The all new 2019 growing your own thread!

Living_proof

The forsythia is out here and my geraniums and fuschias are still blooming, albeit on a south facing wall. They will get a big shock soon.

zafiro1984

My long suffering DH picked the medlars yesterday. I threw them away last year as I didn't fancy the idea of letting them go rotten before eating them. I've just googled medlars on 'you tube' and I rather fancy the jam recipe. has anyone any idea of what they taste like?

Apart from the above nothing much happening here. I've still got carrots, parsnips and leeks outside and sweet potatoes plus second potatoes inside. I've loads of onions, garlic, potatoes, squash and bramleys in store plus raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, black/white/red currents, apricots, beans and sweetcorn all frozen. i just wish this awful rain would stop - I'm hoping for the driest December on record next month.

Primrose

Today experimented with roasting the dried seeds from a winter squash I saved recently (crown Prince) . Just roasted them for 5 mins sprinkled with salt in a hot oven. Didn,t expect them to start popping like popcorn thiugh!

My OH judged them too tough to be palatable but I'm not so dentally challenged as he is so would eat them as a snack if there was nothing else to nibble.

Has anybody else tried this? Could I have done something different to make them less tough? The seeds were quite large.

Suffolk_lass

I haven't tried this but if they are like butternut squash or big orange pumpkin seeds I would be inclined to peel them and just roast the kernels, like pine nuts, as opposed to sunflower or pumpkin that I buy - much smaller with no "peelable" coat on them

unrecordings

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

I haven't tried this but if they are like butternut squash or big orange pumpkin seeds I would be inclined to peel them and just roast the kernels, like pine nuts, as opposed to sunflower or pumpkin that I buy - much smaller with no "peelable" coat on them

I tried this once, but think it was a pumpkin and the seeds were too thin to do anything with. Pumpkin/squash was the ingredient challenge on Masterchef last night and some of them were presenting the seeds in various ways as a garnish. Unless they had access to a jar of the right kind of seeds, it looked to me like the greener varieties of squash had the better seeds, but the pumpkins (and maybe butternut) didn't

unrecordings

In other news, managed half an hour out there today. Got the rhubarb bed covered in trellis (for wildlife protection). Will mulch it with leaves at an opportune time. Birds have finished the lovage seeds so cut that back, will do the same with the fennel once the seeds are gone. I usually harvest the seeds but didn't get the chance this year (Got a couple of nice jars full from the last couple of years though).

Living_proof

I am dehydrating some pumpkin seeds as I write, and also some pumpkin leather-type things which will be powdered for later use. I have just cooked some spicy leek and sweet potato soup and just realised that all the ingredients (bar the Indian spices) were home grown. I would have to grow a lot more sweet potatoes next year if any sort of self-sufficiency is to be achieved! There is a glorious sunset here tonight so doubtless a hard frost in the morning!

Primrose

The winter squash seeds I dried and roasted for 5 minutes in the oven with a little salt sprinkled on them and subsequently decanted into a glass jars for snacks are storing well.

I occasionally help myself to a couple as I'm passing the counter where they're stored and will certainly repeat the process with the remainder of winter squash I,ve got stored. They're quite chewy and satisfying g to eat and I imagine are pretty high in fibre content.

unrecordings

Weather, fatigue & oedema have severely curtailed things, but in the past few days managed to repot over a dozen oak seedlings into newspaper wraps and donated them to the rangers at the adjoining woods who were well chuffed. Also managed to break the lock of the workshop, an the means to fix the lock is...

...inside the workshop. Still I have a plan.

Suffolk_lass

Oh no! that is such a "me-thing" to do. Good luck!