8 & 15 August 2009 - What a pickle

This blog is going to focus on Outputs rather than Progress Reports. But before we get onto that, we know you'll want a quick roundup of progress.

These two weekends have been extremely busy - we are in the eye of the storm in terms of harvesting, tending, weeding, etc, and we are truly tired by the end of each session. Courgettes and now beans (french and dwarf) are regularly picked. The recently planted runner beans have swarmed up their poles and the opportunistic peas also recently sown have come up strong. Raspberries are beginning to make themselves felt and more potatoes dug up (second earlies).

The pumpkin (spreading amongst the potatoes on the bank) managed to surprise us with a large hidden fruit and the butternut squash are beginning to throw out fruits - though the ones in the main bed seem to be getting got by something. The old original peas have been taken down and regular broccoli has been harvested - note to self - do not sow so many broccoli next year. Mind you I said that last year. The transplanted leeklings are still not great but at least they are upright. We hope that they are late winter leeks and just need lots of growing. We've also had a second, mighty tasty cabbage and on-going carrots, and dug up some of the onions. Rainbow chard coming up strong too. Opportunistic sowing of spring onions and pak choi. So, as you can see, lots going on.

But what do we do with it all? As last year, we realise that we have to run to keep up with the amount of produce. At the top of the blog is a typical harvest from a week's growth - more than we can eat. Harvesting and storing are the main reasons we can't leave the plot at this time of year for longer than one week. Here is a list of Outputs.

General excess - veggie bags to our Neighbours and miscellaneous visitors. Nobody who visits the plot goes away empty-handed. Usually consist of broccoli, potatoes, carrots, courgettes and very special one-off gifts of garlic (as we have a shed-load).

Carrots - quite a lot have been frozen. Mostly kept in storage for home usage or munched directly from the soil after washing.

Potatoes - stored in garage, kept in storage for home usage, general excess.

Beans - some frozen and kept in storage for home usage.

Broccoli - some frozen, general excess, fresh consumption at home.

Shallots - kept in storage for home usage, pickled.

Strawberries - munched, fresh consumption at home, jam.

Courgette - fresh pickle, general excess, fresh consumption at home, chutney, have just found a recipe for courgette cake (deep joy), help - running out of ideas

Garlic - kept in storage for home usage, one failed garlic in oil experiment (YEUCH), pickle

Peas - some frozen, fresh consumption at home.

Cabbage - fresh consumption at home.

We wonder about whether we should weigh everything, so that the end of the year we can say grandly that the plot produced 100lbs of produce (and that's probably just the courgettes). It's very interesting how differently we have to treat each vegetable once it is harvested. For example, soft fruit can be frozen but it's delicious eaten raw in situ. The maincrop onions and potatoes, when they are dug, will be stored for winter usage. Shallots on the other hand which keep just as well we decide to pickle. Courgettes are so versatile that we can do all sorts with them, though making chutney from one recipe means that we have to buy 1.5kg tomatoes, etc. We counter the expense by blagging free apples from The Neighbours. But still there is something inherently satisfying in cooking a huge batch of chutney from one 1.5kg monster courgette - even though when we made it yesterday it took 7 hours to solidify (which is probably the reason I decided to share the experience with you today).

Freezing is another option but we have been more choosy about what to freeze. Courgette though willing is not quite up to the mark (ahem) when it is defrosted, though peas and beans are fine. Carrots are OK, but nowhere near as nice. So there are limitations - and of course, we are both eating more vegetables than we have eaten in our whole lives.

So what pickle recipes do you use, we hear you ask? Well, for the shallots and jam, it was Delia. Simple, straightforward and the Goddess Delia is always right. For the courgette pickle, we rely on a somewhat shabby cutout of a Jamie Oliver recipe from the News of the World magazine (I know, I know, you're all shocked - but this is a feisty, "fresh" pickle that is ready in days to eat and very reliable). For the pickled garlic, some anonymous recipe from the internet involving soy sauce and honey (very tasty). For the chutney, we used a recipe circulated by Jan and Pat - it was light on the detail of when to call it a day and how long to leave it before we eat it so we decide 3 months before consumption to be on the safe side. The ingredients were courgette, apple, garlic, tomatoes, mixed spice, chili powder, mustard seeds, sugar and vinegar. The house smells like the pickle factory of my youth. On the right is the sum total so far of the pickling for your admiration.

We are going to enter the jam into The Show but we know there will be stiff competition. Too soon for the chutneys, alas. They and the pickled shallots will be left for 3 months. So they can remind us of summer and our herculean labours. And we haven't even mentioned the produce that we have acquired - such as a pumpkin and several cucumbers from various allotment neighbours.

Weather note: warm but not too warm, rain, cloud, you name it. Good growing conditions (i.e. we don't have to make special watering trips.)

1 August 2009 – End of staycation

Time alone will tell whether today was the best day of the year in the allotment. Perhaps, though, it is our end-of-staycation-tinged view that has made our day seem so rich.

To start, we had an 80th birthday party for Jim, who, we believe, is the oldest Burydell allotmenteer and, it is rumoured, whose father and grandfather had plots here. About 40 people turned up at lunchtime at The Falcon Public House (the pub nearest to Burydell Lane) and Jim was presented with a new bench for his plot. We may all be pitching in to help him in future, as his primary helper is moving house and will not be able to drop in as often. More community spirit.

A natter with the Ladies and a few other familiar faces, then off to the plot, which is in full bloom. Maincrop potatoes still doing well, despite us having had to remove two plants suffering from Leaf Curl. Cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli doing well, although some off the latter sort of going to seed. These stalks removed to the compost, with tender shoots to follow (we hope).

Onions and kale getting on well. Leeks, transported from the seed bed a little while ago, are perking up. K narrowed the deep wells into which they had been moved, because they didn't seem to have the strength/support to bring themselves erect. (We've all been there.)

Apples. Despite good advice from our Hungarian apple expert, the tree I like best has produced only three apples - though fine, plump apples they are. There's something we need to learn re pruning - all the new growth each autumn? Blueberry plant seems to be flagging. Autumn raspberries will explode soon.

Their Fruit Cage neighbours, two leeks, we have left in flower, as the bees love them. We will take a view nearer the Agricultural Show on whether to enter the fine, sturdy beasts.

Original peas dying away, and yet, and yet, newly planted peas are emerging. Too late for a further crop? Who knows?

Various beans and the corn are growing, but seem shorter in general than those of other plots.

Plentiful sun reminded us that a visit by our 3.5 year old neighbour Connor had been postponed earlier in the week due to showers. It turned out that he had a window in his diary (after a nap) and he, Jo and Dave dropped by for carrot-picking and the harvest of a small bag of second-early potatoes from the bank. He has a gift, we think, for spotting potatoes as they are uncovered by the pitchfork. They also left with a courgette (something like our eighth to date), and Dave's growing conviction that he is a Man of the Soil who should become an Allotmenteer.

So far, then, community spirit and conversion.

We left with second-earlies, courgettes, broccoli, carrots, raspberries and blueberries.

Earlier in the week - the second of our two-week staycation - we had a much-enjoyed, and all-too-brief visit from our friend the eminent Professor Jeffery, who had a feast of our produce at supper. He seemed to approve of our plot activities, and kindly carried home the first of our summer cabbages, a monster. (NB. this was one of the Homebase seedlings and turned out to be exceedingly tasty.)

Of the 148 garlic bulbs harvested recently, now drying in our home greenhouse, several have been pickled and, today, one put into herby oil for snacking. As the Radlett deli owner, himself an allotment novice, said, a 148-bulb harvest allows you some scope for experimentation. The drying bulbs could be smelled next door, but we hope to smooth over any temporary discomfort through vegetable bribery.

So it seemed to us, on balance, to have been a fine day, perhaps the day that will epitomise the summer of 2009.