Save the cabbages

I finally found out why everyone hates cabbage whites with such a passion. The remaining cabbages were coated with cabbage white caviar and there was nothing for it but to harvest all of them and process immediately. Three red cabbages were cooked up with apple, cloves and red wine and portioned up for the freezer and four white cabbages (Christmas Drumhead) went into the crockpot to make sauerkraut (hopefully no mould this time - we're keeping a close eye on the water level this time). A small red cabbage went into a home-made Pickl-It jar for making red sauerkraut and there was still enough cabbage left for a big batch of coleslaw.

It was definitely a good idea to get the cabbages and other brassica going early so that I'd harvested all the cauliflowers and most of the cabbages before the cabbage whites started laying eggs, but next year I'll net the remainder as soon as I see the little white blighters.

Another pest I encountered last week was gooseberry sawfly caterpillar. They'd already deleafed two red currants before I spotted them on the jostaberry. Now what do you do about that? Not even the chickens wanted to eat those.

 Poor jostaberry, chomped by gooseberry sawfly caterpillars

The major excitement last week other than the referendum (and the reason that I didn't really get any weeding done) is that we had the conservatory redone. The frame was so rotten and full of ants that we decided to bite the bullet and have it redone from the brick up. And it's marvellous. It should now be usable all year round as it's properly weather-tight.

Loving the shiny new conservatory

The harvests are still plentiful. The peas Douce Provence are super tasty and the mixed radishes are just fun. And then there are still bumper crops of carrots and courgettes. I'm now trying to cook something with chard one day a week, same with kale and swedes. The chard makes a great curry and kale is much nicer with sesame oil (and bacon). We've invested in a dehydrator which arrived this week. Experimentation with veg crisps, fruit leathers and dried tea herbs is about to begin.

Colourful harvest

As usual, we had sunflower casualties - this time due to me lifting up the horizontal sunflower to let Jim scythe underneath. But they make such cheerful cut flowers.

Sunny sunflowers

Back to weeding tomorrow.

Good-bye swallows

The swallows left last week and all signs point towards autumn, but the quince tree doesn't think so and has started to flower beautifully:

Confused quince

Meanwhile, the sunflowers have developed a new survival strategy in our windy garden - growing horizontally.

Sunflower survivor

In the veg garden it's harvest time, big time. Lots of courgettes, carrots, beans and potatoes. We also sampled our first leek and Uchiri Kuri squash this week. This wasn't quite as planned, but something had discovered a taste for the squash. I guess that is the downside of squashes where you can eat the skin.

Who's been nibbling at my squash?

I think the guilty party has already been exterminated by our feline night watchman. Domino has taken up nightly residence in the veg garden and can be found in the carrot bed of a morning.

When is the best time to pick winter squashes? Any time after they turn the right colour? They are all quite small at the moment so I'm tempted to leave them growing for a few weeks longer.

Tomorrow's purple kohlrabi

We took our first foray into making wine this week. One batch of carrot wine and one of bramble are on the go and are smelling delicious. It will be a while before we are self-sufficient in alcohol though!

And, with all the sunny weather, I've finally got around to painting two sheds, the summer house and the fence at the front of the house. Looks like the summer house will now become a vegetable store and not a sauna. Any tips on mouse proofing? Maybe I should consult Domino...

A bit of necessary shed TLC

Nice melon

Our visitors have been and gone and, despite me feeding them lots and lots of veg, we still have heaps. We obviously need more visitors, especially ones that like potatoes and courgettes (and kale, carrots and Swiss chard).

Last of the cauliflower and first of the purple carrots

Factoid of the week: Purple carrots are orange inside

The one thing we don't have so much of is fruit though we're doing OK on brambles. The first melon was ripe and smelling invitingly at tennis ball size. It made a delicious amuse bouche for four:

Mini cantaloupe

Not everything looks end of season in the plot. The peas Douce Provence that I sowed in July are about to come on stream and the sweet and crunchy purple kohlrabi is just really getting going.

Peas again

Our first batch of sauerkraut was a failure. The brine level wasn't high enough so it started to go mouldy. Heart-breaking to dump it all on the compost bin, but at least we have more cabbages to try again. I've just had a slug and snail killing spree around the cabbages. The seaweed does seem to help keep them away, but at this time of year some manual removal is obviously necessary. I've been keeping all the harvested cabbage plants and crossing the stalks and new little spring-type cabbages are emerging. Neat little trick.

Second growth from one of the red cabbage plants

I like how there are always new crops to look forward to, even if it is sad that some things are coming to an end. The cauliflowers are finished, just one Romanesco and a few little broad beans. One of the next crops we look forward to are Brussels sprouts - and all the squashes, of course, leeks and parsnips.

Brussels sprouts Evesham Special

More homebrewing equipment is on its way. Hopefully next week we'll get to start our first batches of wine: bramble wine, of course, and, since we have a bumper crop, we'll give carrot wine a go, as well. Now that's a nice way of preserving veg.