Turning into a busy week in the kitchen

After making several more batches of spicy pear chutney, my wife used pretty much all the large green tomatoes we had left to make green tomato chutney. It’s a lovely smell to wake up to ? I think we now have getting on for forty jars all told, so that should see us through to the New Year if we’re not over-generous with it.

I also pickled all the jalapenos that were left. I failed to account for the much-increased heat of this year’s harvest, so didn’t wear any gloves whilst chopping them. Then shortly afterwards rubbed my nose, which was itching due to the aroma of the hot chiles and vinegar in the saucepan ? Just as well that I had no need to visit the bathroom before finding out…

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The shame of it!

I had to have plastic tomatoes with my lunch today as we’ve finished all the ripe ones that I’ve grown this year. There’s no denying that industrially-produced ones taste crap by comparison.

Fortunately we still have a few ripe sweet peppers left. This is one of the chocolate ones. I love the colour of these. I’ll miss them too when they run out.

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Last of the tomatoes

The forecast for the West Somerset rainforest at the tail end of this week was looking as though it might get a bit chilly, so on Wednesday I stripped all the remaining tomatoes from the plants I left in the polytunnel. Amazingly the plants were still flowering, which I guess demonstrates just how warm it has been here, even into the second week of November.

There weren’t a huge number of fruit left and most of them weren’t even close to ripe, but hopefully a few days indoors in the relative warmth will encourage them to turn red. Or yellow, if that’s the colour they are intended to be.

The plants were also completely clear of blight, which I’ve always considered a certainty at this point of the year. Another thing that can be attributed to the weather, I suspect.

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How does that make sense?

At times I realise that I really don’t understand how to interpret the Met Office weather forecast. For example, the forecasts for next Wednesday and Thursday (which I wouldn’t place much faith in anyhow) don’t suggest much chance of rain at all.

Yet the summary for both days is “rain showers”.

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Surely not?

Being a teenager with an interest in electronics (in fact somewhere along the line I even collected an O Level in the subject), the Maplin catalogue made a thick wedge on my bookshelf for many years.

Then, almost a decade ago I think, the business failed. So I was quite surprised to see this as I was sitting in the car in Sainsbury’s carp ark in Taunton last week.

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Trying to find your nuts?

I assume this is a squirrel trying to find where they buried nuts earlier in the year. Quite possibly my walnuts. Little buggers.

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Time for a different variety

I bought seeds for these purple sweet peppers last year and I have to say I’m quite disappointed. The variety is “Violet Bell” and they’re much smaller than I was led to believe they would be. This coming year I might have to try “Oda” or “Purple Beauty” as they’re both claimed to be “heirloom” varieties and therefore should be suitable for seed-saving.

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Conjoined triplet apples!

I found these in the top of a sack of apples that had been brought in for pressing. I’ve seen pairs of apples like this before, but never three. They definitely came from separate flowers, too. Each one has a separate calyx.

Speaking of which, what’s the plural of calyx?

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Isn’t that kind of expected?

Surely you’d not want to be given your diagnosis by someone who didn’t have access to your records? 😀

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First batch off the production line

Our own tomato paste, for topping pizzas, making pasta sauces and whatever else takes our fancy, really.

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