About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

The Garden.

The garden is still producing, well the top terrace is.. the main patch is all cleared and finished apart from the brussels, we had our first small taster of them the other day, hopefully many more to come during the autumn. Ive given up on the cabbage for the winter, the rabbits are just too good for me, Rik will have to completely clear the area, strim the outside edges, and move in the fence and strengthen it before the spring, but at present, its too hot (well into 90s again) and we are spending what cool time we get on wood cutting and stacking ...the wood store is our main priority for the winter. A friend was over the last few days and helped me on pine cone collection duty, we filled every sack we had in just one morning, excellent! Such a small amount of time and we will now have cones for lighting our fires with all winter...natures firelighters...
The top terrace is still producing food like mad... the big toms are finished, in all we had over 47 kilos.... yep thats right...47!!! Ive frozen tons, made passata, made chutney and een able to give lots away to friends... now the cherry toms are coming in too... exactly what I'll do with them Im not sure... we are trying to eat them every day so as not to waste too many, also the aubergines are still going like mad, again we've had loads, plus peppers by the millions, Im now letting the courgettes go to be marrows as I have loads of peaches and want to make peach and marrow chutney... mmmmnn yummy...
The butternut squash are amazing!!! So far this year we've given away 11, eaten 4, and I still have 35, I picked another 7 the other day and we still have new ones coming, in the heat if I pick them as soon as they turn pale creamy yellow I can ripen them on the balcony and the plants continue to produce new flushes of fruits...
Any recipe ideas for what to do with them all would be appreciated, we just roast them in chunks or make soup so far.... ideas please!!!