Ms

[Lesley]

A freebie! - how wonderful!

 

I did find a potato when tidying the barns on Tuesday - it had grown 3' of foliage and had two tiny new potatoes! - and no soil

 

We picked another 6lbs of tomatoes - and still have quite a few to come. Also, a load of baby aubergines. Guess what I'll be cooking today?

[ali-s]

40 lbs of cooking apples these from one tree. All but 2 blown off the tree in the high winds yesterday. I left some of the smallest ones but may go back tomorrow for them.

 

11 lbs of eating apples. these are a fraction of the amount on one tree. We have five eating apple trees. All of the apples have scabby brown spots and the ones I picked were the best of the bunch. Just wondering if I can justify buying an apple press and freezing the juice. I am not sure what the varities are and the one I bit into was very hard and not ripe.

 

1lb of Blackberries. I had to the fight the Yorkshire girls for these as they had followed me up to the veg garden.

 

1/2 lb of Pears. tiny little things from a young tree I think. Hard as nails , but maybe they will ripen in the fruit bowl.

 

Tonight I plan to sit infront of the fire and peel and chop the cookers for the freezer.

[Daphne]

today we went to hire a fruit press (to make cider) - given your 'address' this may not be an option for you but perhaps worth a thought? We'll probably make a small quantity of juice as well - I'll report back on ease of operation assuming I remember (oh and the price - which I have already forgotten!)

[Christian]

A handful of courgettes

 

My two plants still have flowers on them and are going strong!

[Mrs Frugal]

Had a lovely digging session at the lottie in preparation for the onion sets/seeds, overwintering peas and spring onions which go in next weekend. Picked the last few runner beans which are still small enough to be tender and delicious, a courgette, some swiss chard for the hens, some borlotti bean pods so we can dry the beans for winter stews and we unearthed some potatoes we'd missed when we dug them so they're for dinner this evening . While we were there, we saw father in law who gave us an Australian green pumpkin, big butternut squash and a trug of pears .

[Cinnamon]

I found a huge patch of carrots that I had forgotten about

They are all a nice size & look great,so its carrots for us for supper every day next week

[Valkyrie]

Some peppers and more beetroot (which the girls had dug up in a scratching frenzy ).

[Lesley]

We've picked the last of the runner beans

Apples

Pears

Peas

One leek

8lb tomatoes

Last of the blackberries

Some Shaggy Ink Cap mushrooms

Crab apples

Mint for mint jelly

Sage for stuffing

Basil

Peppers

Yellow courgettes

[Cinnamon]

Supper at Lesleys house tomorrow then?

Thats quite a haul for this late in the season.

 

I only have a couple of mangy swede & a pile of parsnips left to pick now,until the spring

[Lesley]

Supper at Lesleys house tomorrow then?

 

Not if you saw the state of my kitchen! - it's covered in bowls of juice and dripping jelly bags!

 

Lucky you - having parsnips.....I can never grow them

 

We have leeks, spinach and mangy brassicas which I'm hoping will recover from the caterpillar attack.

[Valkyrie]

What an impressive harvest session.

My parsnips didn't do too well this year and of those that are left, the girls are doing their damnedest to dig them up too. We seem to have a big comfrey plant growing from the middle of the patch so that doesn't help - any ideas how to kill off comfrey, anyone?

[chickencam]

We have 1 parsnip this year we are saving it until it has been frosted and hopefully the slugs that have been making holes in the carrots won't have a go at it first

 

We picked 7 enormous but tender sweetcorn and we still have more to come. I think the children are a bit bored with it

[Daphne]

just to say the fruit press cost £7.50 a day to hire. We used about 10 boxes (maybe 100lbs!) of apples to produce 10 gallons of juice and it took about 5 hours of effort so if any of you have surpluses/windfalls this could be a way to go - particularly if there is a group of friends or neighbours with a number of trees each.

[ali-s]

I like the idea of hiring a fruit press. Was it a local firm or a national company you hired it from?

[Daphne]

unfortunately local - and at the other end of the country from you. Its a brewing supplies shop, if you want to search online for something similar. I've also seen a local vineyard offering to press people's fruit for a fee - but I don't think whisky distilleries do pressing do they?! You will need somebody with a bit of muscle to get as much juice as possible out of the pulp. Its like tightening a screw - we can all do it, but some can get it tighter than others. Being a bear of very little strength I spent the day chopping the fruit in half/quarters/eighths to go into the hopper.

[Matthew]

nearly the last of my peas before the frost last night

minicole cabbage

Leek

few carrots

 

all for dinner last night

[Lesley]

I've just picked more peas as well

 

....and loads and loads of spinach - three quarters for the hens as it is slug attacked and the rest cooked down to just enough to do two meals

 

Leeks

Apples

Pears

[chickencam]

The last 3 small peppers from one of my 2 plants this plant had died with the colder weather but the other one is doing fine still with 4 peppers still on it

[Christian]

Carrots, runner beans and the last of my courgettes. The frost the other day has killed most of them off now

[Matthew]

My Pumpkin came second in the competition

 

35lbs

 

Was the largest on the allotment but the competition is open to all locally grown.......

[Mrs Frugal]

Wow, well done Matthew .

[Lesley]

Well done! - do you have a photo?

[Lesley]

Yesterday I picked the last of the pears and apples before the snow came!

 

We still have tomatoes ripening in the polygreenhouse - it was lovely and warm in there!

 

I also picked 2 green peppers and yellow courgettes.

[chickencam]

Some lovely sprouts to go with my roast turkey - see thread in All Things Nice - they are really big, we haven't had sprouts this good before, there are some advantages to all that rain in the summer

[Lesley]

OooH! I wish ours had grown.

 

I'm still picking tomatoes and courgettes in the polygreenhouse.