The Participaction Newsletter

The last week of September has turned out to be one of the best spells of weather this summer with warm sunny days and cooler, misty nights. The tomatoes and cucumbers have all been picked, the sweetcorn is doing well, onions are in the poly tunnel for safe keeping. There are still runner beans, raspberries and blackberries to pick, along with the occasional squash, marrow and spinach.

Today there were nearly twenty volunteers on site. The lawn was mown, the Jubilee Garden tidied up and vegetable plots yielded their last few crops. Geranium cuttings have been taken and this years geraniums put in a cold frame to overwinter. The giant pumpkins haven’t come to much, the Potage Garden has been too damp this summer, but they are still producing fruit so we’ll wait and see if any ripen. The side plot is shrouded in black plastic, but I shall say more about that another day.

So, all in all, we’re still keeping busy and hoping for another week or two of fine weather.

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Last week I took home some spinach without really knowing what I wanted to do with it. After a bit of research in books and on the internet I decided to try spinach pesto, and I wasn’t disappointed. I whizzed up washed spinach leaves, grated parmesan cheese, garlic and olive oil in the food processor (no pine nuts as I didn’t have any). The result was delicious and I was able to freeze most of it, spreading it quite flat across a cake tin and breaking it into usable chunks when it was firm. These I just put in a freezer bag till I needed them.

Today I decided to cook a spaghetti squash that’s been lurking in the vegetable rack for a week or two- the beauty of the hard skinned squashes is that they generally store very well. Spaghetti squash can apparently be cooked in almost any way you like- baked, boiled, microwaved etc The aim is to soften the pale flesh sufficiently to be able to scrape out the strands with a fork. It has a mild, buttery taste which goes well with almost anything such as cheese or  tomato/bolognaise type sauces. Today I cut my squash in half, removed the seeds and put a small chunk of the still frozen pesto into the middle. I then  baked it at 180C for about 50 minutes until the flesh was soft enough to fork out. Lovely. We had sausages, runner beans and new potatoes, but with some crusty bread you could easily turn it into a meal by itself.

Other news from Stainsacre…. Well, the giant pumpkins are struggling a bit in the wet weather, but we are still picking plenty of tomatoes, courgettes and runner beans. The sunflower competion was judged last week and Huw won the prize for the tallest plant, whilst Paul won the prize for the biggest flower. But mostly, it just rains and rains….

Don’t forget- next committee meeting Friday September 12th at 1pm

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