An obsession...?

So what do you do the day after finding out what your apples are? Go and pick some apples of course!

So accompanied by my crack apple picking team (aka the kids) we set off for the plot, via the local fruit and veg shop to pick up some more plastic trays. I grabbed five trays, thinking I'd stock up on some whilst there were some there. We get to the plot and I ask the team how many should we take to fill up - "all of them of course!"

Unfortunately it was another cold day and it wasn't long before we were regretting leaving the gloves at home.

"Dad, I'm cold"

The kids worked on a system where the oldest picked them and the youngest put them in the trays for him, which worked quite well until they were both too cold to pick apples.

I'm copying these teeth when we do the pumpkin carving!

Fortunately by this stage we'd picked the 5 trays of apples - about 150 ish apples - so it was time to leave. With plenty of apples still left on the trees.

At home, Mrs D was busy peeling and coring as many apples as she could fit into out largest saucepan for another batch of apples sauce destined for the freezer, from the 'ugly' pile - those that weren't likely to keep. I started giving the 'good' apples a quick wipe and the kids set to work wrapping them in newspaper so they could go into storage.

After they were placed in their various boxes I then took them to the 'store room'. One of the advantages to living in an old terraced house is the old outhouse (aka outside toilet). Having removed the toilet a number of years back now (thanks Dad!) it functions as our general store room which at the moment is over run with apples (over 250 now), couple of sacks of potatoes and a couple of nets of onions.

That bike's not coming out any time soon!

The pumpkins Mum and Dad grew for us are arriving this week too. Despite pointing out the price of the Crown Prince in Waitrose there are few takers so I said we'd have what ever is left. I may regret this...

Blog changes
Some of you may have noticed a few changes with the layout to the blog. I've just been playing with a few things, adding and taking away different things. Hopefully all for the better. Now I just have to go and index all my previous posts... Hard to believe I spend most of my days playing with metadata and indexing isn't it!

A trip to Grandad's

Needing to pick up some of our camping gear from my parents, a day trip to a somewhat parched Northamptonshire was in order. This also gave us a chance to check on the pumpkins I gave to my Mum to plant out in the 'family allotment'.

In reality this is an approximate 3.5 acre field adjoining my Grandad's house that has been used for many things over the last 30 years from strawberries to potatoes, but now Grandad is well into his 90s there is probably only around a quarter of it used now. And whilst he is still pretty active with his growing he doesn't need much room for just his stuff so it now functions as a space for my Mum and Dad to grow their veg, as well as Mum's sister and brother. And right at the end of the field is a 30+ year old orchard with a mix of about a dozen trees. And these apple, pear, plum and damson trees are prolific. Given there is far too much for Grandad, there's nothing he likes more than sending us off with as much as we can carry!


Pumpkin patch

As you can see it's doing quite well! There are approximately six different squashes in here: Tom Fox, Crown Prince, Gemstore, Goldie, Defender and some sort of butternut squash. There may be another pumpkin in there as well, but no-one's quite sure and it's kinda difficult to tell now they've grown in every direction. The Tom Fox is the 'traditional' orange pumpkin which my Mum is looking after to grow a pumpkin for each of her 3 grandchildren. These have recently been 'written' on with each of their names to grow into the skins, which are hiding under the leaves, and they are roughly all the same size of just a bit larger than a basketball. And at this rate it's doubtful where either of the two younger grandchildren are going to be able to lift them up.

The Gemstore and Crown Prince are there as a backup for our plants and the courgettes are there for who ever can eat them - which given the size of some of them and the number going straight on the compost heap, isn't that many people.


The Orchard

Although it's still a bit early in the year we still came away with a dozen or so apples and a load of plums - having sadly forgotten the names of both of them. However the rest of the trees are loaded with fruit so we're looking forward to a return visit at some point in the future and will hopefully be purchasing an apple press to take along too so we can make use of the ones that have fallen on the ground too.

The trees aren't that tall but are just right for climbing in though:

And one of the trees also supplies the family with mistletoe:

A quick browse through the raspberry patch and the greenhouse and our haul was complete:

Although to be honest, we have no need for the marrows and left them behind!

Gardening with the kids

School holidays are here and they're already bored, so a trip to the allotment was in order. They largely moan at the thought of this but always enjoy themselves when they get there, and today was no different. So they came, dug, planted, ate, argued and got muddy. Very muddy. So much so they needed a complete change of clothes when we got home!

First they tortured some worms:

Then they planted some leeks:

Big brother made the holes and his sister planted the leeks. After watering them in they had a snack on some fresh peas before checking on how the carrots were doing under the fleece:

"It's a whopper!" Yes that's why he actually said after pulling up that carrot! It might not be the biggest carrot in the world, but it's probably the biggest I've ever grown so he's right in one way!

His sister was quite excited with her carrot as well. Then of course they ate them.

The arguments started to come along a bit more frequently after that so we took this as a sign to go home (picking another courgette first) where they proceeded to eat courgette, mint and feta 'cakes' (savoury) and then courgette cake (sweet) later.