Week 41: What's happening
Many thanks for all the lovely feedback we're getting on the veg at the moment, the boxes are definitely looking pretty good! We managed to get to Snowdonia last weekend in the caravan for a bit of hiking and relaxing which was fab, and Chris managed to cajole a complete stranger into getting his kit off and jumping in one of the lakes on the Miner's Track by just saying a few words as we passed...! Very entertaining, especially as Chris had no intention himself of going in.
We're busy but we're coming to realise that this is definitely a slightly less frenetic time of year for us, as work in the field drops off a little bit with the shorter days and colder temps. We've chopped down and mowed the runner beans, leaving the roots in. We've chopped down the tomatoes in the small poly tunnel - again leaving roots undisturbed, allowing the cavalo nero that we planted underneath about a month ago to continue growing. We've weeded brassicas outside, and beds inside the polytunnels. We've cleared a lot more leaves from the tomatoes in the big polytunnel - coming to the end of these. Planted out hundreds of lettuces inside and outside to over winter. Sown mustards in the polytunnel.
Still a lot of harvesting happening. The beef tomatoes still going strong! This week: 5kg beetroot, 5kg cherry tomatoes, 18kg leeks, 20 lettuces, 56 pak choi, 1.5kg runner beans (last of these). 34kg beef tomatoes (and more to come!).
Eat Your Greens veg boxes:
Small boxes have got January King cabbages, sweet potatoes, apples plus our tomatoes and leeks. Regular boxes have beetroot, sweet peppers, cauliflower, sweetcorn (this is the very last, no longer available), our pak choi (please check for little freeloaders -as you can see from the holes there's been a bit of an invasion) and tomatoes, yummy clementines and salsify - no not a bunch of sticks, but a very old UK veg that's starting to be grown again commercially by a few farmers. The video in the link shows you how to prepare it and tells you a bit about it, recipe ideas below.
The Vale Grocer shop:
Plenty of: beef tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, brown / Roscoff / red onions, squash, beetroot, sweetcorn, purple garlic, fresh ginger
Limited: avocados, purple carrots, chestnut mushrooms, sweet potato, romanesco cauliflower, January King cabbage, palermo peppers, salsify, leeks
Fruit: bananas, oranges, clementines, apples, lemons, pears (a few)
+ hens eggs (eggs likely to be in short supply as we come into winter)
+ Bryn Cochyn apple juice
+ sourdough from Nant y Felin
Recipe inspiration:
Here's a good video from Riverford on different ways to prepare cauliflower - doens't give you a recipe as such, but shows the different ways you can use it in case you need some inspiration.
Ok, so salsify. Not had a chance yet to try it ourselves, but here's a few ideas as to what to do with it:
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says 'the simplest way to prepare these lovely roots is to peel them, put them in a roasting tin, trickle over a little olive or rapeseed oil, add a few bashed garlic cloves and a bay leaf, and roast at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 for 20 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of flaky sea salt. Or sprinkle on some gremolata (lemon zest, finely chopped garlic and parsley). Or boil or steam them until just tender, chop small and serve with a mustardy, garlicky vinaigrette.' One of our customers sent us this recipe which looks interesting. And also there's a few ideas here including easy oven roasted salsify with lemon (lots of annoying ads, sorry).
have a good week