It's harvest time

In a rare break in the weather that coincided with me being able to have time to get to the plot, myself, LadyWayne and Bean drove down to the plot this afternoon to harvest some veg for dinners this week.

We set Bean down on his favourite quilt - next to the beans so that LadyWayne could keep an eye on him whilst picking beans.

As you can see - he was quite happily sat playing with his toys and enjoying the outside air.



and of course, LadyWayne was loving the bean picking.



By the time she'd finished, LadyWayne was carrying a carrier bag (ironic that) bursting to the seams with a variety of runner beans, climbing French beans and dwarf French beans. Her words to me were "we're gonna need some help with these". I fear she's not wrong - our previous attempts at freezing runners (and any other type of bean) have been less than successful. Beans often going mushy, or a dark colour and tasting - lets say "funky".

I've grown 4-5 different types of beans this year, and I have yet to find the labels in amongst the foliage and mass of vines/leaves/beans that the plants have thankfully produced. I do love beans - so forgiving to grow, and most satisfying.

There are some bog standard runners, some "patterned" pods (seen below) and some that produce beans that look like they're made of porcelain (see below below).





LadyWayne has just bought my dinner through (which I cooked earlier - chilli), and it's accompanied by a damned fine looking cob of corn which I harvested earlier today. Last year I opened up the cobs to find sporadic corn on the cob. This year however - as you can see the cobs (thus far) are completely "corned". I'm confident that they'll taste just as good as they look - perhaps better.





.....sorry, I had to break for dinner, and I'm pleased to report the sweetcorn was exactly that, sweet and oh so tasty! Boiled for just under 10 minutes and then coated with butter.

Next on the menu is a pie - not just any old pie either.

A couple of weeks ago I took the remaining apples from the tree (those that I could reach) and they've been in the fridge since then until we had the time and inclination to do something with them (having used the previous harvests with some of the rhubarb in a crumble).

Today I decided to pick a load of elderberries with the intention of making an elderberry and blackberry jam from a recipe that I'd seen online. However, having picked and de-stemmed 500g (the recipe calles for 1kg!!) elderberries I discovered that the blackberries were not so abundant - well, not in the back garden anyway. So I decided to make an apple and blackberry pie.

Having bling baked the base, I then filled the case with the cooked apples (with plenty of sugar and a good dose of cinnamon. Pastry for the lid was a little short on supply, so I had to be a little artistic.

Anyway - here's a before and after for posterity.





Lasty, I dug up another pound or so of spuds and we'll have them with our dinners during the week.

Now, what to do with those elderberries....

Oh, and I forgot - I pulled up some more beetroot. Just baby ones for roasting!