Tidal waves of squash

Not orange squash that you drink but summer squashes that you eat. These include edible gourds, pumpkins and courgettes. There is a great variety and among my harvest I have collected striped, pale green and yellow courgettes.

The problem I now face is 'what to do with them all?'. If I weren't trying to be healthy I would definitely make courgette cake which is delicious and moist. But I am on a health kick so avoiding too much sugar.

I discovered a recipe in a free booklet from a cooking magazine: Quinoa, courgette, tomatoes and feta. Now I had neither tomatoes nor feta and rather than wait I improvised slightly. I mixed the 1tbsp of red wine vinegar and 2tbsp of olive oil in a pasta sauce jar so infusing it with tomato flavours and then stirred it through 75g of quinoa (a great protein source). The courgettes were finely sliced into ribbons and mixed in. As I had no tomatoes I used a little green tomato chutney from last year. Finally I chopped up a little Turkish cheese but unfortunately it is more like a waxy mozzarella than feta so I doubt it will add the right sort of crumbly saltiness. It's lunch today so hopefully is tasty.

At the same time I made courgette lasagne from the same booklet. It also serves 2.
2 courgettes grated
1 garlic clove (I used 2)
Parmesan grated
Lasagne sheets
100g ricotta
Jar of tomato pasta sauce
(I left out the chilli and substituted low fat yoghurt for the ricotta and strong cheddar for the Parmesan)

Fry the crushed garlic and grated courgette until soft. Add the ricotta and 2tbsp of Parmesan. Place 2tbsp of the mixture into a small dish, layer on a quarter of the tomato sauce, place pasta sheets on top then repeat until you run out. Make sure the top is tomato and sprinkle with cheese.

Spud-not-alike

I have a mystery. I planted Charlotte seed potatoes on the plot and have recently started harvesting them. That's not the mystery, hang on. I also got a 'free' patio potato planting set. I have previously had no luck with these at all (getting fewer potatoes back than I planted). This year however when I dug down deep enough i got a decent amount of salad sized potatoes. Which is how Charlotte potatoes are supposed to be. Now back to the mystery. This photo only shows the half of it. Why have my plot charlottes turned out to be such monsters?
More room and time to grow?
Richer soil?
Magic?

Who knows but it will be hard to make a dainty summer potato salad with them!

1st March 2012 Addendum: reading back over my posts I realised that I planted the patio Charlottes later than the plot ones (as late as 29 April) so that explains the smaller size. The plot Charlottes were planted 6 March so almost 2 months ahead of the patio plants. Harvesting everything at 14 July meant the potatoes on the plot had over 18 weeks to mature while the patio plants took 10 weeks to mature - that would explain the difference. It also suggests I can start harvesting earlier I guess or stagger planting - in an ideal world I would have two rows for each variety one planted in early march and one end April to spread the harvest.

The greatest show on earth? Hampton court flower show

What a joy it is to live near Hampton Court if only because it makes it easier to attend this flower show which the RHS claim is the largest in the world. It certainly feels it.

It is important to approach it calmly and methodically. Be prepared - bring drink and a picnic. My friend Joy made some amazing tarts from the allotment shallots - yum. Ideally bring a strong person to help carry things. Unlike Chelsea you can buy plants at Hampton and it us impossible for any plant-aholic to get away with anything less than masquerading as a walking shrub. Quotes of woods of dunsinane come to mind.

Get there early to scope out the lay of the land and remember that if, like us, you go on the last day it closes at 5.30 not 7.30. Plus the frantic sell off including the plants and items used in the gardens starts at 4.30. If you do spot anything you like it might be wise to reserve it ahead of the sell off as it all becomes a little manic.

Whatever you do don't follow the AA roadsigns there which take you miles out of the way (maybe as a motoring association they want to encourage driving?). We wasted a precious hour following their pointless detour.

One major feature of Hampton Court is their emphasis on grow your own. This time a huge area and marquee were devoted to it. There you can quiz experts on what went wrong. I took along my puny garlic to the experts from the garlic farm who told me a) I should always plant in autumn (can't remember if I did) b) water like crazy January to May c) top dress with potash in spring. Resolutions made for next time. I also bought elephant garlic which at least swells to a decent size (nowhere as big as theirs though). Incidentally the elephant garlic is not in fact a garlic, it's a leek. Fact.

Feeling hot, hot, hot and finding bargains

Saturday afternoon brought a mini heatwave. Not only did flowers wilt but so did humans. I sheltered from the brutal sun on sunday by staying indoors and watching columbo reruns as, much as I love the sun, this was no time to do anything more strenuous than picking raspberries and making jam.

It's worth checking out the chain DIY stores as sometimes their poor housekeeping means the plants are underwatered, look sorry for themselves and you can get them at knock down prices. We got grafted tomato plants (usually £3.99 and prolific) for 50p each. After a soaking in buckets overnight I planted them out with very little ill effect from their tough start in life. Let's see how well they crop. I definitely need to stake them well.

Trouble with tomatoes

Top tip: never give up on plants. It's in their interest to survive and they will try hard to recover.



Before going on holiday I took great trouble (well great-ish for a lazy person) to keep my tomato plants safe. I grouped them together in the shade and watered them thoroughly. A week of sunshine and holiday later and I was delighted to see they survived.

This next bit is where I went wrong. You are supposed to plant them in the evening to reduce stress and water evaporation. In a hurry to get them planted and growing I took them down to the allotment in the morning in a bit of a rush. I decided that evening would be perfect to plant them. Unfortunately life got in the way and I left those helpless plants in the sun unattended till the weekend. A VERY BAD THING. When I blithely turned up they were crispy and pretty dead. Do what I say not what I do.

Anyway in a despite attempt to rescue the situation I dunked them in water and hoped for the best. The rain helped and miraculously they have survived. They are now planted and hopefully no worse for their early setback.

Incidentally the sundried tomatoes from last year are amazing with the passing of time. Full of flavour and oil.

And then the heavens opened

After months of drought and a record breaking sunny Saturday (worthy of a Sun 'what a scorcher' story) Sunday and Monday broke the trend in dramatic fashion.

Non stop rain gave the garden and allotment much needed water and saved me a job. Unfortunately it also discouraged me from leaving the sofa and buying seedlings of sweet pea, French beans and sweetcorn. Next weekend...

An update from before the rains

1st June (excuse the mixed timeline but I also updated this on the 16th)

The Maris pipers are flowering but are they ready? They are a main crop after all. (I harvested 940g of pentland javelin on the 12th and made salmon and potato salad - yum) I think I'll leave them till I need the space and the other varieties have been harvested.

The peas are nice and fat as are the broad beans. I am always disappointed by the yield of peas once you shell them. The beans on the other hand a great and filling and mashed with some spring onion on sliced ciabatta rubbed with garlic made a delicious pre meal snack. A fortnight later and mangetout are the stars.

I am so enamoured of the beans and mangetout that I will try a second sowing at the weekend. When clearing the old plants I will leave the nitrogen fixing roots in the soil. I will also plan to sow more beans this autumn.

A couple of plants are bolting and going to seed - sorrel and chard. I've pulled up the chard and resown and keep snipping the sorrel spears off.

I am lucky enough to have a surfeit of strawberries way ahead of my birthday. I harvested even the slightly soft ones and lightly boiled them down with sweetener into a sort of jus. Then you can make a pretty healthy pudding. Cut sponge fingers in half line bottom of a medium bowl, pour over half the jus, add more sponge, then the last of the jus, cover in natural yoghurt. Leave to let the flavours mix. Light but tasty. A fortnight later and the raspberries are coming into their own but rarely making it back home - they're just too tempting.

Beetroot is doing well and I can see tiny kohl rabi seedlings.

I still have two spare patches. What to do with them? I am considering maybe planting sweetcorn among squash. A bit like native Americans who traditionally relied on Squash, beans and corn for food.