Ohhhhhhhhh, now I get it!

After all my pontificating about what a let-down 'Vegetable Spaghetti' was I simply had to cook it! Now it all makes sense. The chunks I'd cut the flesh into got made into a curry and, low and behold, look what happens...

It breaks down into strands that look like - that's right kids - SPAGHETTI! ha! That'll teach me to waffle on :P

The curry I made was this recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3982/tomato-squash-and-spinach-curry

I used home-grown tomatoes too - windowsill-ripened, of course! :) It is mighty delish! Something that could almost be made totally from lottie veg. I added some natural yoghurt this time but creme fraiche works well too. Do give this recipe a go. I've already made it with patty pans, but courgettes, pumpkins, sweet pots, marrow, any squash or even spuds would work.

Vegetable Spaghetti

Well, I didn't really want to harvest this yet but some pesky woodlouse was doing a good (bad!) job burrowing through it. I couldn't very well leave it to be consumed by nature so I took my first veg spahetti home. Here it is. A decent size. I understand you are meant to harvest these when they are yellow/orange so a bit premature :( Ho hum.

It was relatively easy to cut into it as I guess it hadn't formed a very hard skin. I am not saying it was a piece of cake - I'd compare it to cutting into a butternut squash. The smell was lovely and sweet, along the lines of fresh sweetcorn.

I was expecting more 'spaghetti' but I am guessing you get more of that as it matures?? There were lots of seeds amongst the tendril bits which were a bit of a pain to get out.

Well, a bit disappointing on the 'spaghetti' front if I am honest but then I do think it has been picked far too early. Nice flesh though.

Alas, the 'spaghetti' did not appeal too much to me so I have to say it got chucked. It had already started to go brown by the time I was done prepping the rest of the squash.

I've saved the flesh for a curry. Will see how it fares in the taste test :)

There is one more vegetable spaghetti squash still growing so we'll see if that one, left on the vine longer to mature, will be any better...

Um... what do I do with it all?!

It's been a busy w/e doing my glass work. Sorting out a brochure, sending a company images & info for their website, making new glass, taking & editing photos... So, not much lottie time for me.

I didn't get out 'til about 7pm Sunday and only had a little time to do some weeding before it went dark on me. There was lots to harvest. Look at the silly amount of tommies I have.

Only 2 plants as well, planted directly in the soil with no special treatment - they are 'moneymaker'. Most are still green so I will see if I can ripen in batches - not enough windowsill space to do them all at once! Some are like apples! I am very surprised at how well they did this year after the tommie failure of last year.

Just look at the stupid amount of veg in my car boot! Tomatoes, courgettes, marrow, hooligan pumpkins, patty pans and a bucket o' runner beans. Took me 3 trips up and down stairs to get it all into the flat :P

This pic shows it a bit more organised in the kitchen. Looks like I have a busy week ahead! The runners went into the fridge as they go off the quickest. Next to sort is the tommies I think.

What a lot o' veg :P

Marrow surprise, Hooligan harvest & Bilberry bonanza

I'm a week behind on this post. Bad Steph! Ok, so last Thursday I went to lottie to check it out and harvest the goodies. What a nice view from the car (above)!

It was raining a little so I tried to clear some of the weeds from around my sweet william, red lettuce, dwarf & broad bean seedlings. Then the rain got heavy so I gave up on trying to do that and grabbed the harvest I could before getting super-soaked! You can see at the top of the photo the area I weeded and the mass of weeds at the bottom of the pic :(

My vegetable spaghetti is looking good. Looking forward to trying this. I have waited a whole year as last time it didn't work.

I have LOADS of tomatoes on my 2 plants, but all of them are green and not looking like they'll turn. So I picked a whole bunch to make into various soups, jams and whatnot. They're in the fridge right now. Just need some time to make them - bit busy with 'Handmade Heaven : Funky Fused Glass' at the mo, re-photographing things and making new goodies.

I harvested some tasty goodies - beetroots, green & yellow courgettes another MAHOOSIVE marrow which I didn't even spot growing and was lurking beneath the leaves - it was a bit of a surprise I can tell you!, runner beans...

...patty pans, hooligan pumpkins (both upside down, drying here) and a couple of banana peppers. Alas the peppers were all soft and tasted horrid so they went to compost heaven.

I went to visit my folks and took the MAHOOSIVE marrow with me. I weighed it on my mum's kitchen scales and this made me laugh - 'ERROR' - I think the scales were saying "too heavy! get it off, get it OFF!" :)

So I took it to the bathroom scales. I think it was about 8.5lbs! A monster. 

Look how proud I am of my 'marrow bowtie' ;)

My folks and I went out to harvest some wild goodies. Free food - who wouldn't!? I picked my first ever bilberries. Absolutely delicious! A few may, or may not, have fallen into my face... ;) Hehehe! They're very stainy and quite time-consuming to pick as they only grow in ones or twos, hidden in the leaves of the bilberry bushes.

My mum said they were quite expensive to buy and I now understand why. The three of us were picking for around two hours and got this 700g-ish haul. I looked how much this would cost to buy and calculated it was around £32! Nice :)

We also picked 1500g of rowanberries. Lovely!

I'm at my big bro's place in Kent this w/e. We're about to go for a walk so I'm going armed with plastic bags in case we come across any blackberries or other fruity goodies. He has a plum tree in his garden so I am taking some of those. Just have to shin up a ladder! I've already added some plum jam & chutney recipes to the recipe list. Hope you're making the most of all the fruit & veg ready at this time of year. I really need to get in the kitchen and preserve all my goodies.

MAHOOSIVE marrow and other miscellaneous veg

Well, up to the allotment I went last night. I've not had much time for it lately. I was gadding about on Saturday at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire at the Battle Proms. Very nice it was too. An excellent way to spend a Saturday night. The spitfire fly-by put a tear or two in my eye. I'm a plane fan and everyone cheering and being uber patriotic tugged at the heart strings ;) What a sap!

Sunday I was working on glassy goodies - listing things for sale in my folksy shop, as well as putting together some commissions.

So, last night I had a poke about, seeing what was new. Did a bit of weeding/hoeing/dead heading and all that jazz. I found my first hooligan pumpkin hiding under a leaf. Looking forward to these. They're pretty cool smallish striped numbers - well, they looked it on the packet! I await the stripes...

The two tomato plants my aunt gave me back in spring are doing so well! Last year the tomatoes in the ground died off. I am guessing from all the rain we had. This year it has been much drier and the tomatoes should be ripening any time soon. They are so laden and heavy with fruit I have had to support them with some cane hoops. Hopefully this will give a bit of support in the wind, keep the fruit off the ground and make watering a little easier to do. I may put down some straw mulch to hopefully stop the low tommies sitting directly on the soil.

I planted a whole bunch of stuff too (I was the last up there in the dark with a torch by the end!): hollyhocks, 2 rows of sweet williams, red cos lettuce, dwarf beans - 'purple queen' and 'stanley', as well as some 'the sutton' broad beans, again. I did most of the sowing post-digging up the last of the charlotte spuds in the big 'road end' bed. Potatoes are great for soil being easy to turn!

It was a bit of a bumper harvest. Loads of the charlotte spuds, some beetroot, courgettes, a couple of yellow courgettes and a MAHOOSIVE marrow :) My first ever marrow. I am like a proud parent!

Check it out! Pretty big. I thought it best to harvest it at this size, rather than leave it too long and lose it. My mum has a great marrow recipe so I'll be using that for this bad boy :)

This batch of spuds were a pretty impressive harvest, especially as I didn't plant any of this variety this year! These are leftovers from last year's laziness ;) Five and a half pounds of tastiness. I have saved some to chit for next year.

I grabbed a few beetroot too. These will be peeled then I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with them. I don't want to pickle them in vinegar, so maybe I'll find a recipe where you can appreciate their fab taste and great colour :)

And the courgettes just keep coming! I only have 4 plants and they are keeping me well in stock. I spoke to my friend at work and she has FIFTEEN plants at her allotment! Blimey!! She says her veggie friends are loving her though :) I really like this photo of them in the sink being washed, with the sink edges forming a frame. Maybe it is just me...!

And this arty arrangement is me drying them off before they go into the fridge. I am definitely going to make chutney, but I don't want it to be dominated by tomatoes or apples as a lot of the recipes are. I also will be making some into a chocolate cake! Watch this space :)

Oh, and what do you think of the new blog template? I kinda like it. Seems fresher to me and gives me more space on the page. Need to re-size my header but can't for the life of me find the file to do so! Ho hum.

Close-up catch up

Here's a little catch up of some close-up photos. I like these. Lots of things are looking good :)

sweetcorn & kohl rabi

gold rush courgettes, marrow, patty pans

patio apples

dwarf dahlias, LOTS of cornflowers with buds, gladioli

purple podded peas

Local nursery trip - the purchases

So, I went to Dundry Nursery yesterday. Seems like a good find. Lots of healthy plants at good prices and a vast range of seeds. Of course, I didn't leave empty-handed! I found these pretty marigolds in amongst the more ugly (in my opinion) usual marigold varieties. These are 'disco mix'. I also got some dahlias, salvia and a vegetable spaghetti plant - I have given up trying to grow one from seed! The veg-spag plant is quite upright so I may train this up some canes. It seems Dundry are not only potato specialists, but also cultivate a vast number of chillis too. I didn't get any this time but will remember them for next year.

I also snapped a couple of ideas I may use down the allotment. This low, sturdy trellis could be recreated with scrap wood...

...and these wigwams are a bit different from how I'd normally do it but they look pretty funky like this tied lower down. I think I might try this with my runner bean/black-eyed susan vine plants.

I thought I'd take a couple of pics of the 'shed end' as it is starting to come together. In fact the whole plot is really shaping up.