Crop curation

Not a great picture, sorry

Finally, the tubers are counted. Pathetic aren't they. To be fair, these were grown from the survivors of the great deer attack in 2013 before the fence was installed but I was hoping for a better return.

From the top left, oca Rose Pink originally from a another enthusiasist, Ian Pearson I think, who gave me two types from his breeding programme. A very light pink and white and a slightly darker pink and white one which was very similar. One of these has fallen by the wayside but I'm not sure which. Anyway, what's there is barely enough to try next year - a story that's going to be repeated again and again sadly.

Still on the top line the next oca is the "shocking" pink variety I saved from Waitrose all those years ago. As can be seen they make a good sized tuber when they're happy but again I don't have enough to actually eat any.

In the middle at the top is the so called Wild ulluco. These were sent to me in a selection pack by Bill Whitson of Cultivariable seeds and this is the first year I've grown them. Compared to the other ulluco they finished early and I wonder if a greater yield would have happened had I been able to keep the plants going a little longer. Anyway, there's enough there to try again, if it seems worth it.

Next along that row are the ulluco I've managed to keep going from my original Realseeds varieties. They might possibly be Cusco Market if a name is helpful and last year I tried growing the two very slightly differing variants separately to see if it was possible to distinguish them more clearly. The jury is still out. These are the pinker sort, and immediately below the more yellow type. It's obvious that some are pinker than others and in the yellow team ditto. So who can tell?

Finally at the end on their own are the Purple ulluco  also from Cultivariable. These did best of all this year (not saying much) and look clean and attractive. I may have enough tiddlers to offer a few for swaps if anyone is interested in giving this most unrewarding novelty a go.

On the left again for the bottom row, just two tiny white oca tubers (Realseeds, years ago) survive. These white ones were the only reliable flowerers I had, so seed breeding looks like a no go area for a while yet. Hopefully I can bring them back from the brink.

Next to them the dark red New Zealand type collected from Waitrose at the same time as the pink. I have a particular fondness for these, the colour is pretty and I've already lost and found them back in 2007/8 when the crop failed but I found some volunteers from a previous year in a piece of land returned to scrub.

In the middle at the bottom some white ulluco from Bill. I am a fool as these were sent from his trials and identified only by a working title, some letters and numbers which I kept meaning to transcribe somewhere safe but then forgot to do. So I've no idea what they are exactly. However, they were chosen as part of an attempt to get flowers for seed production and I've been calling them 'flowering' on labels. Interesting looking long white tubers but not many of them. Another one to nurture (or not) next year.

Next to those the yellower Cusco Market ulluco mentioned above.

It's not a very inspiring collection. This year was, in terms of late maturing root crops, practically perfect with a long golden autumn and next to no serious frost before Yule but the field crops were non-existant and the potted ones nearly the same. I keep hoping I'll perfect my growing techniques and start to get usuable quantities. I'm beginning to think that this isn't ever going to happen.

A Tuesday in pictures

 
This was quite a surprise, a daffodil out already. Sadly, I can't find any snowdrops even though we had a few last year.


A beautiful self seeded chard has had no trouble with the mild winter and is bountiful.

 
I put the swedes in far too early last year but they've done surprisingly well and we'll probably be able to eat the last few here before they get too tough.


A quick peek into the forest, not a hunting day today but they were out in force yesterday. Makes you a bit nervous about going for a walk there.


Something lovely in the woodshed, lots and lots of wood.


Water over the bridge. Well, it's a weir really but for most of the year it's a dry pond boundary.


It is a cultivated variety gone feral but this pink primrose is far earlier than the native yellow sort.


The sun sets much further to the south west at this time of year.

Three from the top

You know things are bad when it's not even possible to drum up enthusiasm for the seed catalogues. There are just three new to me plants that I have an inclination to try this year. The first is vila vila also known as Solanum sisymbriifolium, the Litchi tomato or Morelle de Balbis in France.

I've long wanted to give this prickly relative of the tomato a go, spotting both its blight resistance and antagonistic foliage as vital components in my fight to produce a range of vegetables outside in the menace of Phytophthora infestans and deer. For a while Alan Romans was offering it as pest reducer for potatoes on his now sadly defunct seed potato site but I was always going to try it another year and left it too late. Promises of swaps from other gardens were never taken up so I'd let it slip away again until some mad enthusiasts started a facebook group - here - and was lucky enough to receive some seeds from a group member. So I'm all set for this year's experiment.

Joe's long cayenne pepper is a chilli pepper I spotted when we went to the Eden project in the autumn. Chillies aren't my obsession but I'm looking for a range of fruit with medium heat for my rather moderate chilli heat requirements and so am mostly pinning my hopes on the tree chilli but these were stunningly attractive and if they taste nice are worth a space for the added appeal of the plants.

The picture (and the plants at Eden) are Suttons and the link will take you to them where they offer seeds and plants this year but they once offended me so I won't buy from them any more. The seeds are also available in other places, I'll probably be getting mine from the supplier in the name link.





Another plant that doesn't exactly meet my criteria for truly delightful is the achocha. It's an attractive climber, good for covering a trellis and absolutely adored by insects, tree wasps and other little creatures but the fruit, used as a vegetable, is utterly tasteless and only useful as a filler in curries and stews or paradoxically stuffed. Even then it's best used as small as possible and life's too short to stuff a tiny achocha. But it seems the Bolivians have thought of that and developed a variety where the fruit grow huge. That picture above is of the ordinary sort I had from the HDRA years ago but imagine the largest one as as long as a man's hand. That's quite a giant lady's slipper achocha  and although it may need a bit more protection than its smaller siblings I thought I'd give it a chance.

Bish bash bosh, it's another year.

Here we are in 2015 and the stream of consciousness that is this blog is lurching it's way into another arbitrary temporal period. I really really meant to make more posts last autumn but I didn't and there's no point in beating myself up about that. So, since most people take this time of year as a moment to reflect on the past and future I may as well go with the flow.

Last year wasn't a good one for me. Nothing particularly bad happened but my mental state, which has been hovering around near the bottom of the spectrum of depressed for some time now didn't even manage to reach previous sun fuelled highs, the whole year in retrospect is a beigy-sepia colour without any merit. It even lacks any significant disappointment, it might just as well have not been there. I might just as well have not been there. So that's that.

Now, although I can't really bring myself to believe that one second differentiates from the next in any significant way, it's traditional to draw a line and start again. Can it be done, can I do it? I have no idea.

I'm going to spend a few days mulling it over, identifying with more precision exactly what it is that's bringing me down - that sounds back to front but I can assure you, I don't spend much time examining bad things, they're too scary. But being Pollyanna can be too much as well. It's time to disinfect the dark side. A simple one is this lousy laptop I bought. It's not wrong but it's an impediment to easy working, I need the formality of a desk.

Resolutions be gone, when I do it, whatever it is, that will be action not intent.

Mashua

Mashua, Tropaeolum tuberosum, flowers and seeds.

Most of the more unusual South American tubers present some sort of challenge with respect of taste and texture to the potato and cabbage attuned palates of the European population but few have as many enemies as the humble mashua, also known as the añu, cubio or tuberous nasturtium.

Until recently this was only known over here as a slightly temperamental ornamental flowerer (in that I tried it a couple of times and it invariably died before flowering) beloved of those with gardens full of flowering oddities that were chosen to provoke gasps of wonder. Anyway those times are all over now as a veritable flood of varieties and subspecies arrive from the new world, into the eager hands of the new amateur breeders looking for diversification in our food crops. Like me, that would be then.

I was given my first tuber from Rhizowen (along with a second variety which I immediately killed) and have since established that the variety is probably something - I've just spent ages looking through my FB history and I've lost the information again (Owen, if you're reading any chance you can remind me :) )  Whatever it is, it very productive and quite pretty.


Mashua tubers, harvested 30 November 2014

But just like all its friends and relations it has the 'taste'. Paul has suggested it's best described as horseradish marzipan, the pungency of horseradish combined with a bitter almond undertone which is mostly shocking because of its unfamiliarity. Chilli chocolate might be a thing but sweet cake covering flavoured for roast beef has yet to become the new black. And the taste isn't just an entirely innocuous novelty, it is indicative of a number of rather strange isothiocyanates which can produce cyanide under the right conditions. For this reason it's best not to eat too many of them raw even if you do develop a predilection for the flavour; which seems quite unlikely from the anecdotal evidence I've heard from other consumers. In short, although it is starchy and nutritious, it's quite clear why it never became a staple in the old world in the same way as potatoes have been adopted.

However, it is remarkably easy to grow, prolific even and because of those fearsome chemical components almost immune to pests. It can and has been used for food, even if the Peruvians think it's better than bromide for some purposes, absolutely a crop ripe for reselection and improvement. In the meantime here's a recipe that helps to ameliorate the worst of the gustatory pain.

Take about six or seven good sized tubers and wash them well. Bring to the boil in plenty of fresh water and boil fairly vigorously without the lid on for about 15 minutes until they are soft when pierced with fork. Allow to cool before proceeding. This reduces any noxious compounds and helps the flavour a bit.

I found that the flesh cooked this way was soft but contained some fairly tough fibres which made for an unpleasant mouthful, so I rubbed the cooked tubers through a sieve with the back of a spoon to produce a soft smooth purée. To this I added a couple of tablespoons of plain flour, just enough to make a soft batter.

Heat some cooking oil until nearly smoking and drop small mounds of the mixture into it from a teaspoon. Allow to cook on the first side until golden brown, then turn and cook some more until crisp all over and cooked through. It would probably be even easier in a deep fryer but I haven't actually tried that.

Drain well and sprinkle liberally with salt. Serve hot as a pre-dinner nibble or savoury. With no added flavouring they are pleasant enough but you might experiment with some garlic or even a smidge of ginger or chilli for added pzazz.


Mashua puffs for want of a better name.

Don't you just wish it was still summer?

I lost another follower on Twitter today. No big deal I'm sure and yet I don't have so many. If you ignore the follower gatherer bots, you know the ones that hope you'll follow back so they can add another notch to the headboard there aren't that many real people who take the effort to notice my feeble efforts and I'd prefer not to let them down. So I'm going to take it as a hint that I'm not making enough effort myself to get out there and interact. It's true after all.

This thing of shutting up shop at the farm for the winter is a problem. Such small projects as I call my own are put on hold. Each year it becomes harder and harder to re-involve myself in the spring because of the expectation that the break will come and progress will lost again. And in the autumn and winter I've very little to occupy my mind, in fact, I spend most of my time trying not to think, not to dwell too deeply on the meaning of life because there are no answers and that's frustrating.

Anyway, after a couple of months when I had literally stopped, allowed my seeds for saving to rot, barely left the building, written nothing, drawn nothing, painted not at all, failed even to keep a tidy house or do more than the bare minimum in the kitchen I'd decided that probably it was too late for me to try to be more successful in life, that the best I could hope for was to be some sort of kept housewife and just give it all up to protect my sanity. To redraw my horizons at a very close and safe distance and not worry about the wide world beyond. Because to make a change might damage the few things left I do value, my marriage, my small family of humans and cats, the comfortable aspects of my life.

And then, goaded by the needs of polite society I was enrolled into a gathering of friends, where I promised to cook (it was my turn) and the party would be in our home. And that was a plan which didn't progress until just a few days before everyone was due to turn up - because it all seemed so pointless and my concentration was so poor I seriously considered calling it all off or going to a restaurant to avoid the effort.

It was unavoidable though. When finally the pressure of time and obligation became strong enough something had to be done and for 48  hours more or less continuously, we cleaned and tidied and planned and shopped and cooked and entertained and I was fine, absolutely fine - competent, efficient and meeting my own expectations pretty adequately. Everything worked out well and it was enjoyable, really enjoyable, even the work.

So, now I know, I'm not intrinsically useless but lacking direction and ambition. So now, with little to distract me I'm back to worrying about that.

And I wish it was summer.

This isn't something I've ever done before

A blog, which I was sent to via a link in Twitter so isn't one I usually read, says a lot of how I feel about things, specifically sourdough cultures and blogs. I can't improve on it so please take a look at "on bread and blogging" by Pat Thomson.