End of Year Review

So, here it is... my end of year review. First things first, lets get the disappointments out of the way:

Beetroot - what on earth happened there? I had new varieties, burpees golden and chioggia to try but they came to nothing more or less; partly because next door's cat thought that the freshly sown bed was put there for his benefit, but even subsequent sowings were poor. Old faithful boltardy did better, but I still didn't get as many as I should have done.

Brassicas - the less said about these the better; I'm not even going to detail them separately as absolutely nothing grew.

Broad beans - my first proper attempt was devastated by blackfly.

Courgettes - not a single fruit formed on any plants... actually, that's not strictly true; there were a couple but they just shrivelled up, and I have never failed to grow courgettes before.

Cucumbers - after the first couple the plants just seemed to give up so I also gave in and pulled them up.

Herbs - failed to germinate... end of story.

That's enough of that, now onto the good stuff.

I had more berries than previous years; a constant supply throughout the summer, from strawberries

to raspberries

and blackberries

Onions were spectacular

and tomatoes were consistent; they kept cropping until November

This year I also kept a tally of how much it would have cost to buy all of the fruit and veg that I produced; excluding the few things that never made it to the kitchen scales the grand total was.....




... drumroll




... £115.85 and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I'm under no illusions that I'm near self-sufficient (especially not this year), or have broken-even but still, it means I didn't spend it on produce.


The highlights were:

Potatoes £29.00
Tomatoes £15.31
Parsnips £10.55
Raspberries £8.62
Onions £8.54
Peppers £8.48
Strawberries £8.29

So, onwards and upwards to 2013 and next season!

Reliable Potatoes

I tried some new varieties this year; maris bard and bonnie, along with charlotte which I grow every year and they consistently made it to the dinner table from the first batch in June, through to about September

So much so, that I decided to take a break from them for a while; I cut the haulms and then left them in their sacks.

It wasn't until November, after a tonne of rain that I felt like digging some up again but wasn't expecting them to have survived very well; my good intentions to move the sacks into the greenhouse out of the wet weather had not materialised so they had just been getting drenched!

So I was pleasantly surprised when I unearthed these

and these

There were only a couple of rotten ones in amongst them; cue potatoes on the menu at every meal for the next few weeks!

Glorious Parsnips

This year's parsnips definitely warrant a post of their own; I eagerly harvested one in August and wasn't disappointed, then waited until November before pulling up two or three each week

However, the amount of wet weather we were having and the waterlogged ground started to worry me, so in early December I decided to pull them all up; this was a mammoth task in itself as thinning out is not something I tend to engage in

and I wasn't expecting so many

So, what to do with them all? Half of them were blanched and put in the freezer for roasting later; the rest of them became one of the easiest soups I have ever made.

I simply, chopped them up and fried them with some onion, sea salt, cumin, paprika and a couple of whole chillies

Added stock and cooked until softened

Removed the whole chilli and blended; it was quite thick so I needed to add a bit more stock to get the perfect consistency

It kept us fed for days!

Peppers & Chillies

Before I get to my end of year review there are one or two things that I want to give specific mention to, so think they deserve their own post; the first being peppers and chillies.

After a very slow start they did come into their own eventually and cropped for ages; here is a selection of them

 

 

 

 

I harvested the final batch at the beginning of this month

 

 

A couple of batches of chilli jam later and I'm more than happy that they came good in the end.