What’s cookin’?

The sweetcorn has started maturing into nice juicy cobs. We harvested the first half dozen specimens for supper. At this rate, we may have sufficient for about 7 family meals, and plenty of roughage for the goats.

Whilst at the veggie patch, Bianca stopped off at the apple section of the orchard. The ones with a flattish Granny Smith type appearance taste good, with a tough-ish peel. They look as if they might be good for stewing into preserve and perhaps apple sauce, so she collected a small batch for a cooking trial. (The lonely strawberry is one of the last of Brynn’s crop.)

(Above): To complete the cooking picture, we added a couple of quinces and a container of tomatoes from the greenhouse.

In the near future, we may have a couple of cookery blogs for you.

Tom Report

As we pass the middle of February, the days will now start shortening and the hours of valuable sunlight diminish. With this in mind, I conducted a quick inspection of the green tomatoes in the veggie patch.

XII, as he was named last time, is now a fully fledged “Red”. Perhaps there will be a little picking ceremony and (perhaps?) a few kind words to the rest of the gathered throng…

In the row just north of XII is a promising-looking plant, called, sequentially “V” not for Victory, but for numero cinque – as in what I would call “5.”  So-called “V” has a few fruits which seem to be on the verge of ripening:

Back at the greenhouse, things are warm and swinging, with the three hanging baskets bearing the small decorative jobs, being the most productive at this stage. Bianca sorted the fruits by size and set aside a bowl of smaller ones for use in salads, and prepared and cooked the rest in an onion/tomato/spice relish preserve base.

1,100 grams of Organic product with onions and other “secret” herbs and spices went into the pot, and out came…. a large jar and two smaller jars of yum! – Pure home-grown organic stuff with no artificial colourants or sugar added:

Arrival of XII

I’ve never been able to grow anything much more than ugly toe-nails and a bad hair-style. Oh yes, and once a pathetic apology for a moustache. Besides that, I’ve been fairly inactive in the Growing Department.

You should therefore excuse my apparent excitement at the ripening of the larger tomatoes. I didn’t grow them, mind: Clayton is the grower and I have been assistant waterer over the past month. I like to think of myself as the Aquagent Extraordinaire.

But what about this XII stuff? Well, we agricultural farmers cultivate the soil simply because it is there: it is nothing personal, like someone raising little children and giving them each a name. I have simply named the tomatoes numerically, so to speak, and the name of the one twelfth in the row is XII. Actually XII is an abbreviation for Do-Decimus.

To-day Do-Decimus has become the first “outside” tomato to start maturing from a green dunce to a bright red fruitful personage. He is of the genus Tomatoyis Biggus, and has three similar sized siblings, two smaller ones and a real tiny little sister. Not that I’m trying to personify these plants, you understand. That would be silly.

At the same time in the greenhouse, I have noted that Inmate 2014-128 in Mamertino Carcere (the old Roman prison) has started to develop a distinct colour tone as well. I snapped a picture of him while the guards weren’t looking:

Graduation of the first Tiny Tims

Any achievement is noteworthy, especially in the eyes of the achiever.

This morning, Clayton carefully harvested the first half kilo or so of small bright red tomatoes from his greenhouse after a number of weeks of caring concern and worry that “his little ones” wouldn’t develop from the green bumpkins into shining slickers. Those who were still on the orange side were left for promotion for tomorrow or Sunday.

What I know about gardening is dangerous – almost as much as I know about nuclear physics or women. The fruit collected, therefore, in my book are tomatoes. I have checked the seed packets in the seed-store (shelf in the garage) and discovered that they could be Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes, McGregor’s cocktail tomatoes (unlikely, because the packet is still sealed), or Dwarf Maja tomatoes.

Our policy is to grow vegetables and fruit which will be used: I understand that there is a plan afoot to sow a few of each of the varieties of tomato seed, interspersed with Basil at fortnightly intervals to evaluate the most suitable and desirable variety for us. Keeping you posted.

Next on the harvest list are the bigger tomatoes and sweetcorn.