Crabapple blossom
It’s been raining, solidly, for the past two weeks, and I’ve not been able to spend as much time outside. It’s a shame, because being outside at this time of year, you’re confronted with some wonderful tones and textures – as the photo shows. This is what they’ll turn into, eventually. And then perhaps into wine later on in the year.
Planting
Purple-sprouting broccoli, tomatoes (Roma and Moneymaker varieties), broad beans, chard, and celery all now planted. We’ve got some coriander seeds on the go, as well as a new mint plant. So far, we’ve uprooted about six more raspberry suckers and planted those elsewhere, taking our total of raspberry plants to twelve. Also got all the onion, garlic and shallots out front, which leaves just about enough room for runner beans and either a squash or courgette plant. And whatever we can cram into pots. Bring on the crop.
Newton’s Apple (Wine)
Homemade Apple Wine (Blenheim Orange Variety). Picked Autumn 2010, bottled Spring 2012. It’s a very long process, but I genuinely can’t believe how good the results are. I mean, we were fully prepared for this to taste terrible, but after two years being racked into various demijohns, it’s matured amazingly well.
The taste? At first, on the nose, you get the impression it’s going to taste like cider, but actually when you drink it, it’s a lot cleaner and smoother, with a rich, honeyed taste. Touch of grapefruit and tropical notes. A nice malty tang in the distance (no idea where that’s come from). I reckon served chilled in the middle of summer, that’ll go down very nicely.
We’ve got another three wine experiments on the go – Cherry, Crabapple, Blackberry and Apple – in addition to Blackberry Port.
Trees, Wild Garlic, Periwinkle
Bit of a late afternoon walk in a nearby park, which was formerly the grounds of an old stately home. The home has now gone, and half the grounds have been turned into a golf course, while the other has been allowed to become something more natural. Plenty of oak, birch, limes around – one or two really old specimens. Stacks of wild garlic were ready to give off its scent throughout these woods – already the leaves were incredibly intense when you bring them close. There were a few bright blue splashes of periwinkle tucked away in quieter spots, not deep in the woodland, but nearer the hedgerows, and they’ll only be around for the next month or so.
Last of the crop
The very last bits of 2011′s back garden efforts are now ready for consumption. To be honest, we’d left these leeks in and forgotten about them, not really wanting to venture out into the garden to investigate the mess that’s always there after winter. But Spring is pretty much here now and things are already in action. Garlic, shallots and onions are roaring away in the front garden (I say garden, it’s a tiny patch of soil but good enough). Just need to work out what to plant in the back now. We’re increasing the number of raspberry canes to 8 or 9, since that was the best producer from last year.
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.
