Tuesday was forecast to be a bit brighter. To be honest it wasn't going to have to be all that much of an improvement to be better than the last few days. It didn't get off to a very good start.
It seemed like we got the only shower that was about in Northern England. Once that passed it was a little bit brighter and after lunch we decided that the trip to the plot to harvest some vegetables couldn't be put off any longer.
First job was to dig some carrots, parsnips and leeks. It was sort of sunny when we arrived at the plot but the sky didn't give me much confidence that it was going to stay that way. I wasn't too sure which direction the weather was coming from. This was looking east.
And looking west wasn't too promising either.
We were under a patch of blue so I got on harvesting some vegetables. It’s so much easier to buy your veggies at the greengrocers at this time of year. The tops of the vegetables are wet, soil is wet and doesn't want to part company with carrots parsnips or leeks. Everything comes up covered in soil.
I’d hate to start trying to clean these vegetables at home so there was nothing to it other than get a bucket of cold water and give them a wash on the plot. Normally I try to avoid washing freshly harvested vegetables as I think it reduces their keeping qualities but in these cases I was prepared to make an exception.
As it happens they scrubbed up rather well. I did have to consign a few carrots straight to the compost heap as some had split and others had some slug damage. The couple of parsnips are only for a tester to see if the roots are sweet enough to harvest. They’re supposed to need a frost to sweeten them but I’m hoping these two will be good to eat without a “frosting”
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Harvesting is a rather messy job at this time of year but totally worth it for the taste of home grown. I don't have much to harvest, I really need to make better plans next year.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Jo the taste is much better than shop bought otherwise I'm not sure growing and harvesting winter veg would be worth the effort.
DeleteI've been wrestling with mud at the plot as well. I love your first site photo, it's lovely. Are they all your compost bins? The veg look perfect once the mud was washed off, it's a satisfying job. And that's a really nice harvest. I picked my last cucumber yesterday, I was really looking forward to it, but I left it at the plot by mistake. When I went back today it had gone. No doubt some beastly beast had it away.
ReplyDeleteThose compost bins belong to our neighbours plot CJ. Ours line up opposite his on the other side of the road forming a sort of compost bin alley.
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