Wordless Wednesday

Fruit day harvest; sqaush and apples - 4th October 2011

Fruit harvest

Life is odd at the moment but still carrying on in that relentless way it does. I have tried to write about my dads funeral but don’t have the words to do so…

Fly Ararics which are very pretty but not so useful - 18th September 2011

Fruiting plants haven’t done too badly this year; there seem to be plenty of apples, plums and berries weighing down the branches of trees along the road sides and in the woods and mushrooms are starting to appearing dotted around the forest waste land in the early mornings.

Wall garden; ever-bearing strawberries and 100's and 1000's tomatoes - 18th September 2011

In the garden the tomatoes are starting to ripen, the ever-bearing strawberries are still flower and bearing fruit and french beans are coming in in fits and starts.

Boston squash; possibly from one of the seeds I saved last year - 16th September 2011

At the allotment the squashes are doing well again and I have learnt from last year and harvested the ripe ones to allow the plants to put their energy into the un-ripened and forming fruit.

And would you like squash with that?

I noticed that one of my Boston squash had started to get little patches of mould on it and so was time to think up ways of using it all up before what I consider to be last years biggest, in all senses of the word, success of last year went to waste.

I don’t think I properly recorded  how big the last one we eat was but this one weighted 8.7kg once cut up, to fit on the kitchen scales, and all the seeds removed.

Some of it was made into roast squash which is one of our favourites and Boston squash seem to have an ideal taste for it, not too sweet and a little nutty. Similar to Butternut squash I would say but much easier to grow going by last years results. Some more was made into ‘Cheesey Squash Wraps’ and some more made into ‘Creamy Squash Soup’ and even more made into ‘Creamy Squash and Garlic Soup’.

The Cheesey Squash wraps were based on some spicey cheese wraps that I have made a few times lately and have gone down a storm, these however got mixed reactions but I thought they were delicious and so did Rhys so shall be made again I am sure. I made them by mixing the leftover roast squash with some that had been softened up and mashed, as there wasn’t enough roast squash left to go round, with some grated mature cheddar and some mozzarella cheese and put into tortilla wraps and served with salad including carrot, apple, beetroot, cherry tomatoes and leaves with a homemade raspberry, honey and mustard dressing.

The Creamy Squash Soup was made by softening onions with black paper and mixed herbs then adding the chopped up squash and allowing it all to ‘mush up’ together, then add water, vegetable stock, marmite and soy sauce all to taste. The first time I made this soup I also added cream but this made it far too creamy for most of us so I left it out this time. To make the Squash and Garlic Soup I added two bulbs of chopped up garlic to the softened onion and cooking for a few minutes before adding the squash and I did add a pot of cream to this one at the end as the garlic completely changes the taste.

No photos of any of it as I was too busy eating it all but hopefully this year I will get good at taking photos of the food I make.

Special little packages

My seeds arrived this morning! I now have all the carrot seed I should need for next year, and a few more and notice it didn’t say all the carrot seed I want, I have:

3000 Little Finger seeds, 2000 Flakkee (giant carrots) seeds, 1000 “Jaune du Doubs” (yellow carrot) seed, 500 Atomic Red seeds, 400 Cosmic Purple seeds and 300 Dragon, daucas carota var. sativus (purple Carrot) seeds 

All but the Little Finger and Flakkee are not F1 so I might be able to try saving some seeds from them, I’ve read a little bit about saving carrot seed, I can’t remember any of it, but I don’t think it was too hard to do.

I also bought 15 “Golden Nuggets” squash seeds, they are a very pretty pink and white colour, 12 “Little Gem” winter squash, pretty little black squashes and 10 “Celebration (F1)” winter squash seeds, the squashes for these are really pretty..