Huerto

christmas eve harvest

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Getting ready for tomorrow’s meal, I was pleasantly surprised how much there was to harvest. The menu will therefore include a fennel, leek, walnut and roquefort soufflé tart, celeriac and parsnip gratin, roast beetroot, sauteed oca and crosnes with buttered flower sprouts and cavolo nero – with a garnish of carrot slaw and winter salad leaves.

Merry Christmas!

flower sprouts & cavolo nero

oca and crosnes

winter greens from greenhouse

carrots, fennel, leeks, celeriac, kohl rabi and various beets

parsnips and jerusalem artichokes

Posted in Allotment | 5 Comments

crosnes and oca

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Ruth Paris

After moving the bean tepee from the asparagus bed and weeding the chard & chicory, I continued on with the florence fennel & clearing triffid-like nasturtiums.

Curious to see what had happened to the crosnes I planted a couple of years ago, I poked about under the uninspiring now-dead foliage and found a great network of white fibrous roots decorated with pearly shell-like little tubers. Look like they could be a bit of an invasive problem but probably worth keeping. They will take some cleaning but I recall them being delicious when first encountered at The Pig restaurant in the New Forest, so will try them sautéed in butter.

Following the tuberous theme, I then went to investigate the Oca and found these little orangey red poppets just below the oxalis look-alike foliage. Not sure they are worth the space they take up, but for now will focus on a tuberous supper of mixed sauteed pearls.

Posted in Allotment | Tagged artichoke betony, chard, chicory, crosnes, oca | Comments Off

borlotti beans, mostly Lingua di Fuoco

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Such a lovely job to shell out the beautiful beans, some for drying and some for now …

simmered gently with aromatics from the huerto – onion, carrot, garlic, sage & rosemary:

Posted in Allotment, beans | Tagged borlotto bean lingua di fuoco | 4 Comments

moon effect

Posted on September 29, 2017 by Ruth Paris

I was late in sowing winter salads for the greenhouse. Had meant to get everything done in early September but life intervened. Then, when I did have time, my Gardening by the Moon calendar said that these were Bad Days!

Dilemma.

I decided to stick to the principles and wait for a Good Day (i.e. a waxing crescent moon). And as I was planting salads, I decided to wait an extra 24 hours for an auspicious day for sowing leaf crops – 25th September. Hmmmm. Part of me did feel a bit silly, waiting on when I was already late in the month for seed sowing, the days becoming shorter and shorter. Easy to be sceptical.

Well! Returning from a few days away, I called in to the plot on the 28th to water the seed boxes and was amazed to find germination in most of them – after just four days.

The foliage in front of the trays in the top photo is a happy flourish of Frances’s Choice, the open source seed I got from the remarkable Dr Alan Kapuler in Oregon. I had had very poor results with it and had quite forgotten I’d planted a sickly seedling in the greenhouse. This had then been completely overgrown by the bullying achocha ‘Fat Baby’ all summer yet has leaped into flourishing activity in the 2 weeks since the achocha was relegated to the compost and is now huge and budding happily!

Posted in Allotment | Tagged Alan Kapuler, Frances's choice marigold, gardening by the moon | 2 Comments

late summer pickings

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Chicory – bitter but delicious in salads with the sweetness of pears and walnuts in a honey and mustard dressing.

Borlotto bean Lingua di Fuoco – filling out nicely and nearly ready to harvest for dried beans over the winter.

The last of the raspberries and a couple of lemon apple cucumbers plus another branch of lemon verbena for fragrant tisanes over the winter.

Posted in Allotment | Tagged borlotto bean lingua di fuoco, lemon apple cucumber, lemon verbena, onions, red chicory, yellow raspberries | 5 Comments

achocha!

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Ruth Paris

It started with a wee pip, about the size of a melon seed. Which then grew and grew and pretty well took over the greenhouse. Achocha ‘Fat Baby’. Looks prickly but isn’t. Tastes rather like green peppers and can be used as such. Today I had to hack it back to clear a bit more space for the tomatoes. Note to self: do not plant achocha in greenhouse again.

The rest of the harvest was rather better mannered, including some lovely blackberries from the hedge around the allotments. More fruit leathers I think!

Posted in Allotment | Tagged achocha 'fat baby', blackberries, fruit leather | 3 Comments

tomatoes and basil

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Ruth Paris

And an overblown view of the huerto in late summer languor… the ammi visnaga having rather taken over!

Posted in Allotment | Tagged ammi visnaga 'Compact White', basil, tomatoes | 3 Comments

golden days

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Posted in Allotment | Tagged lemon apple cucumber, sweetcorn, tomato gold nugget, yellow courgettes | Comments Off

blackberry & apple fruit leather

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Ruth Paris

An old fashioned way of preserving fruit; basically just make a thick puree and then dry it in a thin layer on baking parchment in a very low oven (bottom of the Aga). No sugar, easy peasy, and the result is a surprisingly delicious chewey snack.

Once dried, and the malleable layer of fruit peeled off the paper, it (and the paper) looked like a wonderful jewelled stained glass window! Then I just cut strips with scissors, rolled them up and stored in a glass container. Delicious.

dried out ready to peel

ready to snack

Posted in Allotment, allotment recipes, preserves | Tagged blackberry leather, bramble and apple leather, fruit leather | 4 Comments

day of these days

Posted on August 14, 2017 by Ruth Paris

A poem by Laurie Lee prompted me to consider the fragrant tenderness of bean flowers with a new appreciation.

DAY OF THESE DAYS by Laurie Lee

(published August 1946 in Horizon)

Such a morning it is when love

leans through geranium windows

and calls with a cockerel’s tongue.

When red-haired girls scamper like roses

over the rain-green grass;

and the sun drips honey.

When hedgerows grow venerable,

berries dry black as blood,

and holes suck in their bees.

Such a morning it is when mice

run whispering from the church,

dragging dropped ears of harvest.

When the partridge draws back his spring

and shoots like a buzzing arrow

over grained and mahogany fields.

When no table is bare,

and no breast dry,

and the tramp feeds on ribs of rabbit.

Such a day it is when time

piles up the hills like pumpkins,

and the streams run golden.

When all men smell good,

and the cheeks of girls

are as baked bread to the mouth.

As bread and beanflowers

the touch of their lips,

and their white teeth sweeter than cucumbers.

Posted in Allotment | Tagged bean flowers, day of these days poem, Laurie Lee | 4 Comments

“… a green thought in a green shade”

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Andrew Marvell – aptly named; a marvellous poet. How astonishing to be so touched all the way from the 17th Century…

Posted in Allotment | 2 Comments

colour!

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Posted in Allotment | Tagged borage, coriander flower, rose, sweet peas, zinnias | 2 Comments

early morning sunshine

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Ruth Paris

This gallery contains 7 photos.

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fresh and tasty

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Such a pleasure; first the picking…

And then the eating!

Posted in Allotment, beans, peas, produce, strawberries, sweet peas | Tagged allotment produce, baby beetroot, griddled courgettes, show perfection peas | 2 Comments

evening sunshine & puddling in leeks

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Such a beautiful evening. The grass easily cut by my new lightweight lithium battery mower. Thyme flowering with bee-enticing display. Fruit cage starred with jewelled currants and strawberries. O Joy.

And baby leeks from Andrew’s bountiful flower stall at Stamford market; ‘puddled in’ as the delightful expression has it, duly trimmed top and bottom, holes made with my much-loved slim yet strong oak dibber – some in neat lines where lettuce recently blew, some whimsically posted between lettuces and nascent asparagus (I’m sure against “the rules”, but it makes me smile; and where there is space, there too is nature beckoning…)

A final look back, heading home with lettuce, mangetout, sweet peas and strawberries for this evening’s table:

Posted in Allotment, asparagus bed, bees, strawberries, sweet peas | Tagged dibber, leeks, puddling in, thyme | 3 Comments

easy peasy allotment supper

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Ruth Paris

A handful of mixed greens (kale, beetroot tops, red & white chard, brocolletti) and a baby yellow courgette. Supermarket all-butter puff pastry. An egg and a glug of cream. Yum.

Posted in Allotment, allotment recipes | Tagged allotment supper, baby courgette, mixed greens tart | 1 Comment

flowery, bowery

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Ruth Paris

I do like this little poem by George Ellis, The Twelve Months:

Snowy, Flowy, Blowy,
Showery, Flowery, Bowery,
Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy,
Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy

June is indeed ‘bowery’ in the huerto, and although the sweet peas have not yet reached the top of the arch, the whole plot is dripping with flowers:

The bounty continues with carrot thinnings, butterhead lettuce ‘Grandpa Admires’, calabrese, mangetout ‘Shiraz’ and ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’, baby courgettes and the very first Charlotte potatoes.

Posted in Allotment, cosmos | Tagged calabrese, carrot thinnings, carrots, charlotte potatoes, James Galway Rose, lettuce grandpa admires, mangetout shiraz, violas | Comments Off

first pickings…

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Preparing a picnic for our village Great Get Together party, here are the very first little mangetout and sugar snap peas, calabrese and baby courgettes (varieties alba, soleil and romanesco) – delicious crudités with aioli made with the early wet garlic. And more gooseberries, this time destined to become gloopy yummy fool in pretty old teacups.

I did smile when checking dear Nigel Slater’s gooseberry recipes; on the subject of gooseberry & elderflower fool he says, “…the amount (of sugar) you will need depends on how sharp the gooseberries are, but take care not to take the sharpness out. I like a tart fool…”

So do I :0)

Posted in Allotment, gooseberries | Tagged baby courgettes, crudites, gooseberry fool, Nigel Slater, picnic | 1 Comment

a beautiful evening

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Ruth Paris

The greenhouse is starting to look quite ‘professional’, even though I’m making it up as I go along… I have discovered that using twine for tomatoes to grow up doesn’t work – the strings that I secured into the planting holes have all broken already so I had to replace with horrid blue nylon; it seems that jute is rather too biodegradable!

Speaking of jute, I recently bought some wonderful coloured raffia online from Nutscene, a company based in Dundee where jute was a traditional industry. Intrigued by the name, I smiled to find that:

“The patented “Greentwist” centre pull lock tie spool of twine was first produced in Dundee, Scotland. When this wonderful green twine was used to tie up plants it was, of course, ‘not seen’ giving rise to “Nutscene!”

The vigorous plant below right is an achocha ‘fat baby’ – I’ve not grown this before but it is climbing incredibly fast. I just hope there is going to be enough space for everything…

Then I spent a happy half hour watering. Such a delightful contemplative process, particularly as I was quite alone except for a beady blackbird who followed me round, finding nice juicy morsels on the damp surface.

And then home to put the sweet peas into a vase alongside the peonies and a single rose ‘Nostalgia’.

Posted in Allotment | Tagged achocha, calabrese, gooseberries, greenhouse, peonies, rose Nostalgia, strawberry planter, sweet peas | 8 Comments

tipping point

Posted on June 4, 2017 by Ruth Paris

Every year it seems like things are never going to come right. Either my planting scheme hasn’t worked, or I’ve been chaotic or over-exuberant. Or all three.

And then suddenly it comes together. There’s a turning point where everything looks good and the promise of harvests to come is immanent. Today was the day!