Nobody Died...

I made foraged mushroom soup. Andy always gets a little nervous when I do this. I used to go mushroom picking with my uncle when I was a child but only because he was a man of wide girth and couldn't be bothered to bend down and pick them himself. He held the basket, pointed and said, "That one". I would bend down, cut it with a penknife and pop it in the basket and so it would go on until the basket was full. We picked field mushrooms and parasol mushrooms. We used to see shaggy ink caps but he didn't like the texture of them when they were cooked so we always left those. I am no expert, I know the ones I know.

When they are curled round they are fresh

and as they open out they become a bit more soggy as you cook them. Parasol mushrooms have a loose ring around the stem that you can slide up and down.

You can't wash mushrooms; they just go soggy. I wiped each one with kitchen towel.

Mushroom soup is not the most glamorous soup to photograph but boy was it delicious. Parasol mushrooms give a very subtle flavour; not the more harsh taste you get from a nearly black field mushroom soup.

My mum visited in the afternoon and we both had a taste. When I presented it to Andy later, he asked his usual wary question, "Will it be alright?" I replied, "Nobody died!" I picked 1.5Kg of mushrooms and batched up the soup for the freezer. It has been lovely as our latest Saturday soup.

Foraging has been the late autumn choice of activity. I bagged the last of some windfall cooking apples from a neighbour, mixed them with a couple of handfuls of my crab apples and four eating apples to make an apple wine brew. It had a great smell because you also added lemon zest. It is a bit cloudy at the moment but ready for its first rack now that the bubbles have stopped. Racking is when you sieve the wine into a clean demijohn to keep removing the sediment. You might need to rack a wine two or three times over a few months before you bottle it.

The damson wine has been racked and is looking ready to bottle then lay down for 6 months. Damson is one of my faves. You don't drink this wine like table wine - you would fall over quite quickly! Instead you have a double shot of it like a spirit. 

 Sloe Gin is always on my Autumn list. I like to give little bottles as presents. If you spot any, wait until there has been a frost, then pick them on a dry day. I use a rule of three: one part gin, one part sugar, one part sloes. You have to put the gin in last to visually gauge this. The girls helped me prick the sloes to release the juice. Shake it every day. The longer you leave it the better it is. 

I also like to do a little supermarket foraging too. These wastenot boxes are £1.50 and a lot of fun to cook with, albeit that the cooking has to happen on the same day! I made dauphinoise potatoes; a soup with carrots, swede onion and potatoes; roasted pepper pasta sauce and a beetroot and cottage cheese side dish to have with fresh mackerel. The two apples went in a fruit salad and the tomatoes went in the pasta sauce. Yum! 

The limes? I grated the zest into my Christmas cake bake up. There is a small one for my brother-in-law, a round one for grandparents and a medium one for Heidi and me.

Hoping you have all had a good week. Jo xxx

November...ing

 Hello there, welcome to November...ing.Lots of foraging this month so here goes.

Foraging - in our fields for parasol mushrooms. I left this one because it had opened out too much but I picked a whole basket full.

Walking - to get some exercise. Beano the boundless spaniel helps me to walk quickly and get out of breath.

Cutting - the very last summer flowers from the garden. Now I have planted up some bulbs in all of the outdoor pots.

Going - to a ball - I know! My friend has a charity ball every year (except during covid) where we get the chance to dress up and catch up with friends I only see once a year.

 

Sewing - A dress for the occasion. None of my evening dresses fitted me. The margins are small on evening wear so a little adjustment in waist size can knock an outfit off the list. This time I went for a wrap dress to eliminate future body changes. This is the glitter lace fabric with a satin back which I used - such wonderful fabric and a versatile pattern.

Fixing - my sewing machine! It was making a funny noise so I lifted the foot plate, cleaned it out and found the very tip of a broken needle in the bobbin case. I re-oiled it and put it all back together. This saved me about £80 I reckon, the minimum charge for a service. Very chuffed with myself today.

Baking - white chocolate and cranberry cookies with Meg.

Eating - Homemade cinnamon rolls. Meg wanted to make these but Jeez they took all day. Mixing, first prove, rolling and filling, second prove, baking, resting...but they were nice. 

Visiting - Hergest Croft Gardens to see the glorious late autumnal Acer trees.

Cheating - by making this Tilly and Buttons Nora top from a cotton waffle knit fabric. For a knitter like me, the lure of a sweater made in 2 hours was a novelty.

Finishing - my latest (real) knitting project. I am thrilled with it. A teenage sweater pattern called Jory in 4ply. It was in The Knitter issue 168. Heidi looks fabulous in it but I knitted the arms longer so she liked the fit.

Thinking - out a few plans for Christmas knitting. In the meantime, to give me some head space, I have this stop gap crochet shawl which I add to every time I need to think. It includes all the ends of sock yarn I have left over so it sort of grows and changes over the year. I have recently added some of the grey from Heidi's jumper to use up an end ball and break up the mad colours.

Pre-washing - fabric for sewing. I don't know what yet, something long sleeved to pair with the autumn leaf design. But hey, you know me, it will probably become lots of things to the very last scrap. 

Searching - for Sloes to make another batch of sloe gin which I gift at Christmas.

Firing - the young 'uns outside for a bit, they have been a bit glued to the TV of late. They really enjoyed themselves on their tree swing and remembered just how much they like playing out together.

Leaving - you with one for the road as always. This was just before everything turned orange in the last week.

Thanks for dropping by. Jo xx

The Last of...

 This months three word gardening post highlights all the 'last of' summer plants and edibles that have finally finished their growing cycle. It has been a glorious Autumn to put the garden to bed properly without the thrash of sudden wild Autumn weather making it all a bit of a rush.

I am picking the last of the cerise Godetia and white Cosmos. There are about three cosmos plants left in the front and back garden which are next to some dahlias and I think if I pulled them up the wind would snap off the dahlias so they are left in for protection.

I am also picking the last of the late Asters which I grew from seed. When these go over I have bulbs ready for winter pot displays.

The veg patch has been cleared. The courgette plants were huge and quite frankly, it is no surprise to anyone who grows courgettes, we were sick of eating them. I harvested four huge ones which I had left on to use as halloween lanterns.

I spread manure on the whole area...

...and put it to bed.

On the fruit garden, I am picking the last of the autumn raspberries. 

Then I tied the canes to supports to ensure I could harvest the very last ones. 

My big girl challenged herself to grow continuous salad for 6 months as part of her skills section on the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. She did so well at inter cropping and being ahead of each plants' growing cycle. This is the last of her lettuce.

The herbs are going over so they all had a haircut (but not into the woody stems, that kills them) however we are enjoying the last of the parsley before the cold weather gets it.

In the greenhouse, I have cleared out the tomato plants except for the cherry ones. I used the old growbags as a mulch on my ranunculus corms. We are hanging on to the final plant to get the last few super sweet fruits.

The pepper plant came indoors for a few weeks where we ate them roasted. I sliced them in half length ways then stuffed each 'boat' with chilli cream cheese. Yum!

The chillies are perfect for us. Not too hot but just enough to add to meals without worrying about a disaster. I am not reporting the last of these but the start of our chilli harvest.

I have plans for the seasons ahead. There are bags of bulbs to go into pots and garlic to be planted. I am thinking ahead to next spring with the advantages that a big greenhouse brings. I have cornflowers, sweet william and sweet peas all popping up to be overwintered in the frost free greenhouse.

As I look out of the rainy window I can see the last of the dahlias getting a good bashing but all in all for my first year in a brand new garden I think we have done pretty well.

Thanks for dropping by. Jo xx 

Pick, Cook, Repeat

 

My three word gardening post his month very much surrounds the picking and preserving end of the growing season. There are baskets of fruit and vegetables grown on the small holding and foraged from the fields. They all arrive right now. With a very convivial September climate here in the UK this year it has been a bumper harvest.

We mostly try to eat produce straight away but when you pick nine courgettes and 3.5kg of beans in one picking there needs to be an element of preservation.

Today I decided to enter wholeheartedly into full kitchen chaos. I strained four bottles of raspberry and blackberry vodka which had been brewing for a month; I made plum jam; courgette and pesto soup; one gallon of damson wine and a batch of 'Glutney'.

Glutney is a recipe from River Cottage garden which is interchangeable depending on what you have loads of. This one has apples, courgettes and yellow tomatoes. Obviously it is never quite the same twice so this one is lighter than the last one which I made with red tomatoes but it all tastes good with cheese or sausages.

I am succeeding in getting the last of my tomatoes to ripen using hanging bananas on the training wires in the greenhouse. I was sceptical but it works.

Preparing and blanching beans has been a family event after our evening meal, we have quite a production line going and the freezer is getting full. I tried to just freeze the raw beans but they were not as good as when I went to the trouble of plunging them in boiling water for 3 mins then into ice water for 3 mins.

We have been seasonally vegetarian eating as much as we can. My mum's favourute was beetroot tarte with feta cheese.

Stuffed courgettes were not a hit - too soggy and reminiscent of watery stuffed marrow I had as a child but we ploughed on through that one. Much more popular was a Sunday dinner heavy on the veg and light on the ham.

There are flowers in vases cheering us along in our harvesting endeavours.

In the flower borders I have had to cull some of the cosmos. I grew them from seed and pricked them all out laboriously hoping they would fill my borders until the shrubs filled out but in fact, they have crowded out the shrubs growth so I had to pull some out. It was hard when they were putting on such a show but needs must.

No hills in sight early in the morning on this day but the sun has been shining through in the afternoon.

The piece of vintage farm machinery is in there somewhere!

The dahlias are going strong but I am having to dead head them every other day. Finally, I planted out my Asters which I grew from seed into pots so I am hoping for a little show before the frosts.

This weekend we are all off to the Malvern Show which is usually in spring but has been moved to Autumn. Lots of inspirational gardens to see and I am sure there will be some plant buying too.

I will leave you with a super special early morning view today. I usually post an evening sunset but this morning's version was beautifully serene.

Happy gardening! Love Jo xxx