer of mulch around them. With the exception of two, all were plugged into raised beds. The incredible sweetcorn was planted 3×3 in the raised bet, interplanted by way of experiment with trailing squash.
Running beans were also plugged in; scarlet emperor, painted lady and a handful of enorma.
Lots planted out. All in the lap of the Gods.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural hobbit
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