North by North

In June – after a loooong cold spell – we at last planted the climbing French beans (Goldfield and Algarve). They were definitely nothing to write home about

and – infringing the Pollyanna copyright – I warbled to Pekka not to worry: if we just get enough beans to eat fresh in the summer it will be all right as we still have quite a few packages from last year in the freezer (oddly, he wasn’t enthusiastic).

Well, the summer WAS warm…

..and now we have even more packages in the freezer – and a staple diet of beans. Maybe it’s the colour but our first favourite still is Goldfield – reliable, abundantly cropping and delicious. Algarve is not bad – actually it’s very good – but…

The ground caraway seeds found their way – together with fennel, aniseed, bitter orange peel and a few other ingredients – into the bread.

Yesterday we were returning from the nearest shop (25 km from home) when Pekka suddenly stood on the brake – he had noticed something we have been looking for in vain since the beginning of August: ceps. We were out of the car in a flash and in ten minutes had collected more than ten litres young perfect mushrooms. Hopefully this is a very late beginning of a productive season and not just a solitary stroke of luck.

The caraway seeds for our sweet-and-sour bread have been collected, both from our yard and from the neighbour’s pasture – though I feel a bit embarrassed when going to ask whether I can go to the pasture “as your cows anyway don’t eat caraway”. The former neighbour used to come and have a good squint at whatever it was I wanted to have that even his cows wouldn’t touch.

Yesterday was the time to harvest the Florence fennel (the time might already have been some two weeks ago but we had something else then). A few of them had bolted, most likely because of the great differences in temperature during the growing season  (from +8C to +35 and back to +8), which is no wonder – we at times felt like bolting, too… But we got quite enough of good ones to see us through the winter.

Today we went out to revel in mushrooming among the elk flies. Unfortunately there were far more elk flies than mushrooms but we got enough for a dinner

Chantarelles

Leeks, garlic, Jamaican Bell chillies (actually they are sweet peppers as they are not hot) and a small Bonbon squash that refused to grow.

French beans steamed and then braised in butter with garlic.

And as an appetizer steamed beetroot with blue cheese

The weather has really turned autumnlike and we are keeping our fingers crossed that the frosts wouldn’t hit us for a few more weeks so that our squashes/pumpkins would have time to mature. We are looking forward to a deluge of them…

…came and went; the world still stands, the broad beans don’t.

And as for the sheep and goats (though zoologically I prefer goats to sheep):

Medes: Excellent both in quantity and quality

Sutton, Express and Witkiem Manita: Almost as above

Imperial Green Longpod: Might have been as above but slower and thus got caught in the July-August heatwave when flowering which didn’t do it any good

Crimson: Mediocre in quantity – but wonderful if you count the flower colour as quality

That Czech one that just stated they were broad beans: Quite OK but annoyingly few seeds in a package, so not practical to buy

Aquadulce: Not for us next year, thank you

I’m fairly sure Aquadulce would be OK for winter sowing – it would grow slower and sturdier then, I presume – but that is out of question here.

So we are tolerably well provided with broad beans – and we completely agreed with Jane Grigson years before we read her books: shelled but unskinned beans do you good, eating skinned beans is a pleasure. Mind you, I also agree with her in that skinning them is a bore – especially when done in large quantities.

It’s nice to be back in circulation – so congratulations and thanks to the team!

The long (for us) hot period has got our chillies somewhat overexcited

and now we are faced with the task of doing something about it. We leave the pods to turn red on the plants that have ceased to flower but pick green/yellow pods from the still flowering ones so that the rest will grow bigger. The red ones we’ll dry and powder in the autumn, the green ones we freeze halved and de-seeded, or we make chili sauce with them.

Tomatoes, chillies and basil – we don’t add salt or other spices. The sachets are then frozen and used in various dishes during the winter. I was looking the other day proudly at our store of sauce – till I counted the sachets and realized we could use one per month…

Watch this space – the poppies are opening en masse…