Tag Archives: courgette

Squashes, success

Space Invaders

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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

chillies, In a bit of pickle

Little bits of rocket fuel

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I love my spicy little triffid monsters. These leafy, flowered beauties have taken up the kitchen window sill for some time now. Little berry sized chillies have formed; today I harvested those of a reasonable size. I felt compelled to as there are a lot of flowers but also a number of these self abort and fall off.

The vague plan with these, is to possibly make an experimental batch of chilli jam.

And with the jam making. I tried to make a courgette chutney.

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The recipe is from pam the jam at river cottage. And is tenuously Bollywood. It now sits in the fridge. Ready for consumption.

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

Squashes, success

My Courgette, is your Zucchini

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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

success

Pinched and pulled

“I found a mooli!”

“Have you? Lovely.”

Well, mother, it’s a white icicle radish. But if you insist.

Mum pulled out a few sparkler radishes as well for herself and pops. Both of whom, have now decked that they don’t like the leaves. So these were composted.

The one key coup today.

Chard and spinach.

That was she wanted today. And no messing.

Mum harvested a fair bit of what looks like perpetual spinach and may have been Vulcan chard. The premise was to make it into pakoras-that’s onion bhajis, folks. But we really shouldn’t be eating more fried food.

And what was I doing whilst she cut that stuff down? Watering squashes. Striato di Napoli has a couple of babies, there may be a little jack baby, and baby bush marrow. Please to report that leaves are filling out nicely. Must keep feeding them.

Yours in anticipation

Horticultural Hobbit

Planting out, Squashes

Out for the count

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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

classroom experimentation, Preparation

Waiting in the wings

The burgeoning windowsills.

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Lots and lots of squashes, sweetcorn, very very very small tomatos, cucumbers that are increasingly more triffid like. Yes, I know that is a lot of squashes. They all require lots of room, lots of feeding. They might find themselves donated to a loving home. Hoping that more sweet corn will germinate. All of four, will not make for a suitable block.

Chillies are there too, I think the one that is the most rampant the moment is purple Beauty from Real seed Catalogue. There is also an early jalepeno from them, as well as Nigel’s outdoor chilli that they used to do. The seed sown was from a lovely Grape. In that squash box, there is a striato de Napoli courgette also from them. There are a couple of seeds, from another heritage seed collection Thomas Etty For the first time ever, sweet mini red has germinated. There are few patio varieties and other purple ones in the mix.

Painted lady and scarlet emperor runners have been sown. They had only just started to germinate. They do not make for pretty babies.

There are also baby sunflowers for the Big Sunflower project 2013.

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Everything is waiting for the threat of frost to pass. It is going to a long four weeks!

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

success

Atten-shun

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The slightest bit of sun; and you know about it.

Mama H and I took an evening walk down to the plot to water the newly broadcast sown seeds. And in doing so, I observed just how sentry like the various bits of Garlic and onions were doing. Even the leeks sown in classroom, appear to have taken on a new vigorous approach in basking in the sunshine. The baby leeks have fattened up quite a bit in a matter of a few days. They are yet to be pencil thick, but they are not as wiry as they were.

It is the allieums on the plot that make me feel more positive. No longer stood as though they are sulking, but all very sentry like; garlic, onions and shallots that have been looking very miserable, look all very green and resplendent. A touch windburned perhaps, but after all the miserable moodiness of autumn and winter there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Remains to be seen how big a crop it will be, but it does look nice.

On the window sill, germination is happening at a remarkable pace. Three cucumber babies have appeared. Perhaps more. But femspot and crystal lemon have raised their heads from the modular cells. A yellow scallop squash is threatening to break out, as is a Avalon squash seed. The last of chilli seeds are being closely monitored; it will have been a month since sowing, and over a third of the seeds sown have come through. That is a lot of chillies.

The sun came out, there is all to play for,

Yours in anticipation,

Hortcultural Hobbit

early days

Placing the seed into the pot may 2011

Having pottered around for the last three years and bumbling around; this would be the debut Horticultural Hobbit blog. So this is very much about getting the show on the road, what with all the accrued knowledge and what is to come.

I transfered today, this years cohort of chillies into larger plants. So that is everything that I have grown from seed, now in it’s summer position and place. And then I stood there, and thought about what I sew or plant next. I was reassured, that I should wait. See what takes off, and what doesn’t, before I got ahead of myself.

Fair point, it is meant to be summer after all. Things should be cooking, and we should at the end of it, get some lovely, home grown goodies. That does not however, stop me from having a look at the gardening book and see what I could when the current crop has ceased. A couple of post its in the relevant pages, and I know where to look in a month or twos time.

The current state of play then.

Courgettes, have been rather productive. At the moment, we have two nicely shaped and sized courgettes a week. We started off with a handful of courgettes, that were a lot like Okra. Small, wiry, but niblet sized. As it got a litle warmer, and the leaves sprouted, we have got some better sized ones. Winning, at the moment, as far as these go.

Carrots, them paris market thingies. Last year, the crop was altogether laughable. Randomly planted, and then observed on an ad hoc basis; the carrots were like little stumpy crayons. There are lots of leaves this year, and there are a few carrots. This years crop, do look a little small again. Next time, will just go with a nantes type thing, and see what happens. There is still some time, however, for the carrots to cook through. There may still be a decent or not bunch yet. It’s the prospect of that pesky carrot fly that causes nightmares.

There are lots and lots of Aphids. Don’t know where they have come from, what they plan to do with the veggies. But they be everywhere. Having seen only one or two ladybirds, I really don’t want the little green blighters to be hanging around very much,

Butternut squash has all these little black ants all over it. They are creepiing and crawling around a mass of leaves, littered with male flowers. There are two female flowers at this point, with the rather bulbous butternut squash bud behind them. I would rather like the flowers to open, and hope that there is some pollination. That worries me a little, since I’ve seen all of one bumble bee. Have learned this week, that some varieties benefit from assisted polination. Keep glancing at it, hoping that the bees do the leg work for me. There is definitely some truth in there not being many bees around.

Now it is a case of wait and see, or good things come to those that wait perhaps. It’s all very exciting, planting things. One must however, take one’s time and let nature take it’s course. There may be a small victory dance if the butternut squash does actually pollinate. Then there is the aubergine. The one flower, is a little spikey,and closed as tight as a scotsman’s wallet. Doesn’t appear to be opening anytime soon.

Yours in Anticipation

Horticultural Hobbit