After a weekend house-sitting for my folks, come home with a boot full of produce from their jungle-like veg patch.
Chard, spinach (snail nibbled), first dwarf beans, courgettes, kohl rabi, chillies, raspberries – it’s all coming now. Feel the annual stress of the summer glut beginning.
Suspect our allotment is about a month behind the Worcestershire one. Planted out the Turks Turban, all 9 of them, and harvested a pitifully small amount of summer raspberries, last of the strawberries, last of the red currants – the ones the birds didn’t find – and very first of the blackberries.
In the past few weeks all the outdoor greens and tomatoes have found a new lease of life, filling out, shooting up and generally getting a whole lot more virile.
To the kitchen.
The chard, spinach and last strands of cima di rapa are cooked down, drained, squeezed and chopped. What for? Spanakopita? Curry? Tart? Freezer?