Harvesting

Lots of my veg are ready for harvesting now - beans, carrots, courgettes, beetroot. You don't realise how much of the stuff you actually end up with when sowing your seeds. At first I was giving it out to neighbours, but there is so much veg people can eat or want. So I decided to get off my arse and get ready for winter.

Friday night I spent a few hours picking the courgettes and French beans. I then washed them, cut them up, steamed them for a few minutes and the packed them up in bags for the freezer. I now have a plentiful supply of both for the winter when I want them. The courgette and beans in this pic are about 15% of what I will have by the end of summer.

This week I will do the same with the carrotts and the beetroot will be pickled.

It's nice to kind of get into a natural cycle with nature - i.e. summer you are busy doing loads of things and then winter it all slows down and you have a bit of a break. Come winter time we should have loads of stuff in the freezer which will save us lots of pennies and also give access to things out of season.

I really need to get everything out of the ground now so I can start planting a few winter crops too such as kale, winter cabbage, etc but because I was playing catch up this summer lots of my veg is late. I also want another veg patch but I am waiting for the hens to get that allocated area as grass free as possible to make rotivating it a bit easier.

I read something in The Independent last week about a farm that was bought by a collective. They all chipped in the capital to buy the land, seeds, tools, etc. They all then help with the manual labour and share their crop when ready. This is a great way forward. If I had a few people dedicated enough here I would probably try and do something similar but as with most things they may think it is a great idea at first then once it all gets a bit hard they jump ship and you are left with 1/2 acre of land to tend to on your jack. But for those who are serious the concept if fantastic.....