Tag: foraging

Fruitless Summer

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Well, not quite fruitless but weird. We grow food in our garden. Usually.  Thus summer in the UK the weather has been very odd. I know the soild was prepared. Co.post had been composting. We have a worm based bin where the little critters push the goodness out through the holes in the bin. Extra cow poo was added. The ground was turned over but boy have We had a lousy crop.

The lettuce was eaten alive by pests despite all natural deterrents deployed as usual. The broccoli never made past 3 inches because of  hungry slugs and caterpillars. The beetroot have done ok but still on the small size. We had 4 or 5 meals from the spuds where we usually have double that. Whilst there are tomatoes on the vine they are not ripening. We’ve done nothing differently but the weather…..

I’m still hopeful that there will be peppers. No chilli this year, we didn’t get any. I think I’ve sat out once, eaten an outdoor meal once. It’s been lousy.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been sunny days, but few and far between. Yes, we go on about the weather in the UK. Even by UK standards, this year has been strange. This morning ing it rained heavily. Now the sun is shining  and there are clouds overhead. Yesterday was cloudy where my parents ts live and sunny where I live less than 50 miles away.

Usually, I have more blackberries that I  can use for jam. This year, nothing. I guess it happens. We have a warm, comfortable home and enough to eat. I have nothing to complain about. I’m just intrigued as to what’s going on.

Shopping.

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It’s an ordinary Saturday. We’ve done the shopping in an hour…all the food for the week. It’s actually quicker (and cheaper) to go to the next town over to buy our food because of the traffic  around town and because  it’s market day. We try not to shop on the weekend, but this week it was unavoidable. Today’s extra purchase logs for the fire before the price goes up for winter.

We took to making a plan and a list about a month ago on account of the austerity and all that. We are still having a treat of steak for lunch with celeriac chips (fries to my US chums). Meal planning bores me senseless, but having an accountant as a partner it works for us. We have a couple of favourites and have found an app (any list) that means we can share lists across two phones. Definitely makes shopping more efficient.

As a side note, several vehicles have pulled out in front of the car todayboth forward and in reverse. Stay awake, people. I know it’s hibernation time for some of us, but safety first!

This afternoon’s tasks are to turn the veg beds and the compost. This, hopefully, will increase our yield next year. It’s been a weird one for the garden and for foraging this year. The climate changes are definitely making a difference. Even in expert hands, the growth of foodstuff has been unusual this year. Of course the garlic goes in now as it takes the best part of the year to mature, but it takes very little space or effort.

The house is almost done too. A panicked flurry of activity to prepare the room for the nieces to visit last week means the guest room is almost complete. There are pictures to hang in the living room and a cost of paint in the utility space. Next spring will hopefully see the front garden completed. We’re putting a wildflower lawn in for the bees although I think the idea of a beehive has been put to rest.

Value in Little Things

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We’ve been away but more of that later. One thing we often do is take a wander around a second-hand or junk shop. You can tell a lot about a nation by the things people resell. In Alice Springs, for example (yes, even on our great Australian adventure), we could’ve had anything from a teapot to a shirt to mining helmet. Brummen in Holland has a great 2nd hand warehouse. Gus’ back corner (achter hoek) . Seriously, you could furnish a house from there and clothe its inhabitants. There’s even paint, crockery, and electrical items. I’m not sure the cds and vinyl would be to everyone’s taste, but what can you do? Lol.

There were one or two glass cases with cast-off watches and small items of jewellery. In the back of one of these, I spotted several cameras. I love a camera. The box brownies and bellows based cameras now very difficult to get film for, but there was one little gem, an old 12 megapixel Samsung. Takes both photos and video. Look back on YouTube and someone the originals were using these things. Ten euro? Sold!

Vintage digital camera

Now, I had no idea if this was in working order, but, at that price, it was worth a punt. Reader, it works! 12 MP glory is mine. There was an SD card inside. I took a couple of test shots and flipped the display on to see the results…. guess what? In 1990, a family of Surinamese origin, somewhere in Holland, had taken pictures of their home and each other and, very sweetly, their pet rabbit. They are very ordinary photographs of an ordinary family doing ordinary things yet somehow trapped in time. I’m not going to publish their photos. I’m not sure yet if I should delete them since they have survived this long and they made me stop to think about the things we take for granted. One persons waste is someone else’s treasure. One person’s past is someone’s future.

Manky veg soup

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For those of you not from the north of England, ‘manky’ is a description of things not at their best. Frankly, past their sell by date. It applies to all things, not just food. It can apply to people.

You can make soup from pretty much any food…. not that I think ice cream soup sounds good, but.. our local supermarket has begun to sell boxes of the less attractive fruit and veg  cheap. Sometimes, the bag split. Sometimes, it’s close to their sell by date. Food that would otherwise go to waste. Either way, it’s £1.50  for a box you might pay up to £10 for in the normal run of things. They are available most days  but in limited numbers. Lots of people ignore them. Others are embarrassed to admit that cheap food may be exactly what they want. Now, I retired, and my monthly income was cut in half. I’m still doing OK, but I dont mind sorting through the veg boxes, and soup is always a simple,quick food option

Today, it’s root veg. Carrots and parsnips and a bit of onion mixed with the schmaltz from our last roast chicken. Pinch of salt, little bit of pepper. That’s four each servings for two people for a bit of time. Of course, some excellent bread with a thick slathering of butter.

I’m making myself hungry now.

Little pricks

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By which I mostly mean bramble thorns. Autumn is coming in fast enough and the season of mists may not yet be hear but on the pastway behind the house we have ‘mellow fruitfulness’. For reason don’t understand there are raspberry canes but mostly blackberry brambles. So far I’ve had around 3 kilos and these have even dutifully turned into jam (or jelly if you’re American although technically since these have not been sieved to remove the seeds its jam.)

Jam and bread. Home-made

You’d be surprised how many people stop to talk when you’re out foraging. Family groups who want to encourage their young. Older folks who want to share a memory. Some cheeky types who feel it’s OK to stick hand into your tub and taste the fruit! Mostly I go alone and take a small plastic dish and my grandfather’s old bamboo cane. I can remember him using it to bring down the taller branches to my height so I could help when I was small. Now I use it to do the same even though I can reach higher. Its good for thrashing away nettles too. I’ve just the one serious scratch from a particularly springy ground level branch. Should’ve worn long pants.

My brother donates bags of home grown chillies so there’s chilli jam too.

In other needle related news I went for a new tattoo or two this week. Maybe I’m old enough to know better but I’m also old enough to not give a damn. They’re small enough and covered much of the time. They’re for me not you.