Oh, honestly…!

Sometimes I think that I exist in a parallel universe.

No, wait. That’s wrong.

Sometimes I think that a parallel universe exists within me…

I spend a lot of time with food.

Researching it. Thinking about it…

Growing it…harvesting it…

Preparing it, cooking it, eating it!

Like many people, trying to stay / be ‘healthier’ with it.

I suspect it would be healthier for my mind to simply be more relaxed about it….

So in the mornings I carefully prepare my days meals. Organically grown. Cooked ( and photographed!) with love….

( that’s b***ocks for a start. Mostly cooked with impatience and boredom at this end of the season, and a strong desire to sit down and watch the tele instead…)

Anyway –

In little glass pots and jars, I place in my basket ripe, soft tomatoes cooked with onions and the best olive oil. Snowy stewed apples. Piquant, caraway seeded sauerkraut. Diced cucumbers. Organic, unhomogenised milk. Crisp seeded oatcakes. A ripe banana.

I carry it all carefully to the car to be my good sustenance for the day.

---

 

Then I go back inside and eat a supermarket toasted white muffin with a fried egg on top.

SIGH.

Ah, me.

( Sometimes, when I have eaten too much  ‘slightly less than healthy’ food in a day I panic.

-All those lovely vegetables!!

—  All that time growing and cooking!

—   So then I eat as much as I can of that too.)

 

…..Then I have to go and have a  lie down in a darkened room.

 

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Clueless…

You know those (impossible) crosswords where they give you hardly any clues?

Well, this is a bit like that…… only easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Yes I know it doesn’t look that great..)

….but – I took these photographs before I went away  to Cromer. And I wrote the words to go with them. Honest, I did! But the words have vanished into the mist. And to be fair, there is only so much you can say about courgettes, and I have already said most of it this summer.

 

…..except that this little innocuous looking pot is sheer spice magic!

– Courtesy of ‘totally cultured’ , a food stall on Saffron Walden market which has recently started selling many different fermented and delicious products. I can highly recommend all the ones I have tried ( beware – the Kimchi is HOT!)

The pot above is a spice paste including turmeric, ginger, black pepper, salt, coconut oil – and it  seems to be extremely tasty with many things. It certainly takes courgettes to a new level .

 

Ps I know this is not a courgette. Just a pretty picture. however it is a real flower and not photo enhanced in any way. How cool is that?!

 

 

Stock taking…

The gradual slowing down of the growing season gives me time to pause for thought.

There is lots that I could be doing – always! – but I get to the allotment and potter. Wander around, pick a few beans here and a few overripe tomatoes there.

Sit in the sun, when it is out… perhaps writing this.

Gather jugs full of rich and complex flowers – glowing with colours to share with friends.

My body wants me to slow down too. I feel tired earlier in the afternoon. But honestly, my work load and generally barmy life dictate otherwise. So I want to assess my energy needs too.

I have been interested in the idea of fasting for some time. I watched some of the TV programmes about it, such as ‘Trust Me I’m a Doctor’ which explained a lot of the more recent research in this field. I find it fascinating and exciting.

In the past, I have taught cookery classes and run courses, including  putting more value on good, basic foods. Learning about different ways to eat and nourish our bodies. Often this includes far more traditional ways of eating than the modern, western diet that many of us are used to.

Feeding our bodies with what they really need to thrive.

Looking at long past history, and modern science, occasional fasting in a variety of ways can help our bodies to heal and grow strong. A bit of rest and recuperation for our beleaguered digestive system.

I really want to give it a go. But I procrastinate.

( To be fair, I procrastinate about most things in life. It is my default mode. I am extremely good a being indecisive.)

I have lived on ‘Stock’ for several days at a time before. It is the start of the GAPS diet healing protocol. I found it relatively easy and extremely soothing for my digestion.

But that was years ago and I feel much more well now. Is that what puts me off?

Trying to work it out in my mind, I am aware that I dislike feeling hungry. I know that when I haven’t eaten for a while I generally have more energy and often feel more focused and clear headed. Perhaps that is why I get up early and get a lot done – I haven’t had any food in the night!

During the day, I find feeling hungry or empty very similar to feeling anxious. Or nervous and upset. Or scared. Or all of the above. The gurgling tummy is distracting and disturbing.

In fact I believe that I often do the opposite – lots of eating when I feel anxious and panicky, in case it is hunger after all…

So perhaps I will wait until I feel relatively calm and stable (hmm….) before I try my next fast.

In the meantime I am reading Michael Mosley’s books – the Fast Diet, and his new one, the Clever Guts Diet – to inspire me. Clear and well written books. Highly recommended.

 

PS I am rather hoping that ‘going public’ with the idea might encourage me to do it…. if only so I can write another blog on how it went! I suspect it is more likely that I will write another blog on procrastination….

Notes to self: next year…

Try to grow ornamental climbers on separate poles to the runner beans.

….. it may look very pretty mixed together but it is  rather difficult to find any beans!

Grow less beans per pole….. see above. ( And below.)

Put in stronger supports for tomato plants – they get surprisingly heavy. And it is a windy site…

Be mentally stronger  ( in every way?) – cull some self seeded sunflowers when they are small. Man cannot live on sunflowers alone…..

Give the pumpkin plants more space?

(Like a whole allotment each ?!)

Perhaps don’t throw away the labels. At least not until you are more experienced…..

It just means you are not quite sure what to do with the crop!

Well –  some things are reasonably obvious. If it is round and orange it must be a pumpkin right? ( unless it is a red Kuri squash…)

… but does anyone have a clue what this monster is? I thought it was going to be a butternut squash – there is only one per plant – but the leaf looks more like a courgette –

Who knows! But if it keeps growing at this rate I won’t even be able to lift it let alone eat it.

Most importantly – try and make that space to slow down in. I found this card before I ever had an allotment.

( I hope it is allowed to picture it here – apologies if not. It is a wonderful Thelwell drawing)

It epitomises a dream I have of being a woman who doesn’t give a fig what other people think and who can, at least occasionally, put herself first. One who can recognise  that a deckchair is as vital as a vegetable in this world.

So I left a big space, and I bought a bag a grass seed. The space is full of weeds again now (that has to be a good euphemism for life somehow!) and I haven’t yet saved enough for the deckchair. But at least I am thinking about it. Will that do?

Probably not.

So this autumn I promise to myself that I will sow the grass seed..

And next summer I will sit in it.

On that note – I am going to try and have a few days at the seaside with my wonderful grandchildren next week.  A few days to think about other things. And so these are the books I will be taking:

…a roaring, lusty and beautifully written romance..the perfect distraction

…a book that makes me cry but also gives me back a little faith in the human race..

And the most irreverent book ever written on depression and anxiety  – which can make me laugh out loud even in the blackest moments.

Time to go for a paddle.

Not ugly..

A gentle melancholy lurks in the wings.

The wide, high skies are here too soon…

What is this slight lurching of the seasons? This year seems to be a bit out of kilter, as if viewed through a pier-end mirror.

Unseasonably cold springs. Long, early heatwaves. Drought in autumn. Drought in winter. A bit more drought in the spring.

Rain. Floods. HAIL. Thunder and lightning.

( Not great photographs sorry – but it was one o’clock in the morning!)

It is July. We have had mornings of 8 degrees. Stubble is appearing……

……..and I have already driven past a ploughed field. Hailstones like marbles have shredded the big leaved plants, bruised the apples, snapped off the dahlias.

I was really trying to avoid doing a ‘weather’ blog, but there is simply too much going on to ignore it any longer!

I am so full of sympathy for all the people who grow food for a living. Who are trying to  to feed themselves – and us. I know I am extremely lucky that it is mostly ornamental plants which have been damaged. That I am able to go to a supermarket for apples to replace my hail dented fruit. That we live in a part of the world where food is abundant and luxurious and can be flown in from almost anywhere. I often take this for granted.

On the good side…whatever difficulties you may have trying to grow any plant, anywhere in the UK  – this year we can certainly, genuinely blame it on the weather.

On the bad side… I most definitely do not feel ready for it to be autumn yet. The pumpkins may be getting bigger –

– but that is not much compensation when they are ready before the runner beans…

Come on sun..

Please give us all a bit more summer for our holidays..

 

And the ugly… Well, I was going to post a picture of these prematurely autumnal looking leaves…

But really? Its not that bad! Just a few leaves. I need to shake myself up, sweep away the leaves and focus on the lovely bits. Put on blinkers as I walk past the stubble fields.

After all, the dahlias are recovering – and they are not ugly,  but simply lovely.

The Pumpkin patch

I first saw plot 2 in September 2016. I noticed several things – the autumn sun highlighting the tall, bleached grasses, and the even taller weeds…

The holes in the (lovely) shed…

And the beautiful pumpkins and squashes on neighbouring plots, glowing on the ground like giant orange smarties.

( by the way, do the orange ones still taste of orange, does anyone know? )

As I started to learn about  ‘allotmenting’, one of the many interesting things has been the soil differences between plot and home.

In my damp, shady garden the squashes have never done well. Even courgettes struggle. I hoped, from what I could see, that I might have a better chance here.

I wanted to try and grow quite a lot of these plants. For a start, in my bid to provide much more of my own food, they do store well. ( If properly ‘cured’!)

And you can freeze some, especially made into soup first. Or ratatouille, in the case of the courgettes.

More importantly, for my best helper, what small boy doesn’t love a giant pumpkin?

As the plot got closer to being ‘plantable’ – ( in retrospect, maybe I rushed in a bit early. I would have liked to have done more preparation) – it also looked like a vast, empty expanse of earth.

Pumpkins were the answer! Lets get that ground covered..

Well of course I sowed too many.

…and of course they all grew..

…and they looked so sweet in their little pots..

I decided it would be fun to throw away the labels and just wait and see what appeared.. (!!)..

I sowed pumpkins, two or three varieties, some big, some small. And squashes, butternut types as well as Turks cap ( turban?) Courgettes (Three types? Maybe four!)

And now… The Giants have arrived.

 

They are magnificent. Also slightly intimidating, with their phenomenal growing power.

Their leaves are stunning, both architectural and held with such poise.

 

And the flowers huge and glowing – the bees love them, and come out drunk on pollen!

They like my ‘burial mounds’, heaps of goodness to grow in, as I  hoped that they would.

 

 

( the few leftover plants which I put in the ground at plot 1 are very sad and small by comparison.)

I planted 3 (3!) in the compost heap, where less than one would have been enough.

I looked up ‘stopping’ them. The book said pinch out the growing tips after 2 or 3 fruit have set, so you get much bigger ones. I didn’t really have the heart to do it… I may regret that.. but I also thought, I am only cooking for one, maybe many small ones would be more useful? We shall see. While  finding out about that, I read too late that I could have encouraged them to ‘climb’ more, by supplying sturdy frames. Belatedly I shoved a few hefty sticks into the compost bin. It was difficult, and very prickly, trying to tie them up!

I learnt my lesson and left the rest to roam free. (Next year I will try to put in supports a little earlier.)

And roam they do…

I measured one of the biggest – from tip to tip, it is 4.5 metres long and still growing.

So far there are largeish round yellow fruits and small,green corrugated ones, stripey courgettes and green ones and yellow ones, and Turks cap turbans big enough to actually wear on your head.

* plus one or two which still haven’t decided what to be…

Watch this space ( or rather, lack of it ) for autumnal updates.

PS. I guess that I could have also mentioned cucumbers in this post. But they did get a lot of limelight in the ‘Tendrils’ story and I don’t want them to get big headed.

(Plus I am eating 3 cucumbers a day. Like apples. Enough with the cucumbers.)