by Philippa | Apr 21, 2014 | Allotment
We had loads of rhubarb to harvest this weekend, more than we needed really so I thought I would make something to use it all up and rhubarb curd was the solution. This is a great base recipe that you can add more flavours too, such as vanilla, ginger, cardamom, lemon, orange (although not all at once!)
Rhubarb curd is a lovely blush pink colour if using forced rhubarb. Outdoor rhubarb tastes just as yummy but has a muted colour and looks not unlike a darker lemon curd once it is cooled and in the jars.
This recipe yields 4 jars, about 1200g at a guess as the jars were a higgledy piggledy bunch!
750g rhubarb, washed and roughly chopped
5 large eggs, beaten
225g caster sugar
260g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes.
Start by washing your jars and lids in hot soapy water and sterilizing them in the oven while you make the curd.
Whizz the rhubarb in a food processor until broken down to a pulp. Put into a sieve over a large bowl and using the back of a spoon press the juice out as much as you can. Add any optional flavourings at this stage.
Put the bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Add the eggs and sugar and lightly whisk until the eggs are incorporated. Then add the butter and using a wooden spoon keep stirring all the time. Once the butter has melted, the mix will start to gradually thicken. Don’t rush this stage as the mix can curdle if heated too much. Just keep stirring until it has thickened so that it will cost the back of the spoon.
Sieve the mix through a fine mesh sieve and pour into the jars. It thickens as it cools so once the jars are cooler place in the fridge. The curd keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge.
by Philippa | Apr 20, 2014 | Allotment
The weather was much cooler today and it was very very windy so I took refuge in the greenhouse with a mammoth planting session. Neil loves sunflowers so there are several trays of them (Pacino, earthwalker and ring of fire). I also did cabbage (savoy vertus, pointed red kalibos and red drumhead), pak choi (joi choi and rubi), leek (almera), celeriac (prinz), cucumber (cucino), squash (honey bear), climbing French bean (cobra), peas (early onward, purple podded, sugarsnap and Oregon sugar pod) and watermelon (charleston grey). The staging is now heaving and it is pleasing to see all the trays in various stages of sprouting.
I also planted some flowers as well and discovered my new favourite seed! They are for the acroclinium and they are like little dots of cotton wool, all fluffy and white. Although I had to be a bit careful with it being so windy that they didn’t get blown away!
Along with the acroclinium (double mixed) we now have aster (milady), zinnia (Oklahoma), chrysanthemum (rainbow) and ipomoea (grandpa ott). The dahlia and marigolds we sowed a couple of weeks ago have all germinated really well and so we pricked out the marigolds to individual cells of the seed trays. We haven’t been great at doing this in the past with our flowers and so we are trying to do better this season. So we now have nearly 100 marigolds! Oh well, if there are spare we can put them in some planters and I’m sure they will be appreciated in the gardens of friends and family.
While I was in the greenhouse Neil was on to his second DIY job of the weekend, building a coldframe. It certainly kept him quiet for a good while as there were lots of angles to cut. In the end he had to move on to another job as he needs to buy some longer screws (in all the boxes of screws we have there aren’t any long enough, which seems unlikely but true!) so he cleared the couch grass from the rear of plot 118.
We both then tackled the digging over at the front that Neil started on Friday. It is so much quicker with two of you on the job and satisfying how much progress you can make. So much so we were able to plant the potatoes that we have chitted, only one variety this year, Charlotte, in three rows.
We think we have passed the milestone of digging over half of plot 118, woohoo!
Another exciting milestone, we spotted the first signs of the asparagus! I’m sure that it has usually arrived by this time of the year and so I had thought that maybe it had died so I’m pleased to see it again, fingers crossed we might get a crop of it this year (only about four years after we planted it ha!).
We took home the last of the leeks-I think it is a record as this year we have eaten every single leek we grew! Also a bundle of rhubarb and a tray of purple sprouting broccoli that would not look out of place in the supermarket! The leeks and most of the broccoli made a tasty tea for two. Recipe to follow…
by Philippa | Mar 8, 2014 | Allotment
The weather has really warmed up this week and so the windowsill sowings in the heated propagator had all sprouted swiftly and some were even ready to be taken to the greenhouse. I think we had our most successful germination, but maybe I had that thought too quickly as the chillis, aubergines and peppers which weren’t quite ready to go to the plot suddenly all died! They looked like they had burnt almost so I wonder if it was too hot for them. So we would have to sow them again. At least we have only lost a week or so.
The garlic and the onions have green tops over a couple of inches already which is great. The onions are in seed trays in the greenhouse and the white onions have definitely sprouted more and better than the red. We planted the shallots (Longor) that had been delivered during the week. We decided to put them on plot 118 so this will be the first year that they haven’t been grown in beds. I’m hoping that they are not going to be adversely affected, for example by slugs, so fingers crossed! The other planting we did was of some crocus and daffodil bulbs that have been in the shed for too many months! I suspect it is too late for them to do much this year, but it will be a nice surprise when they pop up next Spring.
We wanted to do some more clearing up so we are ready for the next few weeks when things will explode into action. We had some tubs of soil still in the greenhouse on plot 97 that we’d grown tomatoes and chillies in, so we got rid of the large root balls and spread the rest of it over one side of plot 118.
The herb beds had gone a bit crazy and were showing signs of growing again and so now was the time to do some pruning back or we would have missed our chance. It is always satisfying doing a before and after shot of a job like this! And it was a very pleasantly fragrant job too-certainly better smelling than digging the manure that we put on top!
Speaking of manure we put about another ten barrows of manure on plot 118, joining up all the gaps so now it has all had a thick layer. Neil also did some digging over, of which there will be a lot more to do before too long!
We harvested some cavolo nero, purple sprouting broccoli, horseradish and our first picking of the forced rhubarb. The rhubarb was a revelation, so pink and tender with a lovely delicate flavour with much less tartness. I just simply poached it and served it with some creme fraiche with some orange stirred through, delicious! Think we will be picking more next week…
by Philippa | Mar 7, 2014 | Allotment
After a successful end to last season, there wasn’t much left on the plot save for the usual late crops like the squash and parsnips-some of which were corkers!
The curly kale, cavolo nero and all the sprouting broccoli that had looked so grim after being eaten by some variety of pest were worth keeping in the ground as almost all of them perked up. In fact we’ve been able to pick quite a bit of the kale and cavolo over recent months which is welcome greenery at this time of year.
Neil has been wanting to split some of the rhubarb crowns on plot 118 for some time and decided that the time was now. He split two or three of the original large crowns, using some of them to extend the line of rhubarb further down the length of the plot. The rest he planted into the open soil in the greenhouse to cover with bins to force for some early pickings. Thanks go to Bob T for this idea!
We also cleared the strawberry bed, taking off any runners that weren’t needed, as we had potted on about thirty runners earlier on and planting those out. This means that whole bed is now full of strawberries of the varieties that had such a great year this year.
We managed to move a few barrows of manure over the Christmas period before downing tools for worst of the weather and the quiet part of the year.
by Philippa | Jun 4, 2013 | Allotment
After a scorching weekend a visit was definitely in order, to water at the very least. But I managed to get quite a lot done and we are pretty on top of things, which is impressive given the time that Neil’s training has been taking up.
Everything got a thorough water, the greenhouse thermometer read 44c when I checked. The sunflowers that had been in our makeshift coldframe were planted out in two long rows. We still have some spares so we’ll have to find some spare spots for them. I also weeded the whole of plot 118, I only wish some of our crops would grow as fast as the weeds!
While in the greenhouse I did some more sowing. Some green courgettes (dundoo organic hybrid) which despite the packet saying it contained an average of 5 seeds, had 18 in it (yes I counted, but what a bonus given they were pretty expensive!). Also a selection of cabbage varieties (tundra, candissa, kalibos pointed red and minicole) and a random variety of sweetpeas as the germination rate of our first sowings have been pretty poor. I sowed some pak choi (joi choi) inside too, I usually just sow straight outside but have found the slugs seem to like them when they are very young and tender so thought I’d try transplanting them out once they have had a head start inside.
I did some outdoor sowings too. Some swede (best of all), turnip (Milan purple top), spinach (perpetual and medania) and some rhubarb chard (red). The beetroots and carrots have germinated so will need thinning in a week or two. The parsnips have also come on great guns but bizarrely one variety is doing much better than the other. If they don’t even out, I might use the end of the bed that haven’t germinated properly for something else instead!
The asparagus has grown so much since I was last down on Friday, I’m sure if you stood and watched you would see it grow. Some is about a foot tall. There don’t seem to be many spears coming up but the ones that have popped up look good. I suppose there is still time but not sure it will ever thicken out at this rate!
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