Pumpkins and bakes

So we have seen the Bake off final and I have harvested
4 pumpkins, 3 acorn squash and yet more yellow patty pans.

I made Green tomato chutney (from the latest Jamie magazine) which was great.

On the other hand my stuffed squash was not 100% successful. In fact not even 50% successful. I preferred the filling (60g Bulgar wheat with fridge veg)

I also made a lovely carrot, apple and courgette cake from the amazing Cake Hunter blog. It wasn't too sweet as uses honey, fruit juice and dates to sweeten it. It also had no eggs so quite heavy. You would definitely need the butter icing recommended but I screwed that up by using low fat cream cheese which dissolved into a pool that could never achieve frosting consistency. I admit I had to buy it in the end for office presentation.

I enjoyed it so much and colleagues liked it so much that I decided to bake it again for my own personal version of bake off - band of bakers. Yet again, I had trouble with frosting when practising.

On the plot I need to dig over the ground for winter and prepare soil - weed/ manure. STILL NOT DONE despite perfect weather - will have to wait until end November

In the recent storms, which we were lucky enough to miss the worst of, we just lost 2 fence panels. They will add fuel to the great allotment bonfire I am planning.

Finally with one of the pumpkins I roasted slices with whole onions and blitzed them for soup and also made Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's pumpkin, chili cornbread which was a huge success.

A tidal wave of tomatoes

Lately it has been tomato season and I have harvested kilos of cherry tomatoes from the allotment. Even without being staked and with impending blight in the area, this has presented me with a problem of how to use so many in one go when we are traveling often or deadline with deadlines.

Nature has her own deadlines though so I had to get creative.  Clearly there are the standard roast tomatoes, tomato sauces that can be frozen. But there is only so much space in our 3 freezers and they are pretty much full! So I've made Mexican inspired brunches (sort of Huevos Rancheros without the chilli) which is essentially chopped fried tomatoes and onions, whatever vegetables you might have to hand (here I used peas) with a well made for an egg in the middle - a really filling breakfast that is low calorie and healthy.

I also made ketchup which, to be honest, doesn't taste anything like the Heinz ketchup I am used to but is tasty none the less.

Ingredients
1 large red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
Chilli flakes to taste
Pickling spices
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 cloves
Sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/3 cup soft brown sugar
Place all the vegetables in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan with a big splash of olive oil and the garlic, chili flakes, coriander seeds and cloves. Season with the pepper and a good pinch of salt.

Cook gently over a low heat for 10 to 15 minutes until softened, stirring every so often. Add all the tomatoes and 1 1/2 cups of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently until the sauce reduces by half.

Blend the sauce in a food processor or with a hand blender. Put the sauce into a clean pan and add the vinegar and the sugar. Place the sauce on the heat and simmer until it reduces and thickens to the consistency of tomato ketchup. At this point, correct the seasoning to taste.

Spoon the ketchup through a funnel into sterilized bottles, then seal tightly and place in a cool dark place or the refrigerator until needed - it should keep for 6 months.

"Our agreement with the producers of "Jamie at Home" only permit us to make 2 recipes per episode available online. Food Network regrets the inconvenience to our viewers and foodnetwork.com users"

* Sterilizing Jars Tips:

To sterilize jars before filling with jams, pickles or preserves, wash jars and lids with hot, soapy water. Rinse well and arrange jars and lids open sides up, without touching, on a tray. Boil the jars and lids in a large saucepan, covered with water, for 15 minutes.

Or else pop some water in and microwave them.

As a rule, hot preserves go into hot jars and cold preserves go into cold jars.

Time for tomatoes

Despite complete neglect, the tomatoes seem to be doing well and on the whole are escaping the slugs and blight. I gathered 1.5kg today and made a great sauce from any bashed ones (including some figs in).

I also spotted a bumblebee on a bright pink zinia which are among the flowers that I am growing as cutting flowers. A particular success has been the statice also known as sea lavender (Limonium) which has grown particularly well in white and peach - the blue and hot pink were less plentiful.

Squash challenge

It's that time of year again. The time when squash become a staple of our diet and I need to get creative in the kitchen.

Currently we have 4.41kg of yellow patty pan squash which look like mini flying saucers but taste much better.

On top of that a kind allotment neighbour, Adrian, offered me 3 of his courgettes which had overgrown into marrows when he wasn't looking. (Another 3.06kg)
Definitely time to search out the squash recipes.

The weather has been weird - more like April sunshine and showers. (17/8)
Tomatoes are starting to ripen but I should have staked them, fed them and pinched out side shoots. They are now prolific and resting on the ground.

I also cut down the old raspberry canes but didn't have time to take them to the tip. With winter brassicas in under weed suppressing fabric it's starting to look ready for Xmas.As I said I planted winter brassicas through weed fabric but most have been eaten. How can I help them survive?

I also stripped our stairs of carpet so will use that over a mulch of manure to prepare the soil for planting next year.

Assessing the harvest to date

After a fair bit of neglect, a late start because of frosts and a recent heatwave (including a plague of flying ants) it's surprising that there has been anything to harvest. And yet there has been. By far the best performer has been the raspberry patch - 7.2kg by the 26th July. There are more raspberries to pick but it's just too wet to pick them today. That should probably be the last picking then I can dig up plants near the path and cut down the old canes.

The mangetout are still giving a little (660g) though they are best as peas now

I get the occasional red currants from the plants in the garden - they are very tart but have high levels of vitamin C so are best mixed into a smoothie.

I'm so glad that I started growing some cutting flowers - I got this great bunch of statice which will also dry well and give me colour even in the winter. I also saw a brave first gladioli (Gladiolus) flowering in the rain today.

The latest, and more or less final, haul of potatoes was 4.5kg. Not bad but it could be improved with better soil preparation ahead of planting next year.

In a strange turn of weather it is now the 30th July and pouring down.  I got two more little patty pan squashes, taking my total harvest to 1.3kg, so I have to find some great recipes to use them up.

Looking towards future harvests, the tomato plants have developed little fruit and one of them is almost red. I didn't stake or pinch out side shoots so they will be a little floppy and will put too much effort in creating new fruit rather than feeding the existing ones but I'm still looking forward to the next summer harvest.

Finally, with the potato area cleared, I have ordered plug plants of winter/ spring brassicas to use up the space. the debate I'm having is whether to try to plant through a weed suppressing fabric to reduce work as I am starting a new job and want to concentrate my time on the allotment on fun things not weeding.

We're having a heat wave

For once, London is hotter than Central Europe and on a par with some of the southern areas.

This being Britain there are already some people complaining about the heat but I am enjoying it while it lasts. The Daily Mail (apologies, I didn't mean to read it, honest) did recently run a story about the wasteland southern England has become.  Certainly my plants might not like it quite so much but they will have to lump it. So far there seems to be no threat of a hosepipe ban which is good as I have a lovely new hose that coils itself up again. Bliss - no more hoses snaking around the garden and sweating over buckled pipes.

I was in Berlin recently and was very taken with the now defunct airport, Templehof (in the picture above), which has been turned into an impromptu leisure park. The runways make amazing rollerskating, running, cycling and roller skiing (yes, that's right) arenas.  In between that the land is used for kite flying, picnics and general lounging around.  There are a few unofficial allotments which, unlike in the UK, do not seem that focussed on grow your own just colourful wildflowers mainly.  There was even a nature crazy golf - with all the obstacles growing.

Templehof may be huge but no space is too small to grow things in. A neighbour down the road is using the patch of land outside his house which is shaded and with no soil to grow vegetables. In reclaimed containers he is growing a great variety of plants from seed. More power to him.

Fabulous fertilisers

Shit matters. Or at least fertilisers do.  Looking at the abundant foliage of Bernie's potato plants compared to  my rather scrawny efforts just shows who manured the plot before planting (Bernie) and who, sadly, didn't (guess who). And his potatoes are bigger too. Damn. On the other hand I still managed to harvest 4.545kg.

I have potato fertiliser and tomato feed but so far I had not used them. Given I am now at harvesting stage of potatoes I guess it's perhaps too late for the potatoes but I have a) started to water the tomatoes occasionally (which are flowering) and b) have put some feed on them in hope.

Looking elsewhere on the plot, the allium family is suffering as they are smothered by weeds. Bad me. As penance I indulged in a spot of hand weeding, which is pretty much back breaking.  Bernie suggested to completely soak the ground you want to weed a day a head of the weeding which makes the weeds less likely to snap and stay in the ground.

Rhubarb was as always great this year and keeps on giving though I have stopped harvesting now to avoid stressing the plants. In fact, fruit as a whole (apart from some fairly lackluster strawberries) are the success story - the raspberries are rampant. Too rampant in fact and they are over taking the path. Someone kindly tied them back but they are still blocking way. I used a strimmer line to add to the reinforcements and once they are done providing mounds of fruit (828g at the last harvest) then I will have to dig some canes up and relocate them further away from the path.

Another overly robust plant is are the rosemary plants. If I had a sheep farm there still wouldn't be enough lamb to use up the rosemary branches that I had to lop off to clear the path. In fact I broke a pair of secateurs in the process.

There is a mystery weed that is popping up all over the place which seems to be very deep rooted. That will be fun to dig down to Australia in an effort to dig those out.

The one place I did manure was where the tomatoes are planted. This may well have resulted in the copious amounts of nettles that I need to do battle with (mental note - use gloves because even if the stings are supposed to help arthritis, I don't have arthritis and it hurts like hell.) I also need to constantly have spare bags with me to collect produce.

The mangetout  are also producing well - 445g at last count. The squashes are also starting to flower.