Courgette crisis!

Few and far between I am afraid

If there are trout, Izabella, I'll be down as soon as the new season starts !

Bed!!

Yes Bella is beautiful. She is in charge but not in an in your face sort of way. She is very gentle and we love her to bits. She is from the RSPCA and I nearly overlooked her. So pleased I didn't. She is currently snoozing in her heated bad as its bitterly cold here today.

Bella is obviously in charge of all she surveys which looks idyllic btw!

My dad used to grow a lot of vegetables, but not the unusual varieties, more the everday staples varian mentions and all types of bean - runner, french and broad beans and peas (not sugar snap, ones that had to be be podded).
He grew marrows but we never picked them as courgettes in those days.
He used to buy field mushrooms from the market on Saturdays sometimes and I remember him opening the brown paper bag and showing me the mushrooms - they were an occasional treat.

Bella is a beauty! And a river too? How wonderful. Trout?

Ooh what a lovely place to say goodnight Bella cat!

I grow most of my own fruit, veg herbs and nuts.

Goodnight from Bella

We are lucky to have a huge organic allotment and grow all our own veg. I can only eat 'above ground' veg as roots have too much sugar for me these days, so sadly no carrots which were my previous favourite. However, we have a freezer full of home made ratatouille so not experiencing courgette withdrawal yet. Cauliflower is my mainstay and we also have a freezer full of cauliflower 'rice.' Not to mention vast stocks of home made soup. We are currently cropping sprouts, Nero kale, curly kale, hungry gap kale (a rare heritage variety), a wide selection of oriental veg and salad leaves. Also chard which seems to go on and on despite the frosts. Others are enjoying my banned list of Jerusalem artichokes, swedes, turnips and stored potatoes. Today was the first time I had really been on the land and it was lovely to get out there. Birds singing, hens happily chatting and bulbs coming through. Feeling blessed.

Neither of us like courgettes - or aubergines and prefer local veg in season. Somehow it seems to work that lettuce and salad stuff grows best in this climate when the weathers hot and we're wanting salads and the sprouts and leaks are ready just in time for casseroles in winter.

As long as there's plenty of onions and potatoes (which store well for year round use) I'm happy. (And cheese. Not a vegetable but I can't do without it!)

Yes indeed Falconbird - the fuits start off very small , like a finger. If you don't pick them regularly when they're small you soon have lots of huge marrows.
Marrow is ok, a bit tasteless unless you faff about with the cooking. And not much left when you've removed the skin and seeds. From the same family as squash, but squash has more taste.
We grow the plant, partly because it has lovely flowers, and huge leaves which smother weeds.

...and yet how healthy we all were! Which only goes to show how it doesn't matter, as long as you eat veg, which veg, or how varied.

I think marrow is an English vegetable. We grow them now, but never had marrows when I was growing up, nor celery (which doesn't seem that exotic), let alone bok choi, mustard and cress, watercress, sweet potato, chickpeas, celeriac, fennel, etc, etc.

When I think about it the vast majority of veg we eat now would have been unknown in my childhood.

Isn't a courgette a baby marrow? Don't see marrows anymore in the shops and I love them and surely the marrow was an English vegetable.

Thinking back to when I was growing up in Scotland in the 1940s and 50s, we had a very limited selection of vegetables. We always had potatoes and onions, carrots and some sort of cabbage. We sometimes had swede (which we called turnip or neeps), white turnip (which English folk call turnip), cauliflower, brussells sprouts, leeks, lettuce, beetroot and tomatoes in season. We had tinned peas (garden peas if you were posh, processed if you were not), baked beans and tinned or dried butter beans.

I sometimes think I should take my grandchildren to the supermarket and point out all the vegetables we never had - mushrooms, sweet peppers, courgettes, aubergines, butternut squash, spinach, green beans, kidney beans, asparagus, kale, beansprouts, sweetcorn, cucumber, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, garlic etc etc

They'd probably find it hard to believe. Our diet then involved eating meat (usually low quality gristly meat) almost every day at home and at school. I haven't eaten meat for almost thirty years.

BUT - if forced to choose one which would you choose ww?

to veg or not to veg That is the question

I could give celery a miss.

I use every vegetable there is.. Today we've eaten onions leeks, garlic, spinach, beans and cauliflower.
Tomorrow it will be lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, red pepper, celery and cress.

I discovered last summer how easy it was to grow courgettes so won't be buying them in any season. Tomatoes a bit more difficult but I got a good greenhouse crop last summer/autumn. I managed a few butternut squash and we are in Scotland! Apart from bananas, kiwis and mangoes we try to buy everything else locally and in season. For winter, we prefer the root vegetables anyway and hubby makes the best soups! Like others, I would be worried if we couldn't get carrots, onions and swedes. I tried growing kale last winter and used it in juices but it is so tasteless. I know it's meant to be a superfood...Have grown a few savoy cabbages over the winter, almost in spite of myself (i.e., haven't looked after them) so they will be nice...I hope.

We usually grow a few courgettes in Summer, but not enough to last through to Autumn.I can live without them.
I use a lot of tomatoes and peppers and of course the humble spud.Never use any onions!

Love courgettes stir fried in slices with tomato onions bacon and a little cheese lovely with pasta. Have to wait now!

I had a good crop of courgettes in the garden last summer and froze the surplus, no lack of courgettes in this household.

I couldn't find any courgettes last week (Waitrose or Lidl) and just wanted one to put in a stirfry.

Well, I couldn't manage without potatoes, but, if we're excluding them then broccoli because it is so easy to prepare and good for you too.

He never short of something as we grow so much throughout the year, and the freezers are always bursting.

But couldn't live without onions.