Anyone with an allotment?

Lovely steady rain now. Plants will be growing like crazy this week. Weeds too, though :/

Maybe - my overwintered onions were massively disappointing this year - garlic came through though.

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Are my broad beams ready?

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Pick one and try it and report back ;)

^ this.

Even if they're not ready they're delicious snacking food

Can you eat them raw? I’ve never grow them before and wasn’t expecting much in the way of harvest

My kids love them raw. We never cook them.

Lower ones look ready, top ones need a little longer but that’s how they tend to work.

And you eat the bean only or the whole thing?

Just the bean. Fry them up with some pancetta/smoked bacon.

Pick a pod, pop the beans, discard the pod. very little cooking needed if fresh. If they get very big the outside of the bean can get a bit tough, but there is a nicer inner bean as well… three layers on these things

Mate sent me this shot from Runswick Bay. Little allotment by the sea 😍

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Good crop of samphire I’d hope :)

Started moving a green house today. Got the glass out. Tomorrow evening we are walking the whole frame from their house to our plot. About a mile

Pictures en route please :)

We figured it’s probably about 3-4 to dismantle and reassembly vs walking it down the road and not having to do any of that. Seems like a no brainer

Haven’t got the keys yet…

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Couple of hours with a fork and you’ll be golden 😉

Squash bed is taking off. Little bit of climbing has started not much in the way of fruit yet, though. Few sweetcorn plants had fallen over so had to prop them up with more earth.

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No green house this evening. One of the troop is hungover so it’s not happening. 😥

Hungover at half seven in the evening? Oof!

Picked my first crop of broadbeans. Super happy. I think I’ll grow these again next year.

The thing is I think I want to season them and eat them raw. I bit like a dry roasted peanut.

Any idea how the fudge I do that???

Pod, spread them out on baking trays with baking paper and dry them in a v low oven, as low as it will go, for 6 hours. Wedge the door open a bit with the handle of a wooden spoon—the fan action and gentle warming is what you want. When dry, toss in a tiny bit of oil & roast for ~15 mins at 180, toss in salt & seasoning. I just made all of that up, but I reckon it’d work. Shichimi togarashi would probably work well, or dukkah might be more “traditional”. [edit] On reflection, that is in no way raw, but neither is a dry-roasted peanut!

Out of impatience I put them in a bag with some jerk seasoning last night. 🤞🏼

The process probably takes a lot longer but meurgh

My folks always told me never to add salt to the water when boiling broad beans. I think it makes them tough. I don’t really add salt to anything I boil, and we barely cook the broad beans so…

100ml of fermented plant juice, comfrey. Feels like most of it is probably the brown sugar but does smell quite ‘planty’ so will see how it goes. Have made some traditional comfrey tea as well.

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