An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

Our runner beans are coming to the end and as there are 16 bags of frozen runner beans in the freezer the ones I picked yesterday were turned into soup.I found this site on my site surfing everything-runnerbean with all sorts of interesting recipes for the runner bean.I used the ingredients stated and also added potatoes and some leek, all from the plot.I made a big pot of it last night and reheated it today just adding some milk and freshly cut parsley. Runner Bean Soup 500grms runner beans 1 large onion 1 large carrot 700mls vegetable stock 2tbsp Butter salt & pepper to taste. Top & tail the runner beans,removing stringy sides Chop into slices with the onion and carrot Heat butter in pan and add vegetables.Cook until soft and the carrot is translucent not browned Add stock,cover and simmer for about 30 minutes I used a hand blender to puree but left it quite chunky with bits of veg. Matron over on down at the allotment blog has posted her Dog Blog featuring some of our four...

This afternoon brightened with lovely sunshine.We paid a quick visit to the plot between school and music lesson.The harvest is tapering off we got some some small courgettes, a few of the others had developed soft tips so were unusable maybe the cold at night is getting to them.Some more white turnips which are also coming to an end there are only a few left but we cannot complain as they have produced for weeks regulating themselves to a few every week.Sinead wanted to cut some Swiss card but I think she went for tough leaves!A handfull of runner beans which I think are ready to dig in soon as some of the smaller pods had quite big beans in them, some British Queens and carrots. The tops of some of the carrots had a bronze shade to the foliage which is supposed to indicate carrot fly has got to them. We had carrots on 3 different beds this year,we had already pulled the first lot which were not up to much size wise ,Today I pulled all of the remaining ones from the other 2 beds and t...

The morning dawned bright and sunny so Kevin and myself paid a quick (2 hour) visit to the plot.The All Ireland Football Final between Cork and Kerry is this afternoon so I had to be near the TV, tickets to the match in Dublin were like gold so only the lucky ones got that far.Kevin was delighted by the size of his Sunflowers! Our harvest continues..Spuds which still look OK even though on cutting through them some are damaged by slugs and blight is visible.A big bag of pears left for me by Rhoda who even went to the trouble of printing off recipes for me, a post later about these.White turnips and more runner beans!The beans are star performers for us this year. This is the bed where i put in the trench composting all last winter so it seems to be paying dividends and the last red cabbage which is huge even after taking off all of the outer leaves.I pulled some carrots which are more embryo than even baby!This particular bed has not produced very well this year and is one earmarked fo...

Well the morning began wet as usual so I had almost given up any thought of going out to the plot but just before mid day the sky lightened, and surprise surprise the sun came out! I only had just over an hour before picking the girls up from school so I set to picking everything that was ready to go.I pulled all of the beetroot, not much as a lot did not germinate and we had already picked some. I cooked them in the oven in tinfoil for about two hours in a medium oven.The good thing about this method is ,if some of them bleed the juice can be added back into the pickling liquid. I ended up with 5 jars of pickled beetroot. Most of them were Chioggia and turned out paler than the others.One jar of baby beets whole and the rest are sliced. The Globe artichokes have stunning flowers on the thistle like heads. The complete harvest, a bag of runner beans, 10lbs of them to be exact!Tomorrows chore will be slicing, blanching and freezing these.A bag of British Queens, I had a few for dinner a...

The rain continued for most of the day and there has been severe flooding in some parts of the country.The sun did break through in the late afternoon but I had sequestered myself in the kitchen by then.I blanched off the runner beans in salted water for a few minutes and then refreshed them under cold running water to stop them from cooking any further.I ended up with 6 freezer packs with 200grms in each The beans were cooked off in small lots, here some in the pot and the next lot waiting its turn. I topped and tailed them and sliced them vertically to give them a uniform appearance. I think the 200grms is about right for defrosting for a meal. I will do this with most of the beans so we will have fresh veg during winter too. The glut of courgettes has made me look online for recipes to make them last over winter also. Scarlett the Heavenly Healer suggested Ratatouille to freeze. I looked at the BBC Goodfood website and bookmarked a few interesting recipes and found this one for Rata...

I paid a quick visit to the plot yesterday, as it was wet and windy I was just going to harvest anything that was ready to go. I came away with quite a bit, I did not attempt to dig potatoes as the ground was so wet and mucky. I took 4 of our Chioggia beetroot,3 small courgettes,broccoli,parsley and some coriander leaves and 60 more runner beans. I realised I was counting the beans about halfway through picking them so carried on doing so.They are cropping very fast and beans that were tiny a couple of days ago were now 7 or 8 ins long.I am going to blanch and freeze all of these for the winter. The first lot of leeks need earthing up again soon and the others are putting on some growth at last. We staggered the leeks this year and so far they are growing to plan. Only 2 of the celery plants are growing as I pulled out the ones gone to seed and these 2 seem to be developing white stalks as they are covered in with hay. The courgettes are slowing down production at last. Today is wet al...

....we are putting courgettes in everything?!On Sunday when I was out in the allotment, Angela my allotment neighbour was there. I told her to take away the red cabbage as she wanted as it is not now or ever going to be a favourite veg of mine.I got a phone call on Tues to say she had left a cake in the tearoom fridge for me. I knew it was her COURGETTE cake.I will get the recipe and post it soon.The cake is moist and chewy with I think either a cream cheese or yogurt based topping and is absolutely delicious!More courgette ideas on the way. After spending Sunday on the plot and taking anything that looked edible I had no intention of going out for a couple of days.It was raining heavily on Tuesday morning but when I got the call about the cake we went out.The rain had stopped but the ground was still wet, I decided to have a quick check on the plot and look at what had snuck up in a couple of days. Lots of runner beans,some of the ones I pulled on Sunday were a little tough so I am go...

I went out to the plot at 11.00am meaning to stay until lunchtime but did not leave until 4.30.Lots of cleaning up and more weeding to be done. I cut back the old raspberry canes and took about 4 branches off of the blackcurrant bush.The end of our blackcurrants and a few raspberries plus about 10 fat blueberries were the tally from the fruit bed today. The bag was laden coming home with 5 MORE courgettes,The first of our runner beans, white turnips,a head of broccoli,red cabbage and I dug some of our British Queens which look OK. The bean plants have finally taken off, lots of flowers and when I had a close up peek at them lots of beans too. A cluster of beans hiding in the foliage. Our total onion harvest.The last ones I put in are the biggest.These were ones which I had left since earlier in the year and when we had the extra space I put them in. Aoife's pumpkin is forging ahead of the competition!The ones I had hand pollinated are still on the vines and doing OK Our Brussels Sp...

The Runner beans which I replaced this morning,well most of them. The first lot fell to a late frost,the slugs and snails got most of the second lot and this is the most recent( I won't say last) sowing.They are the small greener ones,they have been well hardened off outside for the last few days and do look tougher than any of the others that went out.I bought really cheap beer in cans (paintstripper) and filled about 6 empty yogurt cartons and sunk them into the ground, they can hardly be seen in the photo. I have about 3 spare plants in case of any further disasters.There are lettuce and Calendula interplanted on the bed also. A close up of the Spinach and the Beetroot and of course the weeds! The dwarf beans can just be seen at the top of the photo.The parsnips and carrots are very slow to come on, it must be the weather as it is still getting very cold at night, some nights it has been back down to 5 or 6 degrees.I am going to replant some more of these seeds to fill any gaps ...