shopping for food
The fridge was looking empty this morning, so we went to the allotment to do a bit of “shopping”.
It turns out there were other things doing a bit of shopping there already: the bees have discovered last year’s leeks and were having a party on the blossoms. Here are a few thumbnails for your clicking pleasure:
.
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While they were getting drunk on nectar, Matt destroyed weeds with his mighty hoe, and I gathered the usual crops: Swiss chard, courgettes, tomatoes, onions, berries, broccoli, cabbage.
I noticed years ago that I’m much more tolerant of imperfections in home-grown vegetables. Flea beetles have munched holes in the chard leaves. The courgettes are paler at one end. Some of the tomatoes are half-green, half-orange. The onions haven’t dried out properly because of all the rain, so the upper leaf parts (which by now are supposed to be withered, dry, ropey things that you can plait in with other onions to make a “string”of them (which you then loop around your neck for that cartoon French look)) have gone a bit slimy. The berries are under-ripe, over-ripe, home to tiny maggots, a bit mouldy on one side, and so on. The broccoli has caterpillars living in it; I had to pry them out with a knife. And the cabbage turned out to be home to a whole colony of woodlice, which all tumbled out when I held it upside down and shook it.
What I’ve learnt is that none of that will affect the flavour. I suppose if we think our vegetables are irresistible and tasty, then probably insects will too.
The peas have succumbed to chocolate spot, which is a disfiguring infection of little brown spots all over the stems, leaves and pods. Once the spots have spread so much that they’ve joined together, the plants will die. But until then the actual peas inside the pods are fine. They must’ve caught it from the broad beans (which had a trace of it just at the end of their season). The runner beans and French beans have caught it too, but I’m hoping it won’t overwhelm them until we’ve had a good few weeks of beans.
Typing of which, I harvested our first runner and French beans today. I still can’t get over how those pretty red-and-white blossoms can turn into great long beany things like this:
I spent nearly an hour in the greenhouse, tying the tomato growth to the canes, and removing the lower leaves. They’re not cropping brilliantly, and I don’t know why. Other greenhouses at the site have plants packed as closely as ours, but they’re dripping with red fruit where ours are still green. Oh well. If they never ripen I suppose I can console myself with several jars of green tomato chutney.
Finally, wonder of wonders, we have our first sunflower blossom. Turns out it’s red, which I wasn’t expecting.
HURRAY! You have no idea how happy I am to see that. Our first successful sunflower in five years of trying and failing. I wonder if all sunflower seeds are edible...
So the fridge is now full and I am planning more delicious meals: courgette fritters (again, because they were the tastiest things EVER), fried haddock with French beans and new potato salad, crème brulee with a compote of berries hiding underneath, cabbage and apple salad with toasted sesame seeds, onion tart, lamb chops and broccoli with hollandaise sauce, tomato and basil salad (why mess with a perfect combination?), and sag aloo (again, because it turns out differently every time I make it).
If only all shopping could be this much fun.
It turns out there were other things doing a bit of shopping there already: the bees have discovered last year’s leeks and were having a party on the blossoms. Here are a few thumbnails for your clicking pleasure:
.
.
While they were getting drunk on nectar, Matt destroyed weeds with his mighty hoe, and I gathered the usual crops: Swiss chard, courgettes, tomatoes, onions, berries, broccoli, cabbage.
I noticed years ago that I’m much more tolerant of imperfections in home-grown vegetables. Flea beetles have munched holes in the chard leaves. The courgettes are paler at one end. Some of the tomatoes are half-green, half-orange. The onions haven’t dried out properly because of all the rain, so the upper leaf parts (which by now are supposed to be withered, dry, ropey things that you can plait in with other onions to make a “string”of them (which you then loop around your neck for that cartoon French look)) have gone a bit slimy. The berries are under-ripe, over-ripe, home to tiny maggots, a bit mouldy on one side, and so on. The broccoli has caterpillars living in it; I had to pry them out with a knife. And the cabbage turned out to be home to a whole colony of woodlice, which all tumbled out when I held it upside down and shook it.
What I’ve learnt is that none of that will affect the flavour. I suppose if we think our vegetables are irresistible and tasty, then probably insects will too.
The peas have succumbed to chocolate spot, which is a disfiguring infection of little brown spots all over the stems, leaves and pods. Once the spots have spread so much that they’ve joined together, the plants will die. But until then the actual peas inside the pods are fine. They must’ve caught it from the broad beans (which had a trace of it just at the end of their season). The runner beans and French beans have caught it too, but I’m hoping it won’t overwhelm them until we’ve had a good few weeks of beans.
Typing of which, I harvested our first runner and French beans today. I still can’t get over how those pretty red-and-white blossoms can turn into great long beany things like this:
I spent nearly an hour in the greenhouse, tying the tomato growth to the canes, and removing the lower leaves. They’re not cropping brilliantly, and I don’t know why. Other greenhouses at the site have plants packed as closely as ours, but they’re dripping with red fruit where ours are still green. Oh well. If they never ripen I suppose I can console myself with several jars of green tomato chutney.
Finally, wonder of wonders, we have our first sunflower blossom. Turns out it’s red, which I wasn’t expecting.
HURRAY! You have no idea how happy I am to see that. Our first successful sunflower in five years of trying and failing. I wonder if all sunflower seeds are edible...
So the fridge is now full and I am planning more delicious meals: courgette fritters (again, because they were the tastiest things EVER), fried haddock with French beans and new potato salad, crème brulee with a compote of berries hiding underneath, cabbage and apple salad with toasted sesame seeds, onion tart, lamb chops and broccoli with hollandaise sauce, tomato and basil salad (why mess with a perfect combination?), and sag aloo (again, because it turns out differently every time I make it).
If only all shopping could be this much fun.