Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

November has blurred past me along with much of this year. Too much work and not enough play! I shouldn't complain, I like my job and I'm still working from home full-time - things could be so much worse!

 

Last week I was living off a Crown Prince squash. The beetroot noodles and peppers made a very pretty meal but I have to admit that I was rather disappointed with the pan-fried squash. It didn't have much flavour and certainly wasn't as sweet as I was expecting.

I added cayenne pepper and cumin to flavour the soup which I made with half the squash, which I roasted. Subsequent meals included more additional flavourings like this layered bake.

A tasty home-grown dish of beetroot, celeriac and squash flavoured with plenty of thyme, sage, garlic and topped off with cheese. It was meant to cater for me for 2 meals but was so tasty I scoffed the lot in one meal 😏

It was pretty cold at the weekend but we were pleased to see a bit of sunshine on Sunday. We put a small greenhouse up in the polytunnel. It's hoped that this will keep a few degrees higher so that we can start seeds a little earlier next year. So far it has shown to be 1.5° warmer than outside the little greenhouse, so that's a good start.

We had to cut the pipes down slightly so that it fit but it'll be good in the spring and there's still room for us to sit in the polytunnel 😊

We were extremely pleased to see that our Purple Sprouting Brocolli has already started producing; we weren't expecting it till February. There was only enough for one but I enjoyed it steamed with a seitan schnitzel that evening. We only have the one plant - all the others didn't make it beyond seedlings - so I hope we can keep harvesting to encourage more florets. 

Here are our shallots, growing in the raised bed. Some garlic have just sprouted too.

And here are the leeks and broad beans. Both should be fine through the Winter, they can survive low temperatures and we know from last year that broad beans can be frosted down to the ground and still perk up again.

We left the plot wih a few of our small carrots, some of Neal's chard and a Honey Boat squash (definitely the most tasty squash this year). Added to the last of our shallots and pre-soaked and cooked Borlotti beans I made my staple meal - with chopped tomatoes, smoked paprika and lots of garlic. This lot did serve me for two days and it really is my favourite kind of 'cooking' - all shoved in a pot in the oven for 40minutes and eaten with bread - yum.

So there's been quite a lot of cooking for me over the last couple of weeks - Jamie refuses to eat anything that looks like this 😀 so he's on veggie burgers for the days I cook for myself. And at lunchtime this week I have some scrumptious fennel and home-grown celeriac soup - based on the basic River Cottage recipe, it's the best! I hope next year that I'll have home-grown fennel to use.

So that's what I've been up to for the last two weekends - not much and not much planned for the next few, but I have my antibody test to do later. Whatever the result, I don't think I'll be venturing out too far for a while yet - well, the weather has gone too cold for me now anyway 😉
Jamie bought me this Tweetie-Pie mug, hence the song title by Middle of the Road - I know, I know, but I was struggling to find an appropriate song 😂

 

Get Up, Stand Up

 Not a sunny bank holiday Monday, but perfect weather for actually getting some work done.

Our new poly tunnel has been waiting to go up since last year, so yesterday was the day to finally do it.

So from this abandoned-looking plot...

To this, aah, that’s more like the Plot7 we know and love. The old polytunnel is going to be used for a squash climbing frame (plans for next year).

We’ve spent quite a few hours on the plot during the extended long weekend. We even cleared some of Plot3, what a mess!

So, it looks better, but what can’t be seen is the million tiny seedlings just waiting for a bit of rain!

It’s a shame to be clearing really, as there’s so much wildlife finding a Winter resting place. I even found another elephant hawk moth caterpillar today! My macro camera has been working quite well. Jamie found this amazing caterpillar. The id has now been confirmed as a Pale Tussock moth caterpillar. More photos on my wildlife blog, which I keep separate for each new creature I spot.

And we saw a couple of Angle Shades moths. Pretty.

And loads of white butterflies,

...along with far too many slugs and snails..!

So, lots of grub for froggy to clear up (but surely they don’t eat snails!?)

We found these rather interesting Hare’s foot inkcap mushrooms in our compost bins last week, which I think are worth a mention. They’re helping to break down all the garden waste we’re putting in the bins, along with plenty of cardboard as ‘brown waste’.

And the song title, with the rather weak link to the blogpost is of course provided by the great Bob Marley.