Squash harvest

This is our total harvest (plus one other eaten before this photo) of squashes from 7 plants. Sadly the other 5 plants perished in the hands of the dratted slugs (slugs don't have hands do they?).

Particularly pleased with the Thelma Saunders Sweet Potato Squash as it was really prolific. We had 2 of the smaller ones in a roasted squash risotto.

2nd Chance

After a bit of a lull in production the courgettes have perked up and have started setting fruit again.

Which is a relief as I hadn't got fed up with courgettes yet. I've also given them a bit of assistance and did some fertilisation as there seems to be an absence of bees around at the moment. Let's hope they're still going strong after we get back from our hoilday...

Last of the Broad Beans

...went into a very delicious risotto.

The Odd Squad

Whilst digging up the Pink Fir Apples we uncovered quite a few strangely shaped specimens.
Funny looking aren't they?!?

Early Morning Dig

I was up with the birds this morning to gather the potatoes we dug up on Monday. What a great way to start the day!!

We've dug up most of the potatoes except the last row of Pink Fir Apples that went in a couple of weeks later than the others.

This barrowfull is large and medium sized Cara potatoes plus we've also got a large yellow trug of assorted sizes. There are still a lot of the pink-skinned potatoes left to eat (can't figure out what variety it is...as yes I've lost the label for them) and we dug up a small bucket of earlier-planted PFA.

Beautiful Borlotti

I love the fact that vegetables can be pleasing to the eye as well as tasty.

These beauties (from a much larger haul) were picked the other night as I'm hoping to get another few out of the plants before the weather turns. I love the bright pink and cream splodged pods and the beans inside are just as pretty if a little more subtle.

Once I have enough - 2 handfuls so far - I'm going to make Pasta e Fagioli, a rather hearty bean and pasta soup, which my Nonna made with fresh borlotti in the height of summer. She always gave my sister and I the job of shelling the beans.

The silly season starts here...

The courgette plants are poised on the brink of churning out fruit after fruit... I cut 3 small courgettes for my dinner, they're tastier and you get the added bonus of the flower too, and I've decided I'm going to keep a tally this year...(there are at least another 10 baby fruit on the 5 plants).

Its harvest time

We decided that the garlic and shallots were ready to pull up... and my what a bountiful harvest. I think we've definately enough to last us all year (and we've still got a bed of onions to harvest later too!!).
I'm glad our nextdoor neighbours are garlic fans like us as the smell that wafted from our backyard would have seen off lurking vampires within at least a 10 mile radius.

Almost there...

Took a quick peek at things on my way home from work as I've not been up since Sunday and it is lookin good. The recent rains have helped and some things (the lettuce) have doubled in size.So grabbed a couple of big handfuls to take round to friends (along with some potatoes and garlic) to say thanks for looking after the kittens the other weekend. The courgettes are starting to flower so not long to wait until the fruit start swelling. I'll give it a week until we pick our first one. The shallots have all flopped over so I don't think they're far off harvesting.

And the blackcurrants ave turned a lovely shade of purply black so I'll do a first pick at the weekend. Ooh will have to peruse some cookbooks...