The Three Sisters (plus support act) 2013 gig

Yesterday, with enthusiastic help from Cheep and the team of under-gardeners http://twitter.com/celiahart/status/350924596121333761/photo/1 I tidied up and filled the Three Sisters pit with compost from our two-year-old heap. The compost mound is now planted with this year's 'sisters' . . .

Beans: Runner Bean 'Black Salford' plus one plant of Climbing French Bean 'San Antonio' (the only one that I managed to germinate)

Corn: 'Rainbow Sweet Inca'

Squash: 'Black Futsu' x 2 and Marina di Chioggia x1


Interplanted with Sunflower 'Earthwalker' (because I needed somewhere to plant these and I don't trust Cheep not to peck them if they are planted in the new cut-flower bed).


This was posted directly from the vegetable garden by the magical means of wifi :-)
Celia
xx

. . . and the pumpkins weigh . . .

The two Galeux d'Eysines Squash weighed 11kg and 11.5kg - surprisingly heavy, but these are densely fleshy gourmet squash and not your bog standard jack o'lantern pumpkins!

Here's a chart of the guesses - as you can see most people under-estimated. Zoe's deductions were along the right lines but then she went to far over the top! And Debs Dust Bunny, I thought you'd were bang on target but you then said 'combined' - so you ended up way off target.

The closest guesses were Su (I thought she'd get close), Geiger (brilliant estimating) and best of all .... drum roll .....

Cat of Stripes - a kilo short of the mark but an excellent guess - if you email your address to me: studio at celiahart dot co dot uk I'll pop a small prize in the post.

Thanks for taking part
Celia
xx

Pumpkins!

You may remember that I was doubtful whether this year's squash would have time to mature - on 1 September there were 2 Galeux d'Eysines Squash about the size of grapefruit.

Well, here they are harvested and I'm impressed by the size and weight - probably the largest squash I've ever managed to grow in the 3 sisters bed.

They are roughly the same weight - can you guess how heavy they are?

Who's guess is the closest? 

Competition closes Sunday 28th October
at 6pm GMT

I might give a prize if someone is spot on ;-)

Celia
x

PS: the Tabby studio assistant weighs 4.5 kilos

The Three Sisters 2012 – an unexpected bonus veg

If you're a long time follower of PPPs you will know that each year I grow 'the three sisters' – squash, sweetcorn and climbing beans planted together on a circular mound of compost.

I tweak the arrangement each year, I've learnt that it's better to have a central tall bean support with the corn in blocks around it and just 4 squash plants in between, as the squash grow I spiral the vines around the mound.

I would normally make the mound before Easter and plant it up in May, but this year was so wet and so so cold and horrible that beans were rotting in the ground and the courgettes were looking sulky and sad so I delayed planting until late June. You can see pictures of the mound making and planting here on Pinterest.

Well, here we are in September and already a few days ago in the last week of August some parts of the Midlands and West Country had the first frosts of the Autumn! So, although the three sisters look fine and lusty, I'm worried that the frosts will come before I get any beans or squash to harvest; my fingers and toes are crossed for a lovely late season Indian Summer.

 Beans
The beautiful scarlet flowers of Salford Black Runner Beans
and the white flowered Lazy Housewife climbing French beans

 Sweetcorn

The variety is Sweet Nugget and it's looking good –
we'll soon be harvesting the cobs

 Squash

I planted two varieties: Waltham Butternut and this
is the largest of the Galeux d'Eysines – still very small
so I doubt that we'll have giant orange pumpkins for Hallowe'en!

To encourage growth to the fruit rather than the vines of the squash, I decided to cut back the growing tips. The squash plants are now putting out side shoots and they are threatening to take over the garden!

I remembered reading that the tender shoots of squash plants are edible, so I checked in my well-thumbed copy of 'Oriental Vegetables' by Joy Larkcom – sure enough, the shoot tips and young leaves can be used as 'greens'.

I cut a generous bunch of squash shoots to cook for supper – you can substitute them for any recipe that uses pak choi or similar tender green leafy vegetables. We ate ours in a pork and vegetable stir-fry with rice, I added the squash shoots last and after a stir around, covered and steamed until they were wilted and tender but the stalks still crunchy. If you plan to use chop-sticks, cut them up before cooking!

A delicious vegetable! Don't waste them!

Celia
x

The Three Sisters – the movie

We had noticed that the leaves of the squash plants in The Three Sisters bed, move and turn with the sun and heat. Today I set up our 'scouting camera' in the veg patch and set it to take a photograph every 10 minutes. I've put together all 123 photos to make this movie.

Celia
x

Weekend garden tasks

Some garden chores are planned, some take you by surprise . . .


Walking through the vegetable garden a few days ago, my eye was caught by a beautiful lilac flower - a saffron crocus! Of course it's time to watch for crocus blooms and harvest the delicate golden stamens. Checking through past postings I realised that sure enough this exact same week last year I posted about saffron.

Here is this year's harvest of precious fragant stamens. I'll have to find a recipe to make full use of our home grown gold - any suggestions?

Another 'must do' job was to pick the squash and put them somewhere dry to cure so they would store for another couple of months. After all the hard graft digging out the Three Sisters bed and tending the plants, just five squash from four plants is disappointing - but you can't win them all and the sweetcorn has been wonderful. The five squash are a good size and each will easily make four meals for two - can't complain about that.

The lovely blue-green smooth skinned ones are a Spanish variety, Dulce de Horno - the flesh should be very sweet, I'll have to try some dessert recipes. The onion shaped green knobbly squash are Chicago Warted Hubbard, grown from seed from the Heritage Seed Library. I was attracted by the photo in the HSL catalogue - a gorgeous pale copper coloured squash. Mmmmm? mine are green, will they go copper coloured as they cure in the sun, I wonder?

Here's another job that had been waiting to be done - planting the garlic and over-wintering shallots and onions. The soil has been so dry for weeks, I've waited for rain and at last we've had some, enough to make the soil moist and just right for planting.

Another thing on the list, 'make sloe gin' - I'd bought the gin (Tescos value gin - do you think it's good enough?) and decided to hold on as long as possible to pick the sloes from our blackthorn bush on the bank of the brook that runs along the side on the vegetable garden. Some sloes had started to wrinkle and the nights have started to get chilly - it surely must be time to pick the sloes.

I picked all I could reach, washed them and pricked them with a bamboo cocktail stick and stuffed them in a clean olve oil bottle with a nice rubber seal stopper. I added some sugar and then poured in 70 cl of gin - hey! how about that - it exactly filled the bottle! That gave me such pleasure!

Here are our lovely home-grown sloes bobbing about in the sugary gin . . .

Before I go I'll tell you about this afternoon -we went for a walk, about eight miles zig-zagging along the Suffolk/ Cambridgeshire border along the edges of woods, over fields, alongside rivers and paddocks. We stopped briefly to watch a herd of Fallow does - spotted backed and stripy tailed, some 'melanistic' does - dusky and dark. Here are a couple of photos I took along the way -

green pastures and blocky woods on the skyline . . .

and at the end, the most perfect glimpe of Ely cathedral on the rising ground far far away across the fens - colours and textures as sublime as a painting by Gainsborough.

Plant-to-plate time 10 minutes

As the the saying goes 'I've lots of irons in the fire' this week and next - it's good to be busy but doesn't leave any time for blogging.

I'm so lucky to work from a studio right next to my house and garden - it means I can have this for lunch


'Sweet Nugget' corn picked from the Three Sisters bed, cooked and plated up within ten minutes - it tasted so good!


And, of course I can stroll over to say hello to the under-gardeners


Hi girls! :-)

OK, I'll go back to my work and leave you to yours.


PS: You may have noticed that I've signed up to Twitter - when I'm busy I can tweet to say I'm still here.

Sister act

summer•shorts no:14

I think you'll agree that this year's Three Sisters bed is quite magnificent. Sister-Corn is the star of the show, just look as those cobs becoming plump on the sturdy stalks with those tufts of male flowers on the top. They dance like warriors in the breeze.

Sister-Bean is playing a quiet supporting role this year, she's there if you look carefully but doesn't steal the limelight. But by late October I'm sure there will be a good harvest of beans for comforting casseroles and soups.

And lastly Sister-Squash, she holds the whole show together – her stout limbs run around and around holding the giant green leaves aloft. She sends up tall stalks with exotic frilly yellow flowers that the bees and hoverflies love and tucked below her fruit are forming, drinking up the rain-water and getting bigger and bigger every day the sun shines.

You grow girls!

Crop circle

The crop circle season has started – no, not that sort! I'm talking about our Three Sisters circular mound, which is now planted up and ready to grow, grow, grow!

Here's this year's plan:

Last year's Three Sisters taught me one major lesson – if you put the bean supports at the edge of the circle the rampant growth of the beans shade the sweetcorn (not a good thing especially in one of the dullest summers on record!). The result was massive leafy corn but only one descent sized cob.

This year the corn is in the outer ring with a tall slim wigwam of beans in the centre. In a mad moment I planted dwarf beans Negritos around the outer edge among the corn – A: because they haven't been planted anywhere else and there's not much space left; and B: because they're a Central American bean and I thought they'd get on well with the corn. All the beans have just been pushed into the ground, not germinated and planted out as little plants – an experiment, I've a hunch they'll do just as well if not better.

With apologies for the quality of the picture, this is the result . . .


This years 'Three Sisters' are;

BEANS:
Mrs Fortune's – green pods with purple streaks, reputed to have been a favourite in the vegetable gardens at Windsor Castle
Poletschka – a Ukrainian bean with beautiful indigo coloured beans
Negritos – a dwarf bean with slim green pods producing small black 'turtle beans'

CORN:
Sweet Nugget and Royalty – both new varieties for me

SQUASH:
Chicago Warted Hubbard – an American heirloom variety introduced in 1894, it has browny-orange wrinkled skin and fine-grained orange flesh (my selection from this year's Heritage Seed Library catalogue)
Dulce de Horno – a Spanish variety with green warty skin and very sweet yellow flesh used for desserts (I bought the seed when we were in La Palma)

I decided against growing the seed saved from previous year's home grown squash, they cross pollinate and it's hit and miss that they produce a good crop. Squash take up lots of room and I didn't want to gamble this year, so it's two new varieties – I'm looking forward to testing these :-)

Sunny Sunday morning

. . . so, what are you doing?

I've been assembling The Three Sisters mound. It should have been completed weeks ago so it had time to settle down, but – hey ho! things don't happen perfectly in the real world. But, I see that exactly a year ago I posted about planting out The Three Sisters. So this year they will be planted out a few days later – it probably won't make a jot of difference :-)

The mound is not quite ready for planting yet – another layer of well rotted compost will be the finishing touch – but with the thermometer in the shade next to the kitchen door reading 27C, I've decided to retreat to a cooler spot! The robin is taking advantage of the worms I've dug out and is busily feeding his (her?) family – no chance for him to put his feet up.


Like this . . .

Mmmm? Cats are so very, very wise it's scary!

The squash report (part 2)

I ALMOST!!! made a Hallowe'en lantern out of our big orange coloured Squash. But then I came to my senses and realised that I wanted as much of the flesh as possible to use in soups and other warming autumn suppers. This Squash shouted "I am full of dense deep nutty orange gorgeousness!"

So last night I stabbed our biggest carving knife into it and sliced it clean in two. I scooped out the pithy flesh and seeds and put the two hemispheres, cut sides down, onto a large baking tray and popped them in the oven. (I did try to take photos of the uncooked stage but they came out rubbish!)

While I was busy making pork meatballs flavoured with sage and chili from the greenhouse, the Squash was busy in the oven turning into this . . .


. . . and inside was loads of the richest, densest, tastiest Squash flesh . . . mmmmmmmm!


After supper there was lots and lots left – we're not that piggy! Three generous bags have been put into the freezer, the rest is in the fridge ready for my lunch today (with a couple of the meatballs in a pitta bread), for supper tonight (not sure how it will be served yet) and for soup for lunch tomorrow. Seeds saved for growing more next year.

The squash report (part 1)

When I posted a photo of our 2008 squash harvest from the Three Sisters bed, someone asked if I could post photos of the insides of the squash. An excellent idea! Here are the two squash we have already cooked and eaten . . .

First is the long yellow squash, grown from saved seed from last year's 'Winter Festival' squash – a delightful prettily striped and spotted yellow green and white acorn shaped squash. At first I thought I had muddled up the plantlets and planted one of the 'Gold Rush' courgettes in the Three Sisters bed by mistake. But as the fruit developed I realised last year's 'Winter Festival' had cross pollinated with the closely related courgette and had produced a hybrid. We used one of the 'squourgettes' chopped up in the Picallili (a triumph!) and left the other to fully mature into a large dark yellow marrow shaped squash. I was concerned that it may be more courgette-like than squash-like and so it was the first to be taken to the kitchen . . .

. . . and here it is cut in half, oozing juices and a beautiful pale orange in colour!


I used half to make soup. I softened some chopped onion and a few chopped sage leaves in some olive oil and then added the roughly cubed squash flesh and some ground mixed peppercorns.

I then added some home-made chicken stock and simmered until the squash was tender. A quick whizz with the stick blender and we had a delicious light squash soup. There was a hint of cooked courgette flavour alongside the light nuttiness of the squash, the colour was a glorious sunshine gold – an excellent Saturday lunchtime soup. The remaining 'squourgette' was boiled until tender and served as a tasty side vegetable with the Sunday roast.

Now for the 'Marina di Chioggia', grown from seed saved from last year so maybe not quite true to the original. This isn't the most attractive of squash, being green and warty but the smooth texture and intense flavour of the flesh was my favourite of last year's harvest . . .

. . . here it is cut in half

Lack of sun this summer probably accounts for the flesh having a tinge of green rather than being deep golden orange, but nevertheleass a fine squash!

I made soup with half of the 'Marina di Chioggia', as above but using pheasant stock and thickening it by adding two broken up rice cakes (thank you Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – top tip!) just before blending. The colour wouldn't win any prizes – a sludgy ochre – but shut your eyes and the flavour and texture was wonderful. With the remaining squash we mashed some with potato to top a Shepherd's Pie and roast the rest to accompany pork chops. The texture of the flesh is quite dry and would suit recipes needing a firmer flesh – risotto or gnochi maybe

We have another larger 'Marina di Chioggia' squash and the nameless giant orange one (earmarked for Hallowe'en) left. Recipe suggestions welcome!

Sunny delight

PPP-lite . . .

This is our 2008 squash harvest from The Three Sisters bed (not a bumber crop). What will the giant yellow 'squarrow' be like inside? We'll try this one first.
The other three will provide lots of lovely nutty squash for risottos, mash, soup, muffins . . . what's your favourite squash recipe?

Bring me sunshine . . . pleeeeease!

PPP-lite . . .

We have four large squash, six cobs of corn, and a good harvest of beans.
Looking at the Met Office stats for August 2008 it's amazing that
we had anything at all to harvest!
"SUNSHINE: The provisional total for the month is 115.9 hours, which is 67% of the 1961-1990 average. Dullest August in series back to 1929. Previous dullest was 1954, when 123.7 hours was recorded."

Growing 'The Three Sisters' – part 4

In early July I showed photos of the sweetcorn, squash and climbing beans in the 'Three Sisters' bed and wrote about how they were growing rapidly. I promised to show you the beans and sweetcorn in flower – sun, heat and rain have resulted in massive growth over the past month . . .

Here is part 4 of Magic Cochin's method of growing The Three Sisters . . .

(Continuing from part 3)

xi)
This is what 'The Three Sisters' look like today – the climbing beans 'Poletschka' have reached the top of the wigwam and some are using the sweetcorn stems for support, the 'Honey Bantam' sweetcorn plants have grown tall and strong and the squash plants are spreading out across the grass surrounding the mound. Apart from watering the plants when they were first planted out we haven't needed to water them since. I know we are having a rainy summer, but here in West Suffolk we have had at least a week of temperatures around 30C and strong drying winds, 'The Three Sisters' have thrived and even when the squash leaves wilt slightly in the afternoon sun they soon recover in the evening.

xii)
Sweetcorn 'Honey Bantam' – the flower spikes at the top of the plants are the male flowers, the wind shakes the pollen out and it sprinkles down onto the female flower tassels which are on the top of embryo corn cobs in the leaf axles below. You can see that some of the beans climbing up through the strong stems of the corn.


Here is one of the embryo corn cobs with the silky female tassels emerging from the top.


xiii)
Climbing Bean 'Poletschka' – these Ukrainian heritage beans can be eaten as green beans but I think that the mature beans are so beautiful that it's worth holding off until they are mature. They have grown extremely fast, I took this photograph of one of the pretty mauve flowers a few weeks ago.


When I searched under the large green bean leaves this morning there were bunches of long pale green pods swelling with the maturing beans.

xiv)
Squash 'Winter Festival' x courgette – Last month I was convinced that I had mistakenly planted a yellow courgette in 'The Three Sisters' mound. But now I'm not so sure, here are two 'Gold Rush' courgettes on the right and one from 'The Three Sisters' on the left. After some research in the Seeds of Kokopelli manual I realise that 'Winter Festival' squash and courgettes are both varieties of Cucurbita pepo and could easily cross pollinate.


I've left the remaining friuts to mature – Squaurgette or Coursh 'Magic Cochin'! You can see how I slip a tile under the fruit so it isn't sitting directly on the damp grass, this keeps the fruit dry and relatively unblemished. Sometimes a root grows from the underside of the node on the stem where the leaf and fruit stem emerge, allow this to grow down into the soil so the plant can gain extra water and nutrients.


The other two squash are varieties of Curcurbita maxima and were grown from seeds collected from last years crop, these are likely to be hybrids too. This is the un-named large dark orange variety, it is developing a lovely stripy central boss.


This is the plant grown from seed saved from last year's 'Marina di Chioggia' squash. Not quite as warty and reptilian as she should be and with a stripy centre like the orange one. There are more smaller fruits on all the plants, so it looks like we'll have a good crop this autumn.


xv)
And here's an added bonus – a breakfast bouquet of honey perfumed squash flowers and freshly picked chives to chop finely and add to our scrambled eggs for breakfast.


Part 5 will show our harvest of sweetcorn.

Growing 'The Three Sisters' – part 3

At the end of May I wrote about planting out the sweetcorn, squash and climbing beans into the 'Three Sisters' bed. I promised to show you how I train the plants as they grow, it's about time I posted an update . . .

Here is part 3 of Magic Cochin's method of growing The Three Sisters . . .

(Continuing from part 2)

ix)
This photo was taken exactly four weeks after planting out, after the initial watering in no further watering has been necessary and the roots have found their way down into the rich, moist compost mound. We have had a fair amount of rain, but we've also had warmth – so far this year conditions have been good for 'The Three Sisters'. You can see how the beans are climbing up the wigwam poles, I had to tie a few of them to the sticks to help them hold tight, but now they are winding themselves upwards. The sweetcorn is growing rapidly and looks extremely healthy and strong – very promising! As you can see, squash 'Marina di Chioggia' has put out a long shoot, this needs to be trained around the outside of the mound.


One of the squash plants looks different from the others; all squash have slightly different leaf shape, texture and colour but this one has silver splashed leaves and bushier growth - suspiciously like the 'Gold Rush' courgettes! Mmmm . . . looks like I got some of the pots muddled up when I rearranged the greenhouse shelves! Oh well, it's still a cucurbita after all!


The other two squash are definitely squash! The strange warty green Marina di Chioggia and this – an un-named dark orange football sized one . . .


x)
This is how 'The Three Sisters' look today. Five weeks after planting out the Ukrainian climbing beans 'Poletschka' are heading up to the top of the wigwam and have large bright green leaves. The sweetcorn 'Honey Bantam' is making a lush clump of shiny foliage and strong stems. The squash are starting to make long trailing shoots (I push sticks into the ground to hold these in position and head them in the right direction) the first flowers are opening and tiny embryo fruit are visible.


Part 4 will show the sweetcorn and beans in flower.

Growing 'The Three Sisters' – part 2

All of last years compost has been transferred to the 'Three Sisters' mound, the recent rain has given it a good soaking and the rich mix is warm and ready for planting.


The 'Three Sisters' – corn, squash and climbing beans – have been grown in pots and now it is warm enough for them to be planted out.


So it's time for part 2 of Magic Cochin's method of growing The Three Sisters . . .

(Continuing from part 1)

v)
The climbing beans are supposed to be supported by the stems of the corn, but I think that this is only feasible if the corn is the sort that grows 'as high as an elephant's eye', so my beans will have a teepee frame of three tall willow poles with some extra smaller sticks for supports. The bushy plants on the edge of the mound are self-seeded clumps of lemon balm and oregano, both of which have flowers which will attract bees and other pollinating insects, so they have been allowed to stay!

vi)
Sweetcorn: Germination was excellent this year, so as I have masses of corn plants I'm planting more than in previous years. Sweetcorn is wind pollinated and needs to grow in a block in the centre of the mound, I've planted 17 plants of 'Honey Bantam' spaced about 20cm apart.

vii)
Squash: I had to be sensible and choose just one plant of the three varieties of squash – 'Winter Festival', 'Marina di Chioggia' and an un-named dark orange variety. This year all have been grown from home-saved seed, and as squash freely cross-pollinate these may not be like the parent plants. So it will be a case of wait and see! The three plants are planted between the block of sweetcorn and the edge of the mound and inbetween the bean poles.

viii)
Beans: These have been grown from home saved seed of the Ukrainian climbing beans 'Poletschka' which did so well in the garden last year. I've planted 2 plants either side of the main poles and a plant next to each supporting stick – that's 12 plants altogether. These will be encouraged to climb up to the apex of the teepee, as they start to grow they may need tying in with string to point them in the right direction.


Part 3 will show how to train the beans and squash shoots as they grow