You say zuchinni, we also say courgette

It’s going absolutely crazy in the vegetable patch at Justin Patrick Moore‘s back yard in Cincinnati. Our good friend from across the pond and author of the fine book The Radio Phonics Laboratory (out now from the Peckham based Velocity Press here) has sent us some pictures of his vegetable plot. Look at the monster zuchinni plants (above) and the present harvest (below).

And as for the green beans and the corn (and the current harvest in the fridge) look at the below. It’s funny as our zuchinni (AKA courgette or baby marrow over here) and green beans didn’t get past germination stage or if they did, the “no holds barred” Forest Hill slugs had them.

Usually with zuchinni/courgettes we have a glut and there’s only so much you can do with them. There are ways around that glut though, we’ve tried this chocolate courgette cake here and here’s a great idea from Justin’s wife Audrey.

An open sandwich called Yvonne.
Put sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, and spinach, black olives if you like them, seasoned with garlic, pepper, basil and melted swiss cheese on top that you ladle over toasted bread. Add a splash of soy sauce to your taste. Sounds great for those zuchinni gluts and your own gut too.

And (above) look at this for a self-seeding/volunteer zuchinni in his garden too! What went on with our seedlings I wonder and usually our normal plants don’t even get as big as this.

And as for a tune, Justin picked this one from Tim Curry funnily enough called The zucchini song. Cheers again for the pics and recipe idea Justin and here’s more on his great book here:

Around the garden and SE23 this week

Here’s some mad pictures from a week around the garden and one from the locality of Forest Hill. The first (below) made us think of Wlad (US7IGN) and his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) in Ukraine who is growing a banana plant in his apartment (post here). We are sure that this is a banana tree growing outside in a front garden in SE23. God knows how it survives the winter here, we could be wrong but it looks very much like a banana with fruit on it as well. We love the flower as it looks like someone’s carved it out of wood or it could even open up and start talking.

And the other day we were complaining that we weren’t getting much action from the courgettes (zucchini) in the raised beds until we moved a leaf and found this giant in hiding.

And in the tiny bed at the bottom of the garden there is some sort of melon (we think) and some peppers and chillies. Now it looks like there’s a self seeded cape gooseberry in there too and it’s only a tiny bed as well. A good example of square metre gardening gone wild!

Report from the garden

It ain’t The Good Life but we’re starting to get some more edibles out of the garden. The shallots are small but we’re getting a lot of them, that’s the first Zuchinni/Courgette (above) and the chillies are really doing well and there are a good few on the plants. As a good gardening friend of ours said a long time ago “Keep picking the fruit and cutting the flowers and more will come”.

As for our anarchic seed sowing style we have a Cardoon up near the house from when we broke open a seed head and just chucked the seeds around the garden. There are better looking Cardoons up the road but we ain’t complaining especially as they’re from free seed.

And as for the Barley Straw in the pond it does now look like it’s working and been working for a while. The fish seem happy and you can actually see them now!

 

 

Madness, madness, they call it (zuchinni) madness

Big thanks to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us this picture of a volunteer (plants that self seed) zuchinni (aka courgette) that has come up on the compost heap. They thrive in rich soil so a compost heap is ideal. To say the plant is going mad is an understatement!

We only got one plant that we got from a new seed supplier we found out about this year and it’s really suprised us as it’s so large. We only sowed two, one got eaten by slugs and snails and this one has gone barmy, taking over the garden path. Only a couple of fruits so far and one of them was one of those forgotten ones which grew to a fair old size!

Looking at Justin’s site here we were reminded of this tune below and a great episode of  Wireless Nights (Megahertz) from a while ago available to download here. An interesting listen if you like all that shortwave radio business! Cheers Justin!

All flowered up on a Friday (the lull before the storm)

I got the camera out well early in the garden this morning when it was flowers-a-go-go before the all day mental heat and pressure built up, leading to this evening’s mad storms (and probably arguments down the pub too!)

Dutch Flag Poppy in the place:Dutch flag in the frontPumpkin madness:pumpkin do

Zucchini, my friend:on a zuchinni tip

Who’s that Lilly?:oh lilly pondBefore it tipped it down, Beats In Space: Show 738 was on loud pon the stereo. Have a listen here. Pt 1 has the mad Brazilian jazz stylings of Moreno Veloso (with a couple of live tracks) and Pt 2 has a cracking mix from Mark Barrott/International Feel in an downtempo Balearic stylee.

Both great stuff for a summer’s evening before it tips it down and one to transport yourself from the back garden to a balearic holiday destination (without the crap stag nights and expense!)

A big shout to Tim Sweeney from all at Weeds Up to Me Knees and to “happy” gardeners everywhere!