Hi guys. At the end of my last blog in August, I was calling out for the rains to come. Well only a week later the sky turned grey and the water came down. The weather is still dryish, but we got the rain we needed to move things along. It has been a while since I was dragging the irrigation equipment around the fields now and I’m glad for that to be a thing of the past. With any luck I won’t have to irrigate outside now until late spring.
The ground had got so dry and hard that it was impossible to get our potato harvester into the ground to dig up the tubers. Now that we have had the rain, we have harvested half our potatoes and will be doing the other half next week so that’s great.
Harvest has been the theme of the month in general and our on site veg shop is full to the brim with all the great produce we have grown this year. September is of course traditionally harvest festival time and it is true that this is the point in the year when we have most crop lines available to harvest and sell.
Since I last wrote we have brought in all our squashes. We cut them and left them outside in the sun for a couple of weeks to cure so that the sugars would increase and bring better flavour to the fruit. I am now writing this blog in the farm office surrounded by crates of squashes of all manner of sizes and colours, and I can’t wait to try them all! Some of them store for longer than others so we will be selling them in a specific order. The ones with the shorter shelf lives will be for sale first which for us is the Delicata variety followed by the Uchiki kiri and harlequin squashes. The crown prince and marina di choggia will last all through winter so they won’t be in the shop until we sell the others, but it will be worth the wait.
We have now started harvesting the crop lines which I have been saving for the autumn which include the main Kales (Nero di Toscana, Red curly, Green curly and Red Russian) celeriac, swedes, sprouting broccoli and of course the squashes. We are saving the pumpkins to sell nearer Halloween as people won’t be interested in them until nearer that time. Some of them are being put to good use as decorations around the fold already.
Sadly though, this also means that our summer crops like tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers and peppers will be coming to an end shortly. Hopefully we can continue harvesting them for a couple more weeks, but their days are numbered. In a way the change of menu and flavours is something to enjoy. I love eating the tomatoes and basil and the juicy lettuce salads, but I am now looking forward to stews, pies and roast vegetables. By the time summer comes around next year I will be craving the grilled beefsteak tomatoes again. eating seasonally can be just as rewarding as visually seeing the beauty in the change of seasons (the hot sunny days of summer, the beauty in the trees in autumn, the haunting sunsets in the winter and the fresh excitement of spring) the table also brings its seasonal delights.
I encourage everyone to start a little veg patch at home and experience the change in seasons at the dinner table like I do. If that’s not possible, come and sample the seasonal flavours at our café and in our veg shop!
Speak soon
Jude
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