Signs of life

Well, that was a rather rude prelude to spring, wasn’t it? Just when I was thinking about heading into the garden to tidy it up, along came a few inches of snow. Mostly gone now, of course, but I can’t help but worry for those plants that wanted to forge ahead for 2012.

(Yes, I know I still have some leeks and sprouts to eat…)

Green & red tomato chutney

Though we got loads of tomatoes this year, we were left with a lot of green tomatoes. I thought it would be a good idea to turn them into chutney.

I largely followed this BBC Good Food recipe, with a few pointers from Nigel Slater, and then made up the spice mix as I went along.

Very simple: leave the tomatoes and onions in a bowl overnight, with salt to draw out the water. Boil vinegar (I used a mix of what vinegars were left in the cupboard) along with light muscovado sugar, simmer, chuck in a load of cooking apples (the ones we claimed last weekend), sultanas and then after ten minutes, chuck in the drained tomatoes and onions as well. Let it do its thing for an hour and spice up accordingly.

Foraging: Apples & Pears

Quite a haul this weekend. A few Bramley apples (there weren’t that many on the tree this year; I think that’s because there was a good crop last year), and loads of the Blenheim Orange variety, which has a lovely, mellow and nutty taste. They’ll store for a couple of months, in the dark and without their skins touching, and come December I’ll start to resent having to buy apples.

We also filched a few pears from the neighbouring tree (which I think are the Williams variety), as it seemed no one else was going to use them. On the drive back we spotted a Damson tree which still had all its fruit; the amount of free food that’s available, but which gets wasted, is remarkable.

Spuds & Sprouts

The small grow-bag of potatoes has finished; not a bad little crop from one bag. But it’s the Brussels Sprouts (Sanda variety) that are starting to catch my eye: they look remarkable, and suddenly no longer a loathed winter vegetable, but something to look forward to.

Glut of Tomatoes

Well, not a glut here as such (this is about a third, and we ate loads of the latest batch in a Middle Eastern style tomato salad), but I’m certainly happy after last year’s meagre performance. There’s plenty that haven’t made it, and which are still green (and likely to remain that way) so I think they’ll turn into green tomato chutney at some point.

Crab Apple Harvest & Cherry Wine

You can tell it’s a Bank Holiday weekend, can’t you? Anyway, just a couple of large bowls of crab apples from our tree, which has only been in the garden for a couple of years. Next year in particular should be a good crop. This is probably destined for winemaking… Speaking of which, we’ve now moved the cherry wine into the demijohn.

It’s that time of year where there’s plenty of foraging to be done. I recommend the River Cottage Hedgerow handbook if you’re looking to do a little yourself.

Homemade Ketchup & Outdoor Theatre

No doubt many folk out there get quite a few tomatoes each year. Well, not me – not yet at least. There are plenty about to turn red (or yellow), but we became impatient so topped up our organic veg box delivery with a few extra salad tomatoes in addition to a handful from our own grow bags. This contains some of our onions and garlic, too, and I guarantee it’s tastier and more satisfying than opening a bottle of Heinz for your bacon sandwich.

I’ve used this Jamie Oliver recipe a few times now, and it’s outstanding. It takes a long time to make – and lots of stirring, so be warned, this is not something you can do quickly. It goes splendidly with some homemade potato wedges whilst watching The Taming of the Shrew (framed by a 1920s village show – a very good device with which to explain some of the inherent misogyny) at an outdoor theatre. Which is what we did last night.

Cherokee ‘Trail of Tears’ Pole Beans

Earlier in the year, I planted a reasonably rare variety of climbing beans called ‘Cherokee Trail of Tears’ pole beans. According to the Guardian, this variety was:

originally saved from the winter death march of 1838 when 17,000 Cherokees were forced from their lands in Georgia and an estimated 4,000 died.

The results of the crop are now in. They’re sweet, nutty, complex, much better than any green beans I’ve tasted.

Cherry Wine

So, we’ve used about 5 lbs of morello cherries, which we picked the other day, in this homebrew effort. Popped them in a pan with 5 pints of water, boiled them for a few minutes, then let it all cool before shoving the cherries and liquid all into a fermenting bin. At the same time, we’ve got some starter yeast on the go separately (which we bought from a homebrew specialist shop around the corner), and have now added that to the cooled boiled cherries. Add sugar, and let the brewing begin!

There are stacks of wine recipes online and in books that all have little variants to this method, so the best thing to do is pick one and stick with that. It’s not really rocket science – so long as you keep more or less on track.

Morello Cherries

Two gardening posts in two days? You lucky things…

Here we have Morello Cherries, plucked from a tree in Oxfordshire (belonging to my girlfriend’s father), poured into four big pasta bowls. Is there anything nicer than picking fruit in the English countryside when the weather is scorching hot? (Yes, the addition of the knowledge that the fruit you’re picking is completely free.) The plan for half of these is to go towards making Cherry Wine, and the other half, who knows.