You would think we would be lounging around now, indulging in a little harvesting and generally living the good life snoozing in the late summer sun… how wrong you would be! Alasdair has been busy sowing, pricking out and potting on a whole range of seedlings ready for succession planting to give us crops well into the autumn and in some cases next spring. As soon as the vegetables planted in the spring can be harvested and the plants pulled up, the next set of plants is ready to go into their places. The garlic crop has been replaced with kale, the onion beds now have turnips, cavolo nero, dazzling blue and short and curly kale, the potatoes have been replaced with several different varieties of cabbage as well as kohlrabi (our new favourite) and radicchio.
We continue to harvest lettuce, salad leaves, beans, and finally (its been a long cool damp cloudy summer) the courgettes, tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers, fennel and peppers are starting to produce. Our awful wet summer (hard to believe if you are reading this anywhere south of the border!) has meant that the celery is flourishing and early crops of broccoli and cauliflower are producing large heads which are slow to bolt and deliciously tender.
Fruit harvests have also been spectacularly good with masses of currants, gooseberries and raspberries. Strawberries as well if you can keep the birds and slugs away. Our Victoria plum tree is groaning with fruit and the little apple, crab apple and damson trees that we planted a year ago are also making valiant efforts to produce.
All the rain we have had this year has also meant a bumper amount of slugs. Alasdair and Tom (the gardener’s dog) have made nightly sorties to keep the slug armies at bay. There are plenty of slug beer traps to help (Tennants Export is the favourite of Scottish slugs) and we have a thriving resident population of frogs and toads who do a valiant job of keeping the slugs at bay and peek out at Alasdair from underneath their canopy of cabbage and cauliflower leaves.
We are finding our no dig, organically grown method of cultivation spectacularly productive. We have beneficial flowers such as nasturtium and borage planted among the vegetables and the insect life (and especially the bees) seem to love it. The gardens are full of insects and birds, we had our first house martins nest in the eves of the house this year. We are particularly fortunate that we live in the middle of a croft and are surrounded by pasture, bog and slowly developing woods. Such a vibrant ecosystem and we feel the garden benefits from its surrounding environment.
In the kitchen Liz has had to adapt. Rising ingredient and production costs means that she can no longer offer her gluten free bread and cakes wholesale and has had to stop supplying local bakeries. She still supplies customers directly and is selling through Food Lochaber and at the Farmers Market. She is always available for direct orders. She is also processing all our excess vegetables into chutneys and preserves. She also plans to develop her Stronaba Kitchen brand this autumn with soups, houmous and crackers and a small range of freezer ready meals using local ingredients.
We are very keen to collaborate with local producers and artisans. We recently joined forces with Clare from Florrie and Fig to share our flowers and Clare produced the most beautiful bouquets that we sold at the August Glen Spean Market. If anyone has any excess that they need processing we would be happy to collaborate (especially meat, dairy, autumn fruit – apples?!) etc. And if there is anything you would like us to grow next year?
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