Bumper Crops. 26th Aug 2019.

We have had a bumper crop of onions and celery this year. The onions are almost the size of show onions which are normally grown from special seed. These were sets (tiny onions) which we bought from a nursery. They are double the size of most onions and we are just hoping that they keep well as they should then last us well into next year.

The celery too have grown amazingly well. Home grown celery are always a little greener than bought celery so are stronger flavoured and the outer stems a bit tough. What I do though is juice the outer stems along with a few leaves and freeze down any juice that I don’t use straight away. Celery juice is so good for the digestion and as a liver cleanser.

The next stage is making soup from the remaining stems having saved the hearts for salads. I picked some of our leeks to go in the soup and together with a large onion I made a large pan full which is now in the freezer for colder winter days.

We are still battling with slugs this year. Often the worst is over by the time summer arrives as the crops are bigger and the weather drier but this year we have had more rain and the population just expands again. They were devastating my lettuce in the back garden so we had to start slug patrol again. This involves waiting until it is dark then picking slugs and snails off the plants. It took about a week to get on top of them again but fortunately the lettuce are recovering. I also started placing a ring of lettuce leaves around the planting area. I used leaves that had been partly eaten so wouldn’t be used by us and then replaced with more each night. In the morning they were always gone so a worthwhile trick which I will use again.

As the plot empties my freezer fills and although I don’t freeze down vegetables we now have lots of soups, juices and fruits to take us through the winter. Happy days!