Giant Pumpkin update

 All was going well until last week when my pumpkin started to shrink. It didn’t look viable and had started to abort.  Good job that I had also pollinated a second ‘just in case’ pumpkin.  So I cut this one off.

So here is the new one.  Hand pollinated with a male flower and doing well.   Now for some sunshine.

Pickling Walnuts Part 2

 

After soaking in brine for a week, I drained the walnuts and let them soak in fresh brine for another week.  After this I left them out in the sunshine in the greenhouse to dry.

I packed the dried walnuts into clean jars and made the vinegar syrup.  Malt vinegar, brown sugar and spices.  Boil the spiced vinegar and pour over the walnuts and seal the jars.   I’m going to leave these for a couple of months to mature 

Pickling walnuts ; Part 1

 I found a walnut tree last weekend. These green walnuts are just about right for pickling.  Green walnuts should still be soft inside with no shell formed yet. You can test this by poking it with a needle and making sure there is no shell.

The process of pickling walnuts is fairly long.  Make sure you wear gloves! Walnuts will stain your hands and clothing with a strong black dye!  Wash and trim the walnuts then soak them in brine for a week.

At first they will be a nice green colour but....

After a few days in the brine you can see the black dye starting to become apparent.  Walnut juice was used in days gone by as an ink from which many illuminated manuscripts were drawn.   More updates later.

Pumpkin pollination update

So a couple of days ago the female flower opened one morning.  I only had a few hours to hand pollinate with pollen from a male flower. 

Then later that afternoon after pollination the flower naturally closed and started to die back.

So about a week later the little pumpkin went from pea sized, to marble, then a conker… and today it is a tennis ball!  Appropriate for Wimbledon week.