Green Tomato Chutney Recipe

It's that time of year and this recipe addresses the problems of a glut of green tomatoes and the need to provide some sunshine in the winter time. It's my take on a basic theme, reflecting my preference for a little more spice than most. The brand names given reflect my preference, you can use what you like, I only bother where they taste a little different or add a little something.

1 whole garlic bulb. Peeled and chopped.
2 tsp celery salt
2 tsp ground cayenne
2 tsp smoked paprika (optional, Rachael won't have it in here)
250g raisins (optional)
2kg Green toms
500g Billingtons Unrefined Sugar
500g cooking apples, cored and chopped finely.
50g grated fresh ginger
6 Red Chillis. Not seeded. Chopped fairly finely.
600ml of Aspall's Cider Vinegar
750g chopped onions (not too fine)

Put the vinegar, tomatoes, onions and apples in a preserving pan ideally, I just use a big pot though, and simmer to soften for about half an hour.

While this is happening, use a pestle and mortar (or blender) to make a rough paste of the chopped chilis, garlic and ginger. You can use a little salt or oil to help the process if you can't get it "pasty" any other way.

Add the paste and everything else to the pan, keep the heat low (still on a gentle simmer) for ten minutes and stir gently and constantly.

Increase the heat to a more vigourous simmer and let the mixture thicken for a further 35 minutes or so.

Pour into sterilised jars, cover with vinegar proof lids and store in a cool, dark place.

Note, if you have ripe toms to use up, you can add them too. There's nothing magic about the green ones.

Weather Analysis

I thought it might be interesting to find out about our local microclimate, and I include it here in case anyone else does.

Climate Description: Changeable, temperate climate
Location: Northern Hemisphere, England
Annual High / Low Daytime Temperatures: 22°C / 7°C (72°F / 45°F)
Average Daily January Temperature: 7ºC / 45ºF
Average Daily June Temperature: 19ºC / 66ºF
Annual Rainfall / Precipication: 658 mm / 26 inches

I have gone fully pikey.

Despite the flurry of posts today, I didn't get to the allotment. I took the family to the local petting zoo instead. But now that I'm a fully paid up member of the semi-self-sufficient underclass I couldn't pass up the opportunity to avail myself of the wild plums growing on the trees in the local park. Ripe, sweet, absolutely delicious and the only price you pay is the comments from people who just don't get it. Bugger em. Enough for a couple of jars of jam, I think :)

Aubergine alert!

We've finally got one, and it's a beaut!

I know this falls way below the criteria and standard of a proper blog entry, but I'm excited!

Time please, ladies and gentlemen

I have called time on the tomato season. Not because we were running out, but because frankly I was just sick of watering every day. An Indian summer is a nice thing, but needing to go the greenhouse regardless of whatever else is happening has been a pleasureable and rewarding thing for the last six months, but enough is enough.

We have about 5 lbs of green tomatoes for making chutney and about 2 pounds of lovely yellow, red, black and cherry tomatoes for eating up. Excellent. I've composted the plants and used the contents of the grow bags to fill the old wheelbarrow I found (along with some bricks and some new drainage holes) and this will be full of Nigella, marigolds and nasturtiums next year.

Leeks, Beans and Fencing

Most importantly, our new neighbours have built us a fence. Decent posts and pallet wood. Really very nice of them and something we've been trying to find a way to do for months.

Picked a couple of leeks today. Very nice too.

The bean harvest is in full swing and going very well indeed. Couldn't be happier with yields.

I have some new plants to go in, caulis, carrots, kale and some very small leaks. Now preparing the beds for them. More on that later.

RIP Walnut Orb Weaver

Sorry for the rubbish phone pics.

I got my gloves out of the conservatory to do a bit of weeding, had a quick look, put them on and got on with my jobs. Five minutes in and I feel a nasty little spike in my little finger. Sadly, my reaction was to whip the glove off and crush whatever was in there. I was pretty sure what it was before I had my hand free, though.

Eventually I managed to turn the little finger inside out and there was a slightly emptied spider. What a shame. Oddly, it had dragged all sorts of bits of grass and tiny twigs in there with it.

The actual bite was pretty innocuous, it felt like a minor splinter except for an odd feeling of force. The aftermath wasn't so pleasant, minor lightheadedness and nausea for a couple of hours. Minor. Totally unsure whether any of that was envenomation or more likely latent arachnophobia and injured pride :)

Mostly gutted that I killed something.

Rat-tail maggots

Have finally managed to identify the long tailed creatures living in the comfrey/urine fertilizer. Rat-tailed maggots apparently, the offspring of hoverflies. Quite pleased about that, hoverflies are good things.

Read all about it

Tidying up for winter

Have sorted out the wood for the edges of the new bigger beds and layed that out. I'm going to do another dig n weed before calling them finished and putting the boards up.

Rachael's spud excavation has left me with two more beds dug and ready, I'm assuming roots are the next thing in the rotation, but really, things are rarely that transparent and I'm still not sure.

Have finally got the pond dug in, boarded off and covered with an old grill I found in the post war rubble at the bottom of our plot. Within two hours it had a dunnock bathing in it, and two frogs. Plenty more frogs seen since. I've part filled it with bricks, and surrounded it with bark from some old logs we had lying around, so we have some hopefully useful habitat. I say 'pond', it's actually one of those blue sea shell sand pit/paddling pool things that Rachael found blowing down a road one windy night, so that's a bit of recycling going on there.

Also found an old wheelbarrow (with no wheel) at the back of the Russian vine/bramble mess so have nailed some holes into it, and will empty the growbags into it and then plant Nasturiums, Nigella and maybe some other pretty things for next year. Have decided to control the nasturtiums next year, following the potato incident :)

Potato Harvests

The spud harvest was dug up today. It was a little disappointing as we only really made the same weight in potatoes as was planted, with the exception of the Maincrop, (Desiree) which doubled their weight. However, they are all edible and tasty. The Salad's (Charlotte) did the worse barely making their own weight.

The lack of weight is not really surprising though. Firstly, they all went in very,very late, June I think, so about 3 or 4 months behind schedule. On top of that they were planted in a bed that hadn't been manured after the greedy brassicas had taken all the nutrients out of the soil. Finally the Earlies ( Maris Peer and Pentland Javelin), had to contend with a huge number of extremely vigorous, self seeded nasturtian plants that we were too sentimental about to keep under control.

Next year we intend to get some more exciting potato varieties than those available in B & Q. We did attend a Potato Day at Stonham Barns early in the year. However we arrived quite late and then I spent most of the time breast feeding Daniel in the car. Gavin said he was too scared to buy the potatoes he wanted (which were the very ones I wanted), in case he got it wrong - as if I were that scary and evil! Anyhow, hopefully now we will both be trusting his judgement in future, as it seems we both want the same thing anyway.

Can you dig it?

Serious digging today. Joined up beds 2 and 3, 4 and 5 and redug bed 7. Did large portions of bed 8 and removed about 50% of the carpet. Evil, evil stuff. It's biodegradable, they say, meaning you have semi permanent lumps of the stuff to make your spade go 'doooing.' and jar your back. Ugh.

The allotment looks like a tip while I move things around. Big fire tomorrow night, a bit of tidying up, and some photos to follow.

I need to weed! A lot!

Here's a picture of a lovely autumn visitor to our homes, that I found in ours, last night. The fastest running true spider lives in England and he is Tegenaria gigantea (aka Tegenaria duellica) - the giant house spider. Totally harmless. What you most often see is the male of species running around in Autumn, looking for a female to give him a hard time.



"Roll on tomorrow, onward verily again to our realms!"
The unknown gardener.

Autumn has begun

And not in any subtle way either, weeks of gorgeous warm sunshine gave way last night to ferocious cold, storms. The wind did some damage to my bean pole arrangements, but nothing to the plants, and crucially for me, the greenhouse survived intact. Amazing really.

It will soon be time to make chutney from those last few tomatoes that refuse to ripen. We have about a dozen ripening on the vine and perhaps 4 dozen that don't look like they will. I'm a little disappointed with yield this year, but perhaps that's just because I've been taking them as they ripened so haven't really seen a bountiful quantity in one place. More plants will be grown next year, and more varieties. More on this in another entry, it's turned into quite a big subject for me (a huge excuse for surfing seed catalogues).



Cleaning up in the greenhouse today I found this fine example of Nuctenea umbratica (Walnut Orb Spider) hiding under my seed trays. Very large (about 4cm from front leg tip to bum) but very, very quiet and I don't think it meant me any harm, which is just as well really, as it can do some. (Warning: Not safe for arachnophobes!)



We've also got quite a nice garden spider residing in the greenhouse. This one's a bit more active, but we coexist quite happily.


I emptied my long dead Savoy seedlings into the compost bin, and put the empty trays back on top of the spider, who hadn't moved. Hopefully I was gentle enough to allow him/her to get comfy again (they were empty and very light.)

Disaster (of the minor kind)

Every single one of our brassicas has been devoured by Large White catterpillars. I'm slightly annoyed about this. I've lost 20 Curly Kale and the same number of Early White Sprouting brocolli. There is nothing left but rough stumps towering to a height of about 1" from the ground. Somewhat of a setback. Ho hum.

On a brighter note, our beans are doing fantastically. I have all the ones I planted going great guns now.



And my leeks are doing far better than my expectations.

Leeks

My squashes, I think, are finished for the year. I'll give the courgettes another few days to surprise me, but my South African gem squash plant has ceased to function. Will grow those again though, they were delicious.

Here's today's harvest

Today's Harvest