We've done quite well this year. We have harvested all of our raspberries and blackcurrants, and there have been an absolute shedload of them this season. Perhaps the odd weather has really suited them? Anyway, we're stocked up with jams and jellies of raspberry and blackcurrant and combinations of the same. We also have quite a few kilo bags of each in the freezer for later use. We have tried raspberry gin - very nice - and could make some more. In doing some clearing earlier on in the year, we found a small, long neglected redcurrant bush, outside of our fruit cage. That produced a handful of redcurrants this year, but I think the birds got the largest portion.....We have wild strawberries everywhere, and they too have done well - all eaten fresh
. I may be looking at making some strawberry leaf tea from some of those as well (see other threads). Our new blackberry bush (commercial type) was only planted out in the spring, and although it has a few berries on it coming along, we will just eat those as snacks this year.
Our peas, french beans and mangetout have been very nice, and although we ate the mangetout and beans fresh, we have lots of 2-portion bags of peas frozen and stored away for the darker nights (I'm thinking pea & ham soup!). Those pods that we left to dry out have also been picked and the seeds will be dried for next year's crop. The dead plants have been pulled up and are now becoming compost for next year.
The various types of tomatoes in their buckets have ripened well, inside and outside of the greenhouse, giving us some progression in picking, but a lot of those have been frozen for soups and stews later as its impossible to eat them all fresh. We have also tried the making of tomato powder and 'sun-dried' tomatoes using our dehydrator, as per Big Red's YouTube video. They certainly take up a heck of a lot less space for storage, and the powder smells wonderful (some oregano and black pepper added during drying helps...). There are still a kilo or so to be picked on the vines. The peppers we grew in the greenhouse have done OK rather than well, but they seem to have thick skins, which is fine for cooking but not so nice for salads. Maybe chillis next year instead?
Our two mini cucumber plants in the greenhouse have been through the wringer (thought we would lose one at one point), but are both still producing between 6 and 10 mini cucumbers in total each week. Delicious! The packet of seeds only had 4 seeds for the price of £4, but, for the number of fruit they have produced what originally seemed like a luxury expensive purchase has been repaid over and over.
We've tried very hard with three types of onions, but they haven't really been that good. They generally remained small, and so we have lifted them all. They are now drying in our porch, and will perhaps become yet more jars of caramelised onion chutney (my favourite!).
A few days back we lifted some (most..) of our carrots and beetroot. Germination was poor for both of these sets, but there are some to eat at least. See the following picture:
I also lifted out a couple of plants which I am unable to identify, on the right of the photo. The plants looked very much like rather pale versions of spinach, with white roots. We didn't sow them, so we probably wont eat them. Does anyone have any ideas? White chard maybe???
We still have parsnips in the ground, now growing well. They took forever to germinate, and grew very slowly throughout the spring. I think they will be ready for eating next spring, but at least we can see them clearly now
. WG, fingers crossed for your parsnips! Maybe lift one or two of the worst affected, and check to see if you have any kind of insect attacks on the roots?
Cheers, Bob
