Is waking up ! ๐
Feeling happy to see tomatoes appearing and a couple more cucumbers .
Hard work keeping up with the watering . Cucumbers are thirsty beasts !
I made a good start harvesting and freezing up my blackcurrants . It took me a good couple of hours to pick and prune the blackcurrant bushes ...not finished tidying the beds where these bushes are growing . I still have a fair bit to do there . There are some hefty great brambles growing in amongst them .
I didn't take any pictures of this as the whole process of picking the black currants . It is one very boring job . Picking off all the tiny stalks but it forced me to slow down and it became a kind of mindful meditation in a way .
Then pruning out all the branches that had already fruited down to the ground and saving the new shoots for next year's crop . Once I've got the brambles out , I will give the earth a good restorative mulch .
I now have four good sized bags of blackcurrants in the freezer . I have made jam in the past , but I think this winter I will use them for pies and crumbles...... mmmm....Cornish Clotted Cream ...
Meanwhile in the shed ....
I have been growing on my cabbages ! ๐คฃ
Safe from harm from cabbage white butterflies , green fly , black fly, pigeons ,rabbits ,caterpillars .
They are beautiful , perfect , completely unblemished ! The best Cabbage I have ever grown !
I wish that I'd grown my Cavolo Nero Kale in here and so that is what I have decided to do !
Blanch in boiling water for about a minute ...make sure the water is fast boiling .
Then ....
Plunge them into iced water ....
Spread thinly on parchment lined trays ....pat dry as best you can with a tea towel .
Put into the deep freezer . I left them in over-night .
Next morning , all beautifully frozen and crisp . Easily break up to put into portion size freezer bags .
These will be fine for up to six months in the freezer .
If you don't blanch the vegetables they won't last as long in the freezer . You can do that , but must use it up quickly . I'm told only a couple of months .
I would always blanch it to be on the safe side .
A quick quote from Roald Dahl -
๐ฅฌ " From now on , you must eat cabbage three times a day .
Mountains of cabbage !
And if it's got caterpillars in it ..... so much the better !" ๐ฅฌ
from - George's Marvelous Medicine
Dahlia "Night Butterfly " made me happy today !
Sweet Peppers Corno di Toro Rosso
Will soon be ready . They need a little bit more sunshine .
Cucumbers going crazy in the greenhouse ? Let them !
They are on the Epiphyllum side of the greenhouse . The "safe "side .
Cucumbers hiding ! C. Beth Alpha and C. Femspot these varieties do best for me . 6"-7" lovely crisp , crunchy and refreshing .
They do take a lot of watering mind ...even more than the tomatoes , but it is so worth it !
Noticed this shoot coming up through the bench .
Looking down I see a tray of French Beans that I had forgotten about ! and......
.......... there are beans there ....already !
I will lift them all onto a tray under the greenhouse bench and dump some compost over their roots and just let them continue growing . I have more on frames outside ....no need to disturb them .
Tomatoes ..... need to take off a few of the lower leaves to let in some light .
I like them to grow as nature intended them to grow , 8ft tall x 6ft wide , wild and fully laden with fruit . I don't pinch off all the side shoots ..just one or two maybe and any yellowing leaves .
I don't have any yellowing leaves just yet .
I do allow them to scrabble about , but not so much as the Cucumbers, as on this side of the greenhouse are all the proper prickly cacti . . . and I mean proper prickly . . . like dangerous . So I restrict them from growing too close to my cacti .
I haven't had much success growing tomatoes or cucumbers outside . I do this every year and this works for me .
A polytunnel would probably be the very best way to grow them , but I harvest enough for the two of us and the flavour is so much better than the supermarket can give you . Supermarket cucumbers taste horrible .....blurghk !
I'm feeding them now too . Every couple of weeks or so .