OUR ALLOTMENT - Life on The Weald, May 2019

OUR ALLOTMENT - Life on (and off) The Weald, 

May 2019

The allotment suffered a degree of neglect in May. Firstly there was the early May Bank Holiday weekend when we had children and grandchildren staying for the long weekend.
I did get a chance to inspect the broad beans and do a bit of weeding, before disaster struck later that month!  But more of that later.  

The first of the autumn sown broad beans

No sooner had we seen off our visitors and we were off to Spain, where the Nispero season was in full swing

Nisperos in Santa Pola market

It seems that Nispero blossom is popular with the bees, so we brought home some honey.  Whlist we are still members of the EU, we can do that but for how much longer? Who knows!

Honey from Nispero blossom

Oranges were still in plentiful supply, so several kilos were also bound for the UK for marmalade making.

Oranges in Santa Pola market

Back home in the UK, apart from making marmalade, and campaigning out on the doorstep firstly for the local council elections and then the European elections, there was harvesting to be done.  Chard was in plentiful supply and came to the table almost daily in various guises.

Rainbow chard stems with garlic

We also harvested some of our broad beans

The brassicas which we had planted out were doing well - purple kale, cavolo nero,
kalettes and sprouts.  We had also planted out some beet (perpetual) spinach.

purple curly kale

cavolo nero

spinach beet

The brassica patch

We were able to nourish the plants with worm tea, liquid waste produced from our wormery. It is very concentrated, but diluted it provides a nitrogen rich feed.

A new plant appeared on our plot, which a neighbour identified as salsify.   It has a very pretty flower and the roots can be eaten - I am told the taste is a bit like asparagus and oysters. We haven't tried it yet.

Salsify

Salsify

Some weeding was needed around the pond but we had sown some wild flowers on one side, so are just waiting to see what comes up!  The aquatic yellow irises and the land purple ones were both in flower and looking very attractive.  We are just waiting to see if we have any frogs this year.

Irises

We continued to harvest the first early Duke of York potatoes and have been self sufficient since last month.

Duke of York potatoes

They are delicious roasted in their skins.

On the Thursday before the late spring bank holiday, I was wondering whether to harvest the broad beans sown last autumn.  We estimated there were about 5 kilos which would yield up to 3 kgs of beans.  We decided to leave them until Bank Holiday Monday as we were going away for the weekend - what a mistake!

The weekend saw the London 10k and the Westminster Mile and my family had put in a family entry as an early celebration of my 75th birthday.  In all there were 23 in my team,
Go Johnny, go go.  We all finished,  with our youngest and oldest grandsons, 8 year old Jerome and 22 year old Felix crossing the finishing line first, together.  I just managed to pip my daughter, Zoe, at the post but later discovered she crossed the starting line behind me and so finished with a faster time!

Crossing the finish line with my daughter, Zoe 

There were great celebrations that weekend - not only for the Westminster Mile but Charlton Athletic, despite an early own goal, won the League One play-offs to secure promotion back to the Championship League.

Our celebrations were short-lived, however. I returned to the allotment on Monday evening to pick the broad beans and found they had all gone!  The whole crop had been picked.  We haven't had many thefts and this one did not appear to be some random "scrumping", but a professional job.   It was not only the loss of the crop that angered us but the fact that our 8 year old Jerome had helped to plant them last October.

Whilst the Duke of York potatoes will keep us going for a few more weeks, the second early Charlotte and Nicola are doing well and we have earthed them up a little to encourage more tuber growth.  We have planted a few squashes between the rows and once the potatoes are lifted there will be room for them to grow.

Patty pan and Crown Prince squashes between the Nicola potatoes.

Unfortunately not only are the crops doing well, but so are the weeds and there will be much work to do in June to keep them at bay.

John Austin

Hove, May 2019

ORANGES, LEMONS AND LIMES (3)

Lemon marmalade - 

Recipe 3 Lemon & Ginger Marmalade

This recipe basically follows the same method as the two previous ones 

Ingredients

1kg Lemons (or Limes or oranges or a mixture of all three)
6 pints/3.5 litres water
Granulated or Jam Sugar
4oz/100g root ginger
4 -8oz/100-200g crystallised ginger*

Method

Prepare the fruit as in either of the previous recipes - Thick cut marmalade or Thin cut, Lemon shred marmalade but then peel and bruise/crush the root ginger or chop or slice it and tie in a muslin cloth and add to and boil with the fruit pulp.

After boiling, remove the ginger and strain the pulp and proceed as previous recipes.

Chop the crystallised ginger 

and add to the fruit juice once the sugar has dissolved, and keep stirring for a few minutes to ensure that sugar adhering to the ginger has dissolved, then bring to the boil until setting point has been reached.

Leave to cool for a few minutes and then stir to ensure an even distribution of peel and ginger. Pour into jars and seal.  If the mixture is too hot when you pour into jars there is a risk that the ginger will sink to the bottom.  If this does occur, stir the contents in the jar before sealing.

* If you want only a hint of ginger use the lower quantity.  If you want it fiery increase the quantity to your own taste. You don't have to limit it to 8oz/200g.

John Austin

Hove, February 2018

ORANGES, LEMONS AND LIMES (2)

Lemon marmalade - Recipe 2 Thin cut (Lemon Shred)

Basically this is the same recipe as the previous one but with very thin pared peel and none of the flesh in the final product.

Ingredients

1kg lemons (or limes or a mixture)

6 pints (3.5 litres) water

White granulated sugar (or jam sugar or preserving sugar)

Method

Thinly pare the peel with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler. I used a vegetable peeler.

Finely slice the peel

Put the peel in a pan with 1 pint (600mls) water, bring gently to the boil and simmer for 20 -  30 minutes. Meanwhile roughly chop the peeled fruit and place in a large preserving pan with 5 pints (3 litres) of water.  Ensure you include all the pips, pith and juice of the peeled fruit.  Drain the peel and set aside, reserving the liquid which should be added to the fruit in the preserving pan. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 1 - 2 hours.

The method now follows the process in the previous recipe - allow the fruit pulp to cool a little then put into a jelly bag and leave to strain for 6 hours or overnight

Measure the drained liquid....

Pour the liquid into a preserving pan, warm gently adding sugar (1lb/450g for each pint/600mls of liquid) and stir until all sugar has dissolved. Add the drained peel and bring rapidly to the boil and keep boiling until the setting point is reached (see previous recipe).

Allow the pan and contents to cool a little, stir to ensure that the peel is evenly distributed then pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Enjoy!

John Austin

Hove February 2018

ORANGES, LEMONS AND LIMES (1)

Lemon marmalade - Recipe 1 Thick cut marmalade

Early February and the markets in Spain are full of oranges and lemons

Oranges 3 kilos for 1 €uro

Lemons were slightly more expensive at 2 kilos for 1€ but at that price we had to bring some home. (Just a thought but will we be able to bring fruit from Spain into the UK after Brexit?)

Lemons were slightly more expensive at 2 kilos for 1€ but at that price we had to bring some home.  But what should we do with them?  We could slice them and freeze for use with Gin and Tonic - but that's a lot of G'n'T....and we have enough Preserved Lemons to last us well into 2018 and almost everyone on our Christmas gift list has already had a jar - so we decided to make lemon marmalade.

It's a long time since I made marmalade so I consulted a few recipes to get the proportions right but in the end the important rule to remember is 1lb of sugar to 1 pint of juice for us pre-metric generation (that's 450 grams of sugar to 600 mls of fruit juice). In the end I decided to make clear marmalade with peel, adapting a Lemon jelly recipe.

We had almost 3 kg lemons and as I also had a couple of spare limes, added these to bring the total to 3 kg.   I made 3 batches - the first thick cut marmalade and then one with shredded peel and the last with added ginger.

Ingredients

1 kg lemons
3.5 litres (6 pints) water
Granulated or Jam sugar

Method

Cut the lemons lengthwise into quarters. Remove any stalk and trim the ends. 

Remove any stalk and trim the ends. Remove the central core (I find this easy with a sharp pair of kitchen scissors).  Remove all the pips.  Keep all of the trimmings and central core that you have removed and put in a large preserving pan with 3 litres (5 pints) of water. Boil gently for about 1 - 2 hours then leave to cool.

Take the lemon quarters and cut the peel with any fruit attached into slices - as chunky or as fine as you want.

Place this peel in another saucepan with 600 mls (1 pint) of water and boil for about half an hour until the peel is soft.  Strain the peel, preserving the liquid which should be added to the preserving pan containing the pips and core.

When the large pan has been boiling for 1-2 hours,  pour contents into a jelly bag and strain  for at least 6 hours or overnight.

Discard the contents of the jelly bag and measure the quantity of strained liquid.

You can squeeze the jelly bag into the strained liquid - this will aid the setting but will result in a less clear marmalade. The juice will be cloudy at this time but it will gradually clear as it is boiled with the sugar

Put the strained peel into a large pan and pour in the measured liquid

Heat the pan gently and stir in the sugar - 1 lb / 450g to every 1 pint / 600mls juice - continue stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.  Heat to boiling and then fast boil until a set is obtained (probably about 15-20 minutes). Watch the pan all the time and adjust the heat as necessary - the marmalade could froth up and spill over if you are not careful.  Test for a set by putting a few drops on a cold,dry plate and see if a skin forms - if not boil a little longer and test again. 

When the setting point is reached, leave to cool a little for a few minutes and stir to ensure the peel is evenly distributed.  Pour into clean sterilised jars and then screw on the lids.

Leave to cool and set overnight.  Enjoy on toast with afternoon tea!

John Austin

Hove February 2018