A Lot Is Happening In The Garden

Lots going on in the garden this week and our kitchen is a veritable hive of activity, preparing, freezing, bottling and pickling our produce.

We have now harvested the potato pods containing the varieties Lady Chrisi and Red Magic, both of which were delicious.  The Lady Chrisi is not unlike the Charlotte, a beautiful firm texture that makes wonderful potato salad whilst the Red Magic is quite floury  and is gorgeous roasted.

The potato pods that we emptied have been re-planted with Christmas varieties of Maris Peer and Charlotte and hopefully we will be eating home grown potatoes until the end of the year.

The Onions, Sturon, have now been lifted and are basking in the sunshine until they have completely dried off. By the way, I would thoroughly recommend the onion bags available from www.nutleyskitchengardens.co.uk. I feel lucky to have discovered these as they really are very inexpensive but the quality is superb.

We have lifted the red onions and shallots which are also drying off and will be stored in the onion bags in the garage.  I feel confident that we will have sufficient to keep us going until next season, in spite of the very slow start we had.

Our freezer is now getting well stocked with runner beans, french beans, swiss chard, spinach and rhubarb and we will enjoy eating these during the winter months.

Beautiful little baby beetroots have been preserved in vinegar and the only difficulty there is resisting the temptation to keep dipping into them.

We still have an absolute mountain of cucumbers from a solitary plant in the greenhouse.  I have been assured that they will last for over two weeks if wrapped tightly in clingfilm before storing in the fridge.  I haven't put this theory to the test yet but fully intend to try it out.  Tomatoes from the greenhouse are picked on a daily basis and are superb.

I have also been assured that courgettes pickle very successfully.  I must say it sounds a little odd to me and I would love to hear from anybody that has tried this.