OT Gardeners Korner

I have just picked the first of this year's Apples. To describe them as
sweet just doesn't do them justice, they are exceptional this year.


So, that will be apple crumble for me dinner tonight, a nice apple pie
tomorrow, apple charlotte on monday, pork in an apple sauce tuesday.....

 

And an involuntary prolapse, by Wednesday?

 

Have you been at your mums/wifes hormone replacement tablets again?

Or have you fallen in love with Jamie Oliver?

 

JackH wrote

Yes and?

 

Colic.

 

Zanziba wrote

Again? Are you suggesting I have before?

I quite admire the bloke, he has a lot of fun doing something he likes
and gets loads on dosh for doing it. He also adopts a 'take the fucking
bullshit out of it' approach to explaining pro cooking to amateurs like
me, which I happen to like. The fact that his manner marks him as an
annoying little shit who *really* should have been strangled at birth is
neither here nor there, although I agree totally with anyone who
expresses such views.

 

Our apple trees are only 18 months old so no fruit yet. This years tomato
crop has turned out well, still loads of fruit ripening even in late
october in the polytunnel. The cattle fodder is about finished, and we've
frozen down a bumper crop of runner beans. The leeks went in late and will
overwinter ok I hope, along with the Garlic I'll be planting this coming
week.

Busy busy

 

Pip wrote

I survived my mothers cooking for 16 years until I had the money to eat
out of the chippy 7 nights a week, my stomach can take *anything*.

 

Alco

 

tallbloke wrote

AOL, rather late both starting and stopping but plentiful this year. I
have already rendered the surplus down to about half a gallon of frozen
concentrate and have got a similar pile building.

I haven't done at all well with me beans, all over in five minutes they
were. And we shan't be talking about the peas at all.

Beetroot has been the real star this year and should continue to be so
right into the new year. Just as well I like plenty of it.

 

Tenalady.

YKIMS

 

I burped him last time... it's your turn.

 

We've been giving toms away to friends and family, and cutting and
rendering blemished ones into sauce for pasta etc, and getting apples in
return from someone the S.O. works with. As you say, They are sweet this
year.

I started the runner beans early from seed in the house and then potted
them on in the polytunnel until they spiralled up a cane each, then
shifted them out to the netting once that nasty cold late spring weather
had finished. They went really well in soil I'd prepped with pony poo last
year at the dampest end of the bed. Lots of water is the secret I'm told,
though I know you are more sparing. I have 3000 litres of saved rainwater
on tap.

I was watching on Gardners world last night it said you could keep
defoliated beetroot in a bucket of sand in a cool place for ages.

 

tallbloke wrote

Eh?

Oh right you live in the frozen norf don't you. We just push the seeds
an inch or so into the ground around the end of April round here.

The right amount is the real secret.

You wasted this year's free, evenly applied in natures traditional
manner for no effort on your part at all, summer water then? Or have
you had that lot saved since the end of last spring?

You really do need to examine your methods. This time of year your
reservoir should be awaiting refilling.

Dig 'em up and replant 'em. Good old upper class Victorian labour
intensive gardening that one. The peasant way is to leave them where
they lie and cover in straw until needed for eating, same with carrots.
'course it goes without saying that in Sunny Essex we don't often get
the soil frozen more than a centimetre down so doing that is no real
hardship, even in a cold year.

 

May I also recommend apple fritters (slices of apple dipped in pancake
batter, fried and sprinkled with sugar or golden syrup) and the Trou
Normand (apple sorbet eaten in a champagne glass with an equal amount
of Calvados).

 

Colin Irvine wrote

You may, you may.

Isn't Calvados apple brandy? If so isn't that just over egging the cake
just a touch?

 

It was bloody cold until early may up here. The neighbours had no luck
sowing direct to the ground.

I've been using it all summer, because it's been very dry up here. I added
some extra pipework to take more water from the church hall roof next
door, and the tanks refill pretty quickly now.

Not that you can trust long range forecasts, but the meteo geezers are
saying it'll be the coldest winter for 10 years this year. Dunno how they
reckon to know though.

 

"steve auvache"

I have to admit I've just taken a selection of cheesy snacks out of the
oven, prepared from an old cookery book of my wifes.

I think I need to go and watch rugby or do something manly.

 

tallbloke wrote

Dry!! You haven't got a fucking clue.

Law of averages innit.

Cold I can live with though, it is average rainfall or better we need in
this part of the world this winter. Sadly for us, exceptional cold
usually means bone dry.

 

I mean my soil has got dry. My growing patch is on the edge of a diused
cutting so it tends to drain well. The moisture retention is improving
though, since I have improved the soil with manure and compost.