Kitchen Garden Forum

As I don't eat a lot of tomatoes, part of the first harvest is getting sun-dried at this moment. We're having a heat wave of at least 6 days so it's the perfect sunny summertime for this! Just added a little bit of salt and home grown basil

I do mine in an oven, I wouldn't be able to keep the bugs off outside!

Fortunately KG did a great upgrade a while back & even I seem to be able to post a pic the right way up lately - or maybe that is still the garden pixies fixing it for me! Your bee on Ben is a great pic btw!

Thanks I love my photography which got kind of stuck during lockdown and then we had time to make our Garden and Bingo some wonderful things to take pictures of. I am very much still learning

Deb

So if you have a courgette glut like me - you'll be thinking of what to do with them.
Lately we've had:
Courgette cake. Multiple available recipes online
Courgetti . Shaved strands of the whole fruit with skin on. Use a spiralizer to produce enough of the same amount you would want for spagbol . Steam in a pan with minimal water till tender. Cover with bolognese sauce or similar and enjoy
And my fave - make falafel in the usual way but add chunks of steamed courgette to the falafel mix and shspe and griddle in the usual way.so use half the chick peas you usually use and replace the other half and blend with courgette
Serve in flat breads with salad and a suitable dressing such as tsasiki
Yummy!!

I also tried sun drying my tomatoes outaide in a previous hot year but we have too many insects in our garden and I did ,t have anything suitable to cover them with. Oven drying is probably a good alternative and may be on our schedule later.

Elmigo. How long did they take to dry.....or is the process still continuing? And how are you storing them? I found the previous ones I did which I covered in oil went mouldy which was a disappointing experiment. Next time I try oven drying them sprinkled with dried herbs I may well lightly coat them with oil but then freeze them in small glass jars.

We were talking earlier saying what a shame it is Dunn's Seedlings apples are no longer available. A crisp chilled one from the fridge would have been ideal for lunch on such a hot day. Sadly haven,t seen any of them available for years.

No sign of thunder & lightening but so much cooler today than yesterday thanks to the sea breeze, but apparently the heat wave is exciting meteorologists! Not exciting me as much with the instant evaporation, & throwing my planting plan a kilter & the mags suggestions for sow now! Hey Ho - let's just put it down learning for the future!

46.48 mm rain overnight mostly in just over an hour accompanied by sound effects, would have made the news in the South!

another day of 35 all day yesterday (and today forecast), house is now unbearably hot at night, even with all the windows open. I keep them all closed and shaded during the day.

That's interesting, Geoff. We saw lots of lightning between midnight and 1am west of us but heard no thunder, so we realised it was far away. We eventually got a little bit of drizzle, but not even enough to show up in the rain gauge. How we envy you! 29C at the moment and very close.

We are a bit cooler at about 25 but very sweaty humid. Much of the storm I think was a bit NW of us judging by where people have been sending photos from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53735832

PS : I was wrong it was nearer than I thought, found a way of downloading a lightening history map.

Fascinating. Our son lives in Clapham (North Yorkshire, not London!), right under the densest lightning part on the map. He had 21mm of rain but says the storm went on for three hours last night!

No rain despite the phone & news weather! Way too hot at lottie not helped by Mr driving off with my lottie bag with the factor 30 & my hat! I'm a bit rosy but think the T shirt Lawrence Of Arabia look could catch on - OK nothing like that but had the back of my neck covered! Please rain! I'm prepped for it - cut the foliage off the late crop spuds & hoed them up as obvs it will come at a price!

Always good to see Keighley, I have a cluster of cousins around there, Settle as well though dad was born the other side of the river in Giggleswick, grandparents are buried at the village church.

Weather here is hot and humid supposed to drop down to 21°C overnight!