Allotment?Veg Patch Thread 10 - Plotmenters busy into summer ! and loving James Wong

[bookbook]

Last thread has filled up so quickly! Thought I had better get one up and running before I get off to the plot.
Busy, busy people, just waiting for the harvests to start, fighting the bugs, slugs and weather :)
Last thread here
THREAD 9

I love sweetcorn cooked in their skins on the bbq with a bit of butter and paprika.

I used to swap blackberries for raspberries with a colleague at an old work place. This year I need to make sure I have room to freeze the excess

I have promised DCs a bbq at the plot when the sweetcorn are ripe. Book do you just check for brown tassels or do you also squeeze the kernels? I feel the latter is a bit of a mean method as you have to pull back their lovely silky sleeping bags

With these, all the tassels were completely brown and dried up IYSWIM - I didn't do the fingernail test - I agree, seems a bit unfair. They were just about perfect , a few right at the top of the tip unpollinated, but otherwise good . Lots to come that re not ready yet :)

Hello- popping in. So impressed with that battenburg cake! Been away for a couple of days and lost an entire blackberry crop which was just ripening. Wasn't a huge number to start with as loads of them went mouldy or didn't set , but I think a bird got into the net and had the rest. I pamper that blackberry and I'm yet to get a harvest worth anything - thinking about starting again- any recommends?

Hi all! Got a handful of blackberries today and quickly froze. I have a tub in the freezer marked "mix" and I'll do an odds and ends jam at the end of the season. Anyone else getting apples yet? Harvested our first few, Discovery I think but early variety.

Hi book, we have a massive veg plot which is mostly black plasticked. Bought a small house with big garden and slightly regretting it, off a retired couple who were able to dedicate more time than we have. Hence the space for sweetcorn and b'nuts. We're in Surrey.

Thanks Cath DH looked a bit perplexed when he came home and caught me making glace courgette. He liked the cake though.
Have manged to off load courgettes onto some of DDs friends. They turfed up this evening with a picnic and devoured half a pot of chutney plus a bowl of radish pods.

MrsPestilence glace courgette sounds very exotic. Can you elaborate? Could one use it as an inter-course?

Elephant I meant glace as in glace cherries.
Peel and chop into cubish shapes a large courgette, cover with a cup of sugar leave overnight. It will be swimming with liquid. Simmer for ages until the liquid is cooked down to a very thick syrup and the lumps have a translucent look.
Use in bread pudding and cakes. Syrup can be used to stick things together. Season some lumps of courgette with light soy sauce and sesame oil, just a few per person. Season with balsamic vinegar and good olive oil as an anti-pasti.
Now I am going to have to get the ice-cream maker out and try something like courgette frozen yogurt.

MrsPestilence please let us know about the ice-cream maker experiment, I was picturing something like a sorbet. I like the sound of the anti-pasti.

I've just found this recipe. I will give it a go later.

I'm quite jealous of all these courgette gluts. I have had a steady supply but nothing approaching a glut.

Today I'm netting the front lawn to make picking up all the fallen crab apples easier. I'm not doing anything with them but they end up forming a rotting mat if not picked up

Hello. Popping in here for the first time.

I've discovered some potatoes growing in a neglected corner. I've let them grow but now I don't know when to dig them up. How do I know when they are ready?

What do they look like at the moment imbroglio?

Good result in homebase earlier. They had all of their seeds reduced to half price or less and so I came away with cape gooseberry, cucamelon, romanesco natalino, lambs lettuce, red arrow sprouting broccoli, rocket, cauliflower and more spring onions. All dated 2020 and cost me less than £4

Newts some are foliage only, some have small fruits and flowers.

Hi all, not much to report here, it's too wet! I've been trying to trim the grass around the greenhouse / veg patch a bit but otherwise just plodding on.

Welcome imbroglio. I'd have a poke around and see what's there! Have your unexpected potatoes given you the gardening bug yet?

I'm having a gooseberry dilemma. I have 2 very thorny plants, they fruit really well. However they're a pain to harvest and nobody here likes them (it's a texture thing!). I've made jam before, which is nice, but to be honest I have plenty of jam from the jostaberries and blackberries. I found a recipe for gooseberry-mint-lemonade but didn't get chance to try it. The gooseberries are now over ripe and still on the bushes.

Shall I just ditch them? I could use the space for rhubarb which we love. But... They're PLANTS! It feels a bit wrong to kill them.

You have gooseberries on bushes? Bloody hell. I use mine to make gooseberry jelly, or gooseberry wine. Failing that the blackbirds have em. I loves them.

If you don't want them, offer them on freecycle. The plants that is.

Thanks Bella. I love gardening but have got crazy chickens so veg growing is a bit haphazard. Mostly I grow stuff in a fenced off bit which the hens try to get into and in pots in the front garden. I also have raspberries and blackcurrants.

I didn't make the courgette sorbet today, but instead make cucumber, lemon and mint sorbet with Pimms, a Hugh FW recipe. It hasn't quite frozen yet (long story about the ice cream maker) but tastes rather good.

Picked another 14 courgettes and the first of the Aztec broccoli, which is a very nice spinach, sprouting broccoli mix thing, only problem the stems get woody very quickly. Made chinese with a mooli and lovage salad, radish pods, glace courgette plus a whole host of stuff in a special curry sauce.
Have been harvesting caterpillars like nobody's business. Not sure if they are edible.
About 4kg of blackberry jam has been made by DH.
Have made no courgette iced stuff yet, sorry elephant feel like I am slacking.

Oh you absolute slacker MrsPestilence! . The good news is 2 cucumbers made about 4 portions of sorbet. I hope the courgette sorbet has the same reducing effect. I'm going into work to pick up another ice cream maker on Monday and Dd and I are going to embark on blackberry icecream. I must get to the plot tomorrow, I have been rather distracted by work on the bathroom.

I'm tempted to try and make blackberry sorbet, I've seen recipes for making it without an icecream maker but unsure whether to risk it.

tizwozliz I think sorbet is easier to do than ice cream without an ice cream maker because it doesn't need churning to break up the ice crystals so much, but you do need to be at home for about 4 hours so you can fork through the sorbet every hour when it just starts to freeze at the edges. Mind you my Dad used to make cassatta at Christmas without an ice cream maker.

Nearly forgot, I pulled up my onions today. I don't know why I haven't grown them before, no effort at all, plant and forget, then wait a few months. I guess I could have thinned them a bit more, as i ended up with some smaller ones where they were a bit crowded but pretty pleased overall. They're now drying in the shed.

silly question. we had a bbq yesterday. can I put the ash on the veg bed?

Assuming you used charcoal then I would have thought it would be fine.