goodnight ladies, we're going to leave you now

[pensnest]

The courgettes are now well into the burgeoning stage, and going rather too fast for us to be able to keep up. I shall have to investigate how to freeze bat-sized courgettes. Beans have begun, and the mange touts are still cropping—we had generous green veg for lunch today, together with a reasonably sized yellow courgette.

But the star of the show this year are the blackberries, into which I put no cultivational effort at all. Today we picked I think the fourth crop, and I have just finished freezing them as we're off to a funeral tomorrow and will not be needing blackberry crumble until Sunday at the earliest, by which time there will be more to pick. They are all growing in the most hostile possible territory—either through the holly bushes (which are berrying like nobody's business this year!), or intermingled with mahonia and an evil thorned bush whose name presently escapes me. These are at the front of the house. At the back they are growing with the snowberry bushes, which are not of themselves hostile but which are host to what almost sounds like a swarm of bees. It's so noisy! Still, blackberries are worth a bit of pain.

*

My chorus did a concert last night in the middle of nowhere, Norfolk. My satnav gave me good directions but I had it muted and kept missing turns through expecting them to be a bit further away, so we performed what must have been something like a jigsaw piece route in order to get back on track. The venue, a church, was concealed behind many trees, so it was just as well I had passengers, or I might never have found it. But the concert went well and the audience participation part was very jolly.

*

We have been watching The Crowded Room on Apple TV, with Tom Holland doing a magnificent job acting his little socks off. Will watch the final ep this evening when Beast returns from his rehearsal, otherwise we'd have to leave it for several days, and things are tense! Anybody else watching anything on Apple TV? It's a pity those shows are going largely unseen, because there is some good stuff on there. There's a series called Hijack with Idris Elba as a not-violent hero, also worth your time.

Aha, Beast is back. I shall post.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> The courgettes are now well into the burgeoning stage, and going rather too fast for us to be able to keep up. <<

Do you bake? If so, consider making zucchini milk.

>>They are all growing in the most hostile possible territory—either through the holly bushes (which are berrying like nobody's business this year!), or intermingled with mahonia and an evil thorned bush whose name presently escapes me. <<

Berry canes are all understory plants, so it's natural for them to do that.

Re: Thoughts

[pensnest]

Zucchini milk sounds like an interesting plan, and would be brilliant if I were doing more vegan cooking, I suspect. Meanwhile I have attempted to freeze batons of courgette. We'll see in due course whether they turn into mush when re-cooked.

The blackberries are adept at self defense. If they aren't growing through the spiked bushes, they are in the snowberries, which are thick with bees at the moment, or actually growing around the beehives. Blackberry prospecting is not for the weak!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Zucchini milk sounds like an interesting plan, and would be brilliant if I were doing more vegan cooking, I suspect.<<

It doesn't have to be vegan. You can swap it into any recipe for some or all of the dairy milk. It makes things decadent and delicious. And of course it's the base for zucchini bread.

>> Meanwhile I have attempted to freeze batons of courgette. We'll see in due course whether they turn into mush when re-cooked.<<

Doesn't tend to freeze well in pieces.

>>The blackberries are adept at self defense. If they aren't growing through the spiked bushes, they are in the snowberries, which are thick with bees at the moment, or actually growing around the beehives. Blackberry prospecting is not for the weak!<<

That's their job.

Important safety tip: Don't swat mosquitoes near a blackberry patch. If you hit the thorns, you'll rip your skin off.

[frausorge]

Blackberries sound delicious! And congrats on the successful concert (and travel thereto).

[pensnest]

Blackberry crumble is the One True Crumble. Blackberry muffins made with almond flour, however, are disappointing. I think the flour is too grainy.

[turlough]

I seem to remember reading something about freezing grated courgettes but I might be wrong. Good luck finding a way in any case.

I'm so envious of your blackberry thickets! We have lots of brambles but somehow there never seem to be any berries.

Sounds like a very enjoyable and successful concert, yay!

[pensnest]

It has been an extra-special year for blackberries. The raspberry canes are a bit disappointing, but it is their first year, and I couldn't bring myself to cut down the festoons of poppies around them for ages, so they had competition.

It's nice to do concerts. We get to sing a much more varied repertoire in the run-up to a general concert, whereas going towards convention we tend to focus closely on just the two we're taking to competition.

[turps]

I have to admit, despite getting a six-month free trial, once I finished watching Ted Lasso I keep forgetting to check out Apple TV.

[pensnest]

There's a lot of good stuff there! Bad Sisters is wickedly entertaining.

[ephemera]

Are blackberries really blackberries if you don't bleed a little in the picking? Your fruitful garden sounds delicious! (I had a veg-box overload a couple of years back, and grated courgette in cup sized units froze well for use in baking later in the winter - I didn't bother with peeling, just grated and scooped into freezer bags.)

[pensnest]

I think it should be known as Purple Hands Season. My fingernails need to be painted black, to disguise the purpliness!

I might have a go at freezing the courgettes grated, depending on how well we keep ahead of them from now on—I just blanched a couple of large ones as batons, so we shall see.

[vae]

The blackberries really are enthusiastic this year - we have a swarm of sparrows that keeps visiting the ones out the front and doing their best to pick them clean (they're failing).

We just started watching Slow Horses on Apple TV, and I think we're starting up Foundation S2 soon.

[pensnest]

I have not noticed any birds having a go at the blackberries, how odd!

Much of interest on Apple TV. We are waiting for the second Foundation series to be complete, as we watch an episode at lunchtime and suppertime rather than following a weekly schedule.

[vae]

The sparrows are only going at the blackberries in the front garden, not the ones in the back!

We were planning to wait until we could get all of Foundation in a single month's subscription, but given the state of everything around here, and that most of the freeview stuff we watch is off the air at the moment, we needed the distraction.

[thepowerofdeath]

Your bountiful harvest sounds amazing!

[pensnest]

The blackberries are very fabulous. I have a freezer drawer almost full now, and three more crumbles in the fridge!