Local exploring...

During the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, like a lot of folk, we did a huge amount of exploring our local area, both on foot and then once a small amount of travel by car was allowed, slightly further afield. Also like a lot of other folk though, once things were relaxed and life began to get back to some sort of normal again, we went back to doing all the things we'd done previously, and the local exploring got pushed aside again. There are habits we have stuck to - we still go for a walk first thing on any weekday morning when we are at home, but those walks tend to be constrained by distance, as usually MrEH has to get home to start work at his regular time.  A few weeks ago though while I was away at the Royal International Air Tattoo (might write a bit about that in another post, we'll see) MrEH went off to look at an area he had seen mentioned on several local birding forums/websites - the old Golf Course over at North Weald. He was so taken with it that he wanted to go back to walk around a bit more of it, and so recently, we did exactly that. 

It's only about a 10 minute drive from home for us - and the parking is very easy, as the access is off a quiet lane, there is a small car park which serves the church, but in fact you could just as easily park on the road. Then it's just a case of going through the gate, and along a path leading to the golf course itself. Immediately the landscape opens up in front of you you are suddenly surrounded by wildflowers, butterflies and various bird calls. It's a mix of wooded areas, scrubland and more open heathland like spaces - I can only assume the bunkers have all been filled in as we didn't find any! There are also a couple of small areas of water, MrEH saw Reed Warblers around one of them when he was there the first time. The area is huge, and spans both sides of the busy A414, but handily there is a useful route under a bridge which carries the rushing traffic over your head - towards Ongar in one direction, and Harlow in the other. 

I can't recall ever having seen such a large number of wildflowers anywhere locally to us - with paths lined with  Bristly Ox Tongue, Ragwort, Thistles bearing their stunning purple flowers, Hawkweed, Wild Carrot, Teasels and much more besides. Right at the far side we emerged onto a farm field planted with beautiful blue borage - and regular crop locally, but always stunning to see. Of course with the flowers come the insects - crickets were absolutely everywhere, the entire walk was punctuated with the sound of them and I dread to think how many we must have inadvertently trodden on as we walked round! I don't believe I've ever seen so many Gatekeeper butterflies in one place before either, and that's before we come on to all the other varieties we saw!

We only walked just over 2 miles in the end, but there were plenty more paths we could have explored, and turnings we could have taken, and there was SO much stopping to look at things that just that short distance made a really good walk. There were deliciously ripe blackberries all over the place too -  we have already said we need to find a time to get back over there pretty soon with a box for some of those!

Robyn

Making good use…

 …of the things that we find..! I mentioned in my last post that we’d been doing a bit of foraging again, and that has continued this weekend with another batch of plums picked from trees literally just around the area we live. We’re lucky that when the town was planned and built, one thing factored in was lots of trees, and that included a LOT of plum trees, so within a quarter mile radius of home we were able to pick this lot…

I already knew I wanted to make another batch of plum sauce - this time a darker, more “Chinese style” version, so the first step was to find a suitable recipe. One for “Five spice plum sauce” seemed to hit the flavour profile I was looking for, although we hit an immediate stumbling block there when I realised too late we had no five spice powder - oops! Thankfully we DID have all the actual spices I wanted in there - cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper and star anise, so we set to grinding them up where needed. I substituted a little over the half of the stated half-cup of water for light soy sauce, and left out the half teaspoon of salt that was called for as a result. Garlic - also not in the recipe - went into the mix, and once everything else was prepped we ended up with a pan-full like this… 

It was the simplest process from there - literally bring it to the boil, then turn down and simmer for 30 minutes or until the plums had collapsed, stirring frequently. Then pull out the whole spices - I had also used some rather elderly dried galangal root so we pulled that out too as it was quite fibrous-looking - before blitzing with a stick blender until smooth. MrEH had meanwhile been prepping the bottles for it - in our usual way, a thorough clean before pouring boiling water over bottles, lids and the ladle and punnet we were going to use for filling them, then it was a simple case of filling the bottles while they and the mixture were still hot. We got 4 decent sized bottles from a kilo of (free!) plums, with the other ingredients all being storecupboard stuff, and I reckon each bottle will do 4 stir fries, so this is feeling like very decent value indeed! The sauce is every bit as richly flavoured as I had hoped, with an underlying slight heat from half a teaspoon of (smoked, in our case) chilli flakes, and a depth of sweetness and umami from dark brown sugar and the soy. 

We still have at least another kilo of plums to use - so we will be back into the recipe books today to see what we might do with those! 

Robyn

July in the garden…

 Well, isn’t it just our luck that the summer that arrived here while we were away in May/June then departed again during a good chunk of this month! Chilly, windy and wet best describes the weather we had for the beginning of the month, meaning that we have seen far less progress with the veg beds than we would have hoped.  

Now discouraged in the least were the sunflowers, however.

Could that be any more cheerful? The wind did give them a few problems, we have had to re-set their stakes a few times, and even then it must be said that by now they are all leaning at different angles, but have been looking lovely and bright and happy, and all now setting seed which is excellent! 

We have had a couple more small courgettes, but have also learned a lesson about planting them quite as close both to each other, and to the potato crop, as we did this time round, as lack of good ventilation around the stems is meaning some powdery mildew, slow ripening of the fruits, and also a tendency for the flowers to not drop off as they should, go soggy and cause blossom end rot. We’re mitigating some of the issues by being careful to check for flowers needing removal, they are being fed weekly being careful to avoid leaves and stems and not water too close to the base of the main stem, but there isn’t much more we can do. The sunnier warmer weather towards the end of the month has definitely helped as well, and we're hopeful that August is going to be an excellent courgette harvesting month! The weather has also delayed the tomatoes massively - there is a lot of fruit set, but it's just not ripening. I suspect when it does start going we're going to get an awful lot of tommies all in one go, so I'm standing by ready to roast, sauce or whatever to preserve them best for future use! 

The big news this month has been cucumbers. I have a vague note that we have grown them before, but neither of us can recall actually eating home grown ones, so I wonder if in fact they all got slugged/snailed or whatever when we had a previous attempt. This time we have been mostly effective in persuading the molluscs to leave them be - we did have to do one re-sowing as we only ended up with two viable plants from the 4 we originally sowed, but that second sowing gave us another 2 plants and should extend our cropping season as well, so all good. I have to say too that they are a winner of a crop - they just demand feeding weekly, and plenty of water, and are now producing regular and utterly delicious cucumbers, far smaller than shop bought ones, but SO much tastier! 

Our one chilli plant has been flowering happily with the most gorgeous purple flowers, and is now setting fruit too - that joins the toms, 'gettes and cukes with a weekly feed but is otherwise fairly undemanding, and looks like it will give us a nice crop of beautiful mild flavoursome chillies too, all being well. It is a "Hungarian Black" - from seed gifted to us by an old neighbour (who commented at the time of the handover that writing "Hungarian Black" on a plain white envelope and sticking it through our letter box made her feel like a drug dealer!) and is the most gorgeous plant as well, green leaves with a faint purple tracery all over them, so pretty! 

Not quite garden news (and no photos, because a lot of this happened while I was elsewhere!) it has also reached the time of year for some foraging to start too. We started with plums - the first small batch made plum sauce, which has already proved to be a tasty addition to a stir-fry. Then MrEH went out for a whole load more and made a batch of plum jam, and another of plum chutney, both of which are now stashed away in the cupboard. We're planning one final trawl for a few more plums, and another batch of the sauce although I want to do it slightly differently this time round to get a darker, stickier result with more sweetness to it. If there are enough then there may be the opportunity to stew some for crumble, too. Still to come are blackberries and apples of course - more crumbles there hopefully! 

Robyn