I should have taken this week off. Not because I need a holiday or a rest, not to make the most of the warm September weather, not because I have pressing jobs to do at home. No, it’s because this week I am embarrassed by the lack of choice in the shop. The relentless dry weather down here on the Essex/Suffolk border (I will elaborate later for the sceptical) has taken its toll on the summer crops. The runner beans have gone hard and tough, the courgettes have just decided that enough is enough, I am between crops of lettuce – and the next batch is still some way off. In a nutshell, I am struggling. I am hoping to have enough French beans through a combination of green and purple ones, but they are also in decline, so I just hope that they soldier on a bit longer. Tomatoes are slowing down but there will be enough for everyone. There is kale and chard, and more chilli peppers than you can shake a stick at. There will be a very limited number of red peppers, so I will have to restrict numbers per customer, and even then you should get in early to avoid disappointment. What I do have new are Uchiki Kuri winter squash. I gathered them in at the begging of last week and have laid them out on the staging in the propagating greenhouse to cure. These are the orange (hard) skinned ones with orange sweet nutty flesh, good for roasting or making soup with. The butternut squash mostly need a little longer in the field to ripen before curing.
The rain. Ah yes the rain. Last Tuesday I put my faith in the meteorologists of the BBC and the Met Office who confidently predicted precipitation, and a reasonable amount of it. I thought that it might resurrect some of the ailing crops, but it wasn’t to be. “What’s that?” I hear you folk who live north and east of here exclaim, “but we had a huge deluge of rain on Tuesday afternoon, it was bouncing off the road, it filled my 5 water butts to overflowing, I got soaked through to the skin”. Well not here! Not a ruddy drop! There are thunderstorms forecast overnight, and more rain tomorrow, but I ain’t holding my breath.
The kitchen is functional! Nobody knows where anything is, or where the contents of all of those boxes stacked in the sitting room are going to live, but everything works and the scout camp is being disbanded bit by bit. The cats and Nellie have loved being out under the gazebo, so they are less happy about the near completion of the refurb. Next Saturday the making good around the electrical modifications will be done, and the following week the decorator will weave his magic….if we can agree on colours before then! The end is in sight.
Look I’m ever so sorry, but I was late starting this and it’s fast approaching 8 o’clock, the kick off of England’s second match in the Rugby World Cup, and I am going to have to watch it. So there’s no time to tell you about our new hens, grandson Angus going off to Uni, my birthday, apple picking, or anything else for that matter. Oh, one thing….with the kitchen operational I will be making basil pesto this week.
That’s me signing off, very abruptly, have a splendid week.
Phil