As the vine has now got Powdery mildew and started to die back, these darlings have been harvested. A very productive vine, but so very viscous! Have an entirely scratched arm. Think altogether I have harvested 17 of these beautifully ugly orbs. No idea what to do with them though, as these are not edible.
Was doing a bit of clearing today, though the aim had been to plant Cabbages and other brassicas. The Cinderella pumpkin vine has been felled as the fruit are now off. So having harvested a few more green tomatoes, a couple of plants have to make way for the cabbage cage; I popped into the poly.
It has been very quiet in the poly, I can’t say it’s gone particularly to plan in there. There is lots of foliage, with flowers coming from time to time. There has however, been a flurry of purple flowers. These are on the diamond, dancer and black prince aubergines. So these have been tickled and carefully observed. In rummaging today, I have found a few of what look like baby aubergines nubs. It’s quite hard to spot them in all that foliage. Will keep an eye on them to see if we get anywhere.
Three cabbages were collected having been cultivated under the heavy duty debris netting. The hearts are tiny, but that is of no consequence to Ma’s
Saag making. The outer leaves are a little filligreed. There was even some kale leaves were plucked.
Both of the ghost riders have now been harvested. The second is bigger, heavier and off the kitchen weighing scales at 6lb. The heaviest we have ever had!
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I had searched for simple recipes for plum brandy. I settled on this one with some tweaks of my own. Using 70cl of basics brandy, a couple of pounds of purple plums have been steeped with dark brown sugar. I have added three star anais across the two containers along with two centimetres of fresh root ginger and cassia bark.
Think the first jar may be a bit skewed. There were a few layers of plums and only 20 cl-ish of brandy. I underestimated the juice from the plums. The recipes all suggest that the plums should be removed after three months. I’m hoping that they will disintegrate.
When Japanese radish or mooli bolts, this is what you get. A sea of white flowers and mooli pods.
I have all of two chilli fruit. One jalepeno and one hot Thai. And that’s it. Nothing else had fruited, there is lots of foliage but nothing else. As the summer ends, and we enter the twilight of autumn; I am becoming disillusioned with the likelihood that anything is actually going to crop in there. Not really the success that I was hoping for in the poly tunnel.
Earlier in the summer, I rescued two raspberry plants from a well know high street garden centre. Knowing that these were autumn fruiting, i didn’t think that they would actually crop this year. Something of pleasant surprise though to have a handful already.
Not quite enough for boozy vodka.
Yet.
I am fortunate enough to have allotment neighbours who don’t mind sharing. In one neighbours case, pleading for things to be used. In this case, a tree laden with beautiful Cadbury purple plums. Ma and I asked permission and picked about five or six pounds. I only needed three.
Then there were blackberries which were also harvested from the edge of my own plot. These were all gathered up. Washed and the plums where stoned as it were. All piled into a pan with sugar and water. stewed down a mashed before lemon juiced was added and set to boil.
And boil. This didn’t get to setting point of 104 degrees; but the bottom of my pan did get very black I tell you. All very disheartening, this gloopy jam, poured into jam jars. One of which has so far set. I guess this can be used as gloopy jam; though ma did spread it onto toast. I also put some onto bananas and watermelons.
Might be saved yet!
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