Monday 9 August 2010

Sustainability Mondays: the summer squash edition!

Above, clockwise, from front centre: a giant white patty pan squash which hadn't been there a few days before, smaller patty pan squash with flower, spaghetti squash, "Zucchini" zucchini, "Striata" zucchini, half a "Trombocino" zucchini, a small golden zucchini, the back end of a trombocino (flower visible in the background), and (bottom) a "Black beauty" zucchini. All harvested on one day!

1. Plant Something -
  • Planted out some very advanced tomato seedlings from pots and potted on some chillies.
2. Harvest something -
  • spinach
  • lettuce and salad greens
  • herbs
  • courgettes and other summer squash
  • 3 spaghetti squash
  • chillies
  • French beans
  • cherry tomatoes
  • Moneymaker tomatoes
A selection of tomatoes and chillies with the odd pea pod and broad bean pod thrown in for good measure

3. Preserve something -
  • Nothing this week
4. Waste Not (reducing wastage in all areas)
  • The usual things
5. Want Not (preparing for shortage situations)
  • Hardened some spaghetti squash for storage by putting them in the sun for a few days to cure. Although I'm not sure they're going to last long enough to need that.
  • Bought a kilo of hard winter wheat berries to try out with the flour grinder, to use for baking soon. Probably this coming weekend.
6. Build Community Food Systems
  • The usual
7. Eat the Food
  • Baked a spaghetti squash, cut into two halves, seeds hollowed out and filled with a red kidney bean chilli. Delicious. Will do again very soon.
  • lots of green bean and tofu dishes
  • Made more of the intensely courgetty pasta sauce. I'd intended to freeze some, but it made it to our bellies before it made it to the freezer.
  • Lots of salad with greens, baby carrots, radish and beetroot
  • It may not count, but I had some of yarninmypocket's fabulous home-brewed beer. Hey, I enjoyed it, surely I can count it as "eating the food"!
The squash row. It was well prepared with horse manure before planting.

8. What I bought:
A pound of red kidney beans and a kilo of wheat beans.

1 comment:

Alison said...

Wow, those squashes look awesome. My crookneck vine has finally taken off, so I might get some eventually, someday, too (though after last year's glut, I won't cry if I don't). Oh - you asked how I preserved them last year. I blanched and froze them, but I won't do it again; way too soggy. In future, I'll either roast and freeze, or make them into something (soup, ratatouille, whatever) and freeze.

Glad you enjoyed the beer. I, um, made some more yesterday. ;)