G Freden

This is my plot in Cornwall. I have only had it for a couple of months most of which has been spent cutting back weeds, very little of what I planted grew but the potatoes that volunteered seem happy.  

When my teenage son and I were forking over my newly harvested potato bed about a week ago, removing couch grass and runners, another allotmenter asked what were we harvesting?  Grass:  I grow the most lovely grass!  

Actually we had a good crop of Charlotte potatoes too  

I wanted to bring this thread back to life with another suggestion:  make chard into namul.  Cook the leaves to the desired texture, then immediately plunge into cold water to stop them cooking any more.  Once cool, drain them and then grab a handful and start squeezing all the water out--get it as dry as you can.  Once it's all compressed, chop the leaves and season with a touch of soy sauce and vinegar and then a more generous splash of sesame oil.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired, and serve chilled or at room temp.

I make this a lot in the spring and summer, with all sorts of leafy vegetables including chard and beet greens.  Also things like radish tops and broccoli leaves, though they required a lot longer cooking time than the chard.

My food processor and blender can't pulverise most dehydrated things into powder--I had really wanted to make tomato powder  one year, but no go.  Maybe my stone mortar and pestle would, but I'm a little low on elbow grease!  I like to dehydrate greens when I have too many;  blanched first if they are fibrous like cabbage, but for softer leaves like nasturtium and chard I just dry them as is in my electric dehydrator.  In fact, before I had the dehydrator, I would string soft leaves up using a needle and thread and dry them in a garland hanging from my kitchen ceiling.  It took longer and they didn't keep their colour as well, but I didn't mind.  It was free

Nancy Reading wrote:
Yes - freezer space and healthier perhaps than added sugar jams, which is a default almost for fruit for me!

We're on a fruit ice cream spree at my house--pureed berries/fruit, sweetener (we're a low- to no-sugar family--I use stevia/erythritol blend), whipped cream.  I'm on the lookout for some ice lolly moulds, but for now we're enjoying it with a bowl and spoon.  True, it takes up freezer space, but not for long in this weather.  So far we've done gooseberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, blackberry.  I'm keeping a close eye on my fig tree for the next batch.

I made the fork pitter years ago and it's great.  I also use it for de hulling strawberries, quick and neat.

When I was a kid, my mother dried sweet cherries off our tree but none of us kids liked them.  She like to make scones with them in, but only she would eat them (looking back, this was probably tactically done).  I imagine I would like them these days, but the birds don't give me a chance.

A failure this time on our front loader.  We knew it was the washing machine bearings so I ordered a new set, and after several weeks of washing clothes in the bathtub, we finally were able to unhook the old machine and take it apart on the patio.  Frustratingly though, an hour into it and once we'd got it all apart (saving and labeling all the screws in different plastic tubs, taking photos of every step to refer to when putting it back together), we got to the final step and were stymied.  

The plastic drum casing is in two halves which need to be taken apart in order to replace the bearings.  In the machine in the video, these are held together by some screws and plastic clips.  Ours had no screws, no clips.  It was obviously in two halves, but instead it looked like it had been glued or melted together.  Even if we could get it apart (and we tried prying it apart, just deforming the plastic), we wouldn't be able to stick it back together.  We could see the old bearings, absolutely destroyed, but we couldn't get the whole set out to put the new one in.  Defeated :(

Ac, have we turned into a Mediterranean climate:  hot dry summers, cool wet winters?  It's certainly seemed so for the past couple of years.  This week I picked aubergines for the very first time ever--I grew them from seed on a whim, having received a free packet with my seed order.  

I actually plant for both possibilities:  a hot summer or a wet summer;  this way maybe not everything thrives, but at least I don't lose everything either.  I don't usually gamble with long shots (like aubergines) but I take a moderate risk with things like outdoor tomatoes and cucumbers.  Some years I don't get any red tomatoes, but instead the peas and beetroots go crazy.  

Help, the vegetables are taking over!  Same view as above, taken just last week (mid July).  I spent about two hours in the kitchen yesterday dealing with an overabundance of courgettes (foreground), pak choi, cabbage, beetroots, artichokes, snap peas, new potatoes.  I should have done the same today but for a plumbing emergency in the kitchen--it's all sorted out so I'll be doing double tomorrow I think.

My quince tree from seed flowered for the first time this year!  Only about six flowers, none set fruit.  The other tree is a year behind, no flowers (not pictured).

My sad peach tree (also not pictured) has spent the past two winters under cover and this has dramatically improved its health:  no leaf curl infection since then.  I still can't plant it in the ground, but maybe I'll get some fruit off it in the future?  It's got so much more growth on it than it did two years ago.

I think it really needs thorough hand weeding in veg beds, otherwise it's like you say Nancy--blink and it's taken over.  I don't care about most weeds in my garden, but buttercup is one.  And thistles.