Very Berry

This has been a bumper year for holly berries.  Our front garden has a holly hedge and it is really colourfull:

 

 

 

The clusters are really packed

and that goes for the whole length:

Others have commented on ivy (Sue) but it's the holly that has been amazing with us.  Now some people say that lots of berries portends a cold winter. We shall see.

Back to the Straight and Narrow

We are going to be eating our own parsnips for Christmas dinner tomorrow!

 

Not really surprising if it hadn't been for last year...


http://malsedallotment.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/forking-parsnips.html


...when I had ambitions to grow longer parsnips and the whole thing ended in disappointment.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Kabocha - Crunch Time

It's a few weeks since harvesting 3 Kabocha fruit. This is the first year I have grown this.

 

 

These winter squash are very popular in Japan, so much so that they are called Japanese Squash in other countries.

 

I was relieved to see the flesh was firm and nice and orange...

After scooping out the centre ...

there were plenty of seeds to save for next year.

I sliced and diced one half before freezing. One quarter is in the fridge and the remaining quarter was sliced and roasted for half an hour to go with a roast chicken tonight.  It was really sweet and wonderful. I would say it outdoes butternut squash and would make great soup too.  So there'll be no problem using the other two!