Done for the time being

I think that’s as much harvesting as I can cope with for the moment. The next job is probably to remove the stripped tomato plants from the polytunnel and, feed them through the shredder and into the compost. Normally I’d do that in half a day, but such pace is somewhat beyond me at the moment.

One of the reasons there are so many green tomatoes is because once the vines reached the top of the polytunnel I pinched out the tips and then allowed a new shoot to develop from one of the leaf nodes at the bottom of the plants, winding it around the existing vine for support. That produced a fair bit of additional fruit, but sadly the warm weather ran out.

The ones still on the vine are “De Colgar” which is a “storing” tomato. Allegedly they’ll keep for several months after harvesting, but after seeing them this year I reckon for us it’s easier just to turn them into passata or something similar and I won’t bother growing them again.

Also in the photos are the last of the cucumbers (other than the ones I’m keeping for seed), normal cayenne peppers, “chonky” cayenne peppers and Zitava peppers (for paprika). I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the unripe Zitava fruits yet.

Full of all this produce the kitchen smells wonderful at the moment, especially as I have bread in the bread-maker too. Even before it’s cooking I love that yeasty smell of rising dough.

Before doing more I was going to have a little mid-afternoon snooze on the sofa, but it would appear that I have been beaten to it 😀

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There’s no need

Honestly! I spend the Summer wobbling around the polytunnel watering, pruning and generally caring for the plants to the best of my ability and this is the response I get.

There’s no need. Just no need.

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Stage Two complete

I’ve picked all the jalapenos. I’ll be pickling them once I find a jar big enough to fit them in.
Cayennes next, I think.

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I just had to share this

A red Corno di Toro pepper (which was buried under the heap in the photo with the previous posting). Is it not a thing of beauty? I’m salivating just looking at it 😀

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Stage one complete

These are all my remaining sweet peppers other than the ones for making paprika and a half-dozen or so that I found hiding in the foliage after taking the photo. A mix of red and yellow Corno di Toro, Slovakia, Kapia, brown bell peppers and purple bell peppers. Obviously not all fully ripe. I don’t have a plan for all of them yet, but that’s a problem for another time.

They’ve done so well this year. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a huge crop.

I need to go to have a bit of a lie down now. I’m rather wobbly and slicing the imperfect peppers to have with lunch was “exciting”. Typing is quite tricky too. I had to do most of the harvesting whilst sitting on a stool because every time I crouched down and stood up again my head started spinning. Unpleasantly like being drunk. Or like Elvis Costello(?): I can’t stand up for falling down 😀

Once I feel a bit more stable I think I’ll start harvesting the jalapenos. I’m so looking forward to those. I might save one or two to stuff with cheese and other goodies, but most will be getting pickled. (What was that about being drunk?)

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It’s time…

I’ve had a few issues with rust over the years, as have my garlic plants, so these days I grow them in the polytunnel, planting towards the end of October. I saved these bad boys from this year’s harvest. I’ll separate the cloves and plant them individually.

I’ve been prevaricating because I still have plenty of tomatoes and peppers in the polytunnel that aren’t quite ripe and the plants need to come out to make room for the garlic to go in. I’d even been contemplating planting the cloves in small pots to get them started, then planting them out in a few weeks.

Based on the Met Office forecast however, I think from this weekend temperatures are going to be too low for any further ripening to take place. Today therefore I’m going to make a start harvesting all the remaining peppers and tomatoes and we’ll see how long Scotty can keep things going in the engine room before I have to stop. I’ve ordered more dilithium crystals, but they’re coming from China and are being delivered by Evri, so I’ll probably end up being delivered a pair of left-handed scissors some time in mid-December.

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No pilot’s licence yet

The last two days have been a bit of a struggle, partly due to my BP issues and partly due to my abject failure at teaching myself to fly (that is, I completely failed to miss the ground) at the the weekend.

Every day is a school day however and I’ve learnt quite a bit about what some of the muscles at the sides of the rib cage actually get used for. Often fractionally later than I’d like to have known it, but experience is what you don’t get until just after you need it, as they say.

Fortunately the days weren’t entirely wasted. I pickled some more Hungarian Black chiles, which this year are about jalapeno strength unlike the jalapenos themselves which are like eating napalm so no-one else in the family will go anywhere near them. Perhaps they’d go well with octopus? 😀 I’m quite intrigued that the final pickled black chiles have a red hue to them.

I also read a bit more of Ciamh McDonnell’s “Dublin Trilogy”. I’m up to book five now as far as I recall. I gather there’s a new television series based on the books to be shown soon, called “Tall Tales and Murder”. I’m not sure how well the books will translate to the screen, but it could be fun, if a little violent.

I must look up how to pronounce “Ciamh”. Based on the fact that “Niamh” is “Neeve”, perhaps it’s as simple as “Keeve”, but I’m quite prepared to be wrong.

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Not in the least armless

My daughter has the icks this morning because my wife has taken her dad food shopping and sent us this photo from wherever they are.

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The World’s End?

This whole “be prepared” campaign by the government seems quite odd to me.

On the one hand they want us to be ready for the zombie apocalypse, but on the other they don’t seem at all keen on people owning machetes.

I mean, what’s a chap supposed to do?

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Are you pro-tein?

According to the interwebs, protein now seems to be the thing we should be eating. I don’t know how long that’s been going on because I don’t pay attention to the sort of people who are saying it, but I was amused to have an advert thrown at me by “the algorithm” today from a well-known producer of salted peanuts.

“PROTEIN!”, it said. “Loads and loads of PROTEIN!”. Oh, and FIBRE, but “PROTEIN!” As if it was some sort of health food.

Yes, ok, so I’m prepared to accept that the apparent recommended serving size of 30g (which is, frankly, errr, peanuts, especially if you’re washing them down with a pint or three of Hobgoblin) contains 9g of PROTEIN, but that’s probably around 15% to 20% of the average adult’s daily protein requirement and eating too much protein can bring it’s own health issues.

What they also conveniently fail to mention is that 30g serving also contains 9% of the recommended daily calorie intake and over a fifth of the recommended fat.

So perhaps not really a healthy choice more than once in a while?

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