Late summer news from Colham Farm gardens

Doesn’t it make the heart glad when you can eat entirely form the garden? Talk about the good life. Even if you don’t have a garden it is possible with farmers markets etc to enjoy oodles of fresh and fragrant locally grown food. The only things I’ve had to buy recently are tomatoes as we lost all sixty of our plants to blight. My tunnels looked very bare for a while but we’ve replaced them with even more salad greens of every description (we are currently growing 12 different varieties) to tempt our local hotels (we have recently started a small scale salad leaf business). Red and green frilly mustard is definitely our favourite to date. It is very rapid to germinate and is ready to eat, if grown somewhere warm, within three weeks. As with most of these salad greens you just cut or pull what you require and they will pleasingly grow again. The mustard varieties may be little hot served alone for some palates so try them mixed with lettuce or some other mild tasting green. The beetroot are wonderful this year and one of my favourite ways with them is to roast them in olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar until tender. Delicious,

Here are couple of recipes for the two vegetables that are most difficult to keep up with in most gardens at the moment

Spicy Courgette Balls 

18oz (500g) courgettes

1 onion

1green chilli (optional)

½ tsp of fresh ginger (grated)

2tbsp chopped fresh coriander (or parsley)

Salt to taste

45g (1 ½oz gram flour)

Vegetable or olive oil for frying

Grate the courgettes and place them in a colander. Add salt. Leave it for 30 minutes to draw the juice out then squeeze the mixture to extract as much moisture as possible.

Chop the onion finely and the chilli and add them to the courgette with the ginger and coriander.

Sift the gram flour (you could probably get away with sr. flour) over the mixture and stir well

Form the mixture in to balls or patties and fry in about 1-½ inches of hot oil

Remove and drain on kitchen paper

These are delicious with a dressing made with plain yoghurt, tahini, and juice of half a lemon and a clove of garlic. You can add chopped parsley or mint as desired

and one for the runner or French beans:

Spicy bean mix

This can be frozen in tubs to bring out with nostalgia in mid-winter. You can use all varieties of beans together, the more the merrier!

The secret is to start with lashings of garlic and fresh ginger (crushed and grated respectively). Fry in some ground coriander and some whole cumin seeds as well as well as fresh chilli. Then add the chopped beans, with a little water and salt, Lace the whole lot with as much lemon juice as suites you. Peppers and tomatoes can be added too. The mixture freezes well. Best in smallish pots

Two autumn plantings that we will be making. Over-wintering onion sets (they were excellent last year and most seed merchants sell several varieties) and outdoor rocket as the flea beetle which is so virulent in the summer does not appear in the winter months (rocket is surprisingly hardy) cover with fleece in frosty weather and you will be picking a small amount all winter long.

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