September Week Three Sunday 16th 2007
With another week gone it was another trip to the plot so see what vegetable goodies that we would be able to harvest. We were of the opinion that the crops would start to calm down now that we are entering the winter more barren months. However this week proved to be much more than that with a huge harvest basket of summer and winter vegetable’s
The first thing to be harvested this week (with great expectation) was the Swede, this would be our first Swede of the year and would see if the new variety we have chosen for this year would prove to be more tasty. After peering through the leaves of these plants we spotted the biggest one, and gently pulled. Up came a good four inch wide Swede and a very long tap root also. This was to be used to the roast dinner later that day and when cooked it tasted so sweet and flavourful for a Swede that we will definitely use this variety next year.
'Finally baby Swede's
Again another crop we have been looking forward to harvesting has been the normal sized carrots as we had been disappointed with the stumpy carrots we had harvested earlier in the year. With the first few carrots out we were amazed at the size that these carrots had grown to, however there was one problem - Forking. This problem is caused when the carrots have had erratic watering or in our case the soil is very stoney. However this is only a cosmetic issue and the carrot are still very tasty. These again were a welcome addition to the Sunday roast.
'Large, deformed carrots, but still lovely'
The last crop which we were very please to harvest most was the first butternut squash. We wanted a squash which was small enough to feed three people but still ripe enough so that it could be eaten. We found one rather deformed butternut squash (shaped more like a cannon ball than the normal shaped squash). When we cut into this it was found that no seeds had actually formed at all. (This is probably due to the fact that we were using our own seed from three generations of squashes (and thus have reverted back to type)) However this didn’t affect the taste and overall cooking, and is a vegetable that we will definitely continue growing in the future. Here is to the eighteen more which are growing :-)
'Odd shaped squash'
All in all out roast dinner consisted of most vegetables taken from our allotment this week which was : New potatoes, runner beans, Swede, butternut squash, and carrots. All of which added a great flavour to a lovely cooked dinner.
Other crops that were harvested this week also included more beetroot (although all of our family members have beetroot coming out of their ears), lettuces, runner beans, courgette and walnuts.
'Summer and Autumn harvest basket'
At home this week we have started tying the shallots and onions into ropes which can then be used all the way through the year. However some of these were showing root rot and if these had been left in the box these would have spread to the other healthy onions. All in all there were seven ropes of shallots (not including the smaller ones which will be turned into pickled onions). The onions are still being sorted but look to certainly have been a bumper year for the onion family.
'Dirty onions, peeled onions, to final onion ropes'