What are you harvesting today?

I took the runner bean plants down this afternoon, and found some perfectly edible beans while I was doing it. I don't think I've ever eaten fresh runner beans this late in the year (but they didn't really get going until September )

I've had the last pick of runner beans today. I'm still pulling my first sowing of polytunnel carrots, I haven't started on the second lot yet. I've also just had my final melon, small and not particularly sweet but that's not surprising at the end of October when sun is just a distant memory.

What did you do with a not-very-sweet melon, Ploshkin?

It was fine with some other fruit and a splash of elderflower cordial Dandelion. It just lacked that lovely perfumed smell and taste of a lovely summer melon.

Mrs C-H went to our allotment today and brought back fennel, onions, carrots, leeks, kale, red cabbage and beans. The beans are "Lazy housewife", which I had hoped to get dry but it is too late now, so they are small green beans looking like edamame beans. We can freeze them until we think up a use.

From the photos she took, it looks like there's a lot of weeding to do too ...

Sounds like a good haul, CH, though Mrs CH might be forgiven for beating you about the head with 'Lazy Housewife' beans. I would imagine she has her work cut out just now.

Heh Heh - I thought it was a bit ironic ! But no, she is being very kind to me

She's turning the kale into a Greek hortopita - "garden pie", filo pastry with feta, kale etc within. And she's found lettuce from the garden to go in the salad.

Hortopita sounds very nice indeed!

If you Google it, you will find many variants.

The "pita" is pie, Greek pies are layered filo pastry with a filling. They can be made like a pasty to be eaten take away, or more formally in a flan tin. The savoury variants include tiropita (cheese), spanakopita (spinach), prasopita (leek) and hortopita (horta translates as "greens" ). Kale is good, there are some traditional Greek wild greens which we don't have. All of the fillings are mixed with cheese and egg.

There are also sweet versions, most popular "milopita" with apples and cinnamon, a bit like a strudel.

All are delicious IMHO.

Love the sound of the Greek pies, CH. I have leeks growing nicely so will investigate a recipe.

FloBear wrote:Love the sound of the Greek pies, CH. I have leeks growing nicely so will investigate a recipe.

You don't have to look far:

https://handmadelife.forumotion.net/t2112-leek-pies-greek-style



This one is the smaller, snack version, but family sized pies are also possible. A good place to look for authentic Greek is www.greekrecipe.com - the search box will find "Leek pie"

Excellent, thank you CH.
I have already bought in filo pastry and plan to dig up some leek this afternoon.

Have just polished off the Greek Leek Pie - deelish! Mr Bear says he would like it again and it doesn't have any meat in it!!!

Glad it went down well - did you do a big one, or small ones ?

Small ones made with cheese, dill and parsley (no leeks) make nice nibbles with wine too.

Just one big one, CH. I like the idea of small ones as nibbles too. There are quite a few filo sheets left, I may have to experiment.

Just brought home my first two leeks from the allotment. Quite fat and a fair amount of white. They'll be soup tomorrow.

I grow leeks too, but I find I need to be in the right frame of mind to cook with them - they are not something to tackle when you're short of time because of all the cleaning!

Still eating tomatoes which I grew in the greenhouse. I'm now in two minds about growing Ruby tomatoes again next year: I had such poor results, with only a couple of tomatoes on each plant, that I was going to get rid of the spare seed I had. But as August rolled into September, the one plant which I hadn't put on the compost heap began to produce a few more tomatoes, and I have to say that they were delicious. So maybe I should give it another chance next year.

I have found Rose de Berne like that Dandelion. Nothing much doing then some good, late fruit when others are coming to an end.
I have just harvested my final 2 cucumbers! I've never had them fruiting into November before. They've been one of my most successful things this year along with the sweet peppers which are still merrily ripening in the polytunnel.

I grew at least one plant of Ruby this year. Can't say I much noticed how it performed. German orange strawberry was good. Red pear good as ever. San Marzano a disaster; so much blossom end rot I composted the plants in disgust and replaced them with some pepper plants. I won't grow plum tomatoes again, they are far too susceptible to BER. And Red pear will do instead for most culinary purposes.

Dandelion wrote:I grow leeks too, but I find I need to be in the right frame of mind to cook with them - they are not something to tackle when you're short of time because of all the cleaning!

Oh, really? I just cut off the root end and peel off the outer layer and chop off the excess leaf growth down to where it begins to open out from completely encircling the stem. And that's it - perfectly clean and good to go.

Do you earth them up and get soil into the leaf divides maybe?

I don't earth them up, they just seem to get earth right inside them!! And my other trick is putting them under the tap to wash, and the leek channelling the water out of the sink onto the floor!!

Chilli-head wrote:I grew at least one plant of Ruby this year. Can't say I much noticed how it performed. German orange strawberry was good. Red pear good as ever. San Marzano a disaster; so much blossom end rot I composted the plants in disgust and replaced them with some pepper plants. I won't grow plum tomatoes again, they are far too susceptible to BER. And Red pear will do instead for most culinary purposes.

BER really did seem specific to certain varieties for me too - Golden Sunrise being one, which surprised me as I hadn't had any problems with this variety before. But then it has been a very odd year, weather-wise. I tried some varieties in the greenhouse and also grew them outside to see how they performed. Rio Grande was very much better outside because of its size and Buissonante worked much better in pots in the greenhouse, becaise being a bush variety and the fruits growing low down, it was a real pain having to bend over and rummage under the plants to pick them. The fruits also got very muddy once the rain started too.

Re earthing up. I don't earth up much at all. Leeks I plant down an 8" deep hole, as is tradition, which seems to get a good blanch. I don't seem to get trouble with soil within the leek, but I do always grow under environmesh (allium leaf miner !) which might reduce rain splash ? Orr maye it is soil type dependent.

I don't usually earth up potatoes. Just plant them deep enough to start with, they will come up !

I do earth up carrots a bit. It seems to prevent the green shoulders, and the cluster of aphids of some sort that like to cluster around the base of the leaves.

My Dad sounded a little bit disappointed that the tomato plants I grew for him this year didn't include any black varieties. So, for next year I've got some Black Russian seeds, and Black Brandywine, which sounds lovely. I know full well that within the fortnight of giving them to him he'll have forgotten where they came from, but so long as he his happy and occupied, I'm happy.

Where do you get your heritage tomato seeds from now? The place I used to use disappeared a couple f years back.

Bits and bobs from various places - Real Seeds, Seeds of Italy, Premier Seeds Direct, Nicky's Nursery. Makes postage expensive !

Mostly mentioned in this thread:

https://handmadelife.forumotion.net/t576-seed-banks-and-reliable-suppliers