I am very lucky to have plot neighbours who don’t mind sharing their fruit. Rather than make ice cream; this lead to an episode of preserving.
I had frozen these in anticipation; only I didn’t fancy waiting. An equal amount of fruit and sugar were used; with a little water. With the jamming process, we ended up with a beautiful claret coloured preserve. It smelt divine! All the time though, I felt as though I was torturing ribena berries.
The basil on the plot has been used a little bit; but could be used a little more. Whilst the pot is small, and needs to grow-I only bought it recently from urban herbs-there are a small amount of leaves that could be used to make an experimental amount of pesto.
I have never done this before.
The recipe that I have followed is from Jamie Oliver’s Pesto. Rather than use mum’s blender, I opted to use a pestle and mortar. Mainly as it wouldn’t involve too much washing up. However, this way felt a bit more traditional. The garlic and basil are from the plot, the rest of the ingredients are from shop. I have yet to grow a tree for pine nuts.
There was bit of huffing and puffing, in thinking that this might be a bit difficult. That the basil and garlic would need a bit of bashing; or pounding as the recipe directs. I wouldn’t call it pounding, and it wasn’t that hard. The garlic mashed up quite easily, I think the freshness contributed to that. As well as the freshness of the basil as well, it had been washed before hand. The pine nuts were toasted on mum’s tava-this implement is normally used to make her chappatis-and the pine nuts were dry toasted. I may have over toasted a few of them, but that actually added to the flavour.
I deliberately made a small amount; enough for a piece toast, I found.
The taste test?
Lovely. Perhaps less garlic, the recipe does actually stipulate less than I used. I was feeling enthusiastic. And more cheese. Will definitely try this again.
The garlic foliage has dramatically keeled over, indicating that it is rather good to go. The seed garlic was sunk last autumn, having been purchased from the garlic farm. Over the years, I have brought and planted lots of different varieties of seed garlic. This was the first ever batch from the garlic farm, and I do have to say, I have not been disappointed.
As of yet I have only harvested the one bed; I have two beds of over wintering garlic. The foliage had fallen over completely, was all very straw like and yellow. The bulbs didn’t take much lift, and moved out of the soil quite easily. The vast majority of the bulbs are very, very big. By far the largest that I have ever managed to sow and harvest. Big clumps, that are almost trying to split away from the main one. And they honk. Honk of garlic. There are assorted varieties here, and the purple ones are my own personal favourite. Not least because of their size, but because of their smell as that indicates the flavour they will yield. These are solid and stable cloves. What will happen now, is that they will be left to dry for at least a few weeks. The skins and peel should dry out and become crispy. These are better than good garlic bulbs, and I don’t do plugs of people just for the sake of it. This is produce that has come from an excellent seed producer and exceeded my expectations. I would certainly order again from The Garlic Farm.
Then comes the home brew.
Also harvested from the plot today was the last of gooseberries and and also raspberries. I am lucky to half allotment neighbours who ask me to liberate their excess fruit. I don’t ever filch fruit, by virtue of ethics, I always ask permission for the fruit is liberated.
With the gooseberries, this was always going to be their final fate for this year. I have so far made an experimental jam with them, and also an experimental Indian pickle. Their final fate, was to be used to infuse gin. There was a lot of experimentation last year with all sorts of fruit. An interesting learning experience, that produced interesting Christmas presents for family and friends. I also received, via a twitter conversation, really good advice from the lovely Thane Prince. Add coriander seeds to the gin. This advice worked last year, so I am taking it up again, having raided mum’s garam masala stash. Whilst I also plan to make some form of raspberry ice cream; the gin is one possible experiment with those that I have been looking at for a while.
The process is simple. Put fruit into jar, add sugar and steep. Then place into an airing cupboard and wait for a bit. The raspberry gin is apparently quicker than the gooseberry gin; a matter of only a couple of weeks. Gooseberries will be left for a while longer.
There are weeds cropping up all over the plot. There are also harvests to made too. I will be hoeing the weeds down soon. The harvests, though, have been good so far. Firstly, we have spuds. Potatoes/ Over the last four years I have variable harvests. From sinking into open ground to raised beds. I finally have a spud that I am proud of. Today, I have harvested probably about a couple of pounds of kestrel second early potatoes. The foliage had started to keel over, so I took this as a sign to harvest. I wasn’t so quietly impressed when digging over. I may have blasphemed a little bit; my mother who was in ear shot, exclaimed my name. Not at my blaspheming, but at the fact that I was handing over fairly nice looking potatoes.
A plot neighbour kindly donated some redcurrants that she was harvesting. These with the pounds of frozen strawberries already harvested went into a jam alongside some purple haze and cayenne chillies.
It does taste rather nice, and I don’t actually like strawberries that much.
I have been further monitoring the raspberry situation. To be honest, I am not in the least bit happy. Yes, these were planted in Autumn. A full season collection, I had thirty canes. Not all of these have foliage, and they are all very much still brown and sticky. Those that are leafy, have so far produced the grand sum of six-maybe-raspberries. All of the canes have rooted, I have done the tug test. They have definitely rooted.
On the other hand, I have ten fall gold yellow raspberry canes and two pink autumn bliss raspberries. The two autumn bliss ones are happy, having been cut back, and now fairly leafy and about to bear fruit. The yellow ones, have provided three yellow raspberries so far. This I can deal with.
With the distinct lack of pink summer raspberries, I am feeling a bit dejected. A lot like England crashing out on penalties. Penalties, can be practised.
Runner beans are shooting up their supports, and rapidly. So much so, I have spotted a cluster of red flowers. The climbing french beans however, don’t look so good and are still very small.
All of my tomatoes are accounted for. The one’s that I planted in the poly tunnel, the one’s that have found good homes with friends and colleagues.
And then this one shows it’s face from between two courgettes. I had dismissed it a few days ago, as a possible weed in the compost. But no, with the warmth and light; this is officially a tomato. That is evident from the leaves, and I know not what variety. I guess it must have been in one of the would be dud jiffy pellets that was thrown into the compost degrade. Will keep an eye on it, and see what this turns out to be. It’s smaller than it’s relatives in the poly tunnel, but an interesting control participant as I didn’t expect to have any tomatoes outside.
It’s always nice to have pleasant surprises.
We are now-in terms of number fruit-more successful than last year. These are purple haze and cayenne and will be ripened on the window sill.
And yes, chillies are curly.
All that would be soft fruit on the allotment, you can eat it, infuse spirits, make it into smoothies. I rather wanted to make ice-creams. After much researching, and I did do a fair bit, I found one and bought it. Today was the first time I have used it, and luckily my mum had harvested some strawberries this morning. (I was asleep this morning when she did, so she came home and told me about it, loudly.) If the rest of the fruit on the plot works, that may make for more experiments.
The machine came with some simple recipes, so I have used one of them today. An eggless recipe as well, which is useful; as there are some family members who don’t eat ice cream made with eggs.
The bowl for the machine, had to be froze and for a while. The ingredients were then chilled to help the process. A ripe banana was added to the strawberries and both were mashed up to a smooth paste and then added to the ice cream mix.
I was fully expecting to be pacing for a good half an hour whilst the machine did it’s thing. It took twelve minutes to get a lovely softy whippy ice cream. And it tasted lovely, it passed the Pop’s taste test. The quantity made is small, I didn’t want to make more than we can eat. A very small scale study! The inner bucket of the machine is back in the freezer to make the ice cream a bit more solid.
Just in time for tea time.
No, no together, I assure you. At least not yet, not until I make a gooseberry pickle type thing. Two harvests in fact. The first, was of the garlic bulb. Purely as it had fallen over. I hoiked out the purple and and green bulb,not expecting the bulb to have split into cloves. Lo and behold, it had! There were quite a few cloves actually, and all very potent. These are the over wintering ones from the garlic farm, and I do have say that at the moment I am rather impressed. Have yet to harvest any more, I usually wait til the foliage has gone all pale and raffia like. This went into an aubergine, tomato and pepper chutney.
Another experiment, came courtesy of the maiden gooseberry crop. These are my first ever gooseberries. And they went into a jam. I did bite into gooseberry the other day. I didn’t like the gooseberry, the gooseberry didn’t like me. I did want to experiment though, so these were jammed with a scotch bonnet.
A week ago, I went to BBC Gardeners World Live and I happened upon Urban Herbs you can find details here about them. My mum had sent me out to get some swiss mint for her. I didn’t find any, but I did find some Indian mint-to placate my mum-as well as some sweet basil, orange mint, bronze fennel and french tarrogan. The tarrogan and basi have been potted into the poly tunnel.
Ma has cooed over her Indian mint, so I think she has been mildly distracted by it.
The chillies are rather happy in the poly tunnel at the moment. The vast majority are now starting to form flowers and fruit. As you can see, we have a handful of purple haze chillies. They are unripe in the picture, as they go red when they are ripe; however I used these to make a chutney. The Dorset Naga is now sending out the tiniest of buds and also the most delicate of white flowers. I have yet to successfully have a super hot, and this one was bought as a plant.
And then just as you are wanting to exit the poly, you see a fluffy bumble bee having a play in the apricot chilli pot.
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