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Rochford Life: Back in the Autumn you were telling me about how you had filled your freezers up. Have you still got any produce left?
Both: We’ve got one freezer completely empty. We’ve got three freezers, two of which are fairly small and one of those has been cleared, but we’ve got a bigger chest freezer and that is still full. It is going down but...
RL: So what sort of stuff do you have left?
Both: Berries, cabbage, carrots, Swedes, parsnips, and we’ve made up soups (tomato and chicken with all the vegetables in) and also mashed potato in trays. We also make our own bread. We live off as much off this sort of food as possible, we like to eat healthily, we don’t eat out much.
RL: So where are you in your yearly cycle.
Both: Well, at the moment we’re just using things from last year. We’ve got plenty of jam which Keith makes and...
RL: Do you have chutneys?
Both: No, we’re not keen on chutneys. We don’t tend to do much pickling either. (which grieves my heart as I listen!) We do beetroot but we haven’t had much success with pickles and things like that. (I have when I used to do it!) We prefer our onion fresh in a sandwich. No, we are still well stocked which should, hopefully, see us through to the next crop of things like the new potatoes coming in. We try to last the year. We still have some odds and ends of cabbage left here that we cook. As I think we said previously, August and September we don’t go away because we work really hard those two months both down here and at home. For example, I peel carrots and he cuts them up into sticks but then it’s nice because on a winter’s evening I just take a bag of carrots out and there they are ready for cooking.
RL: You sound like you like your food!
Both: We like about four or five veg on our plate and a scoop of mash and whatever meat there is. When people tell us their food bills I die because they’re almost three times ours sometimes. That’s when we gloat. Yes, it’s fun. I make wine anyway, but this year I left some elderberries over and put them in the freezer, and last week I got them out and made elderberry and blackcurrant jam. Sometimes you don’t get enough blackcurrants to make a really good batch and you can put them in cheese cakes and all sorts of things, and so I thought if the elderberries were good and it tastes quite nice I would try mixing them. There was a programme I saw about using elderberries instead of cranberries. My granddaughter uses blackcurrant and elderberry as a sauce with her meat. Elderberries are slightly smaller than cranberries but they are more prolific. We also make crumbles with the fruit which the family like. My eldest grandson also likes the chicken soup with all the carrot and onion and potato in and the younger ones like the leek and potato soup that Keith makes.
RL: I have confess that the conversation then relapsed into reminiscing how our parents grew things and kept chickens and we all got a bit carried away, yours truly included, so we’d better stop it here. Well, perhaps this very brief bit above will stir some hearts so that in six months time, many more of us will be harvesting the fruits of our gardens or allotments. I’ll have a word with the “Growing Stuff” department and see if we can’t do some encouraging on those pages as well. Watch this space!
Both: We’ve got one freezer completely empty. We’ve got three freezers, two of which are fairly small and one of those has been cleared, but we’ve got a bigger chest freezer and that is still full. It is going down but...
RL: So what sort of stuff do you have left?
Both: Berries, cabbage, carrots, Swedes, parsnips, and we’ve made up soups (tomato and chicken with all the vegetables in) and also mashed potato in trays. We also make our own bread. We live off as much off this sort of food as possible, we like to eat healthily, we don’t eat out much.
RL: So where are you in your yearly cycle.
Both: Well, at the moment we’re just using things from last year. We’ve got plenty of jam which Keith makes and...
RL: Do you have chutneys?
Both: No, we’re not keen on chutneys. We don’t tend to do much pickling either. (which grieves my heart as I listen!) We do beetroot but we haven’t had much success with pickles and things like that. (I have when I used to do it!) We prefer our onion fresh in a sandwich. No, we are still well stocked which should, hopefully, see us through to the next crop of things like the new potatoes coming in. We try to last the year. We still have some odds and ends of cabbage left here that we cook. As I think we said previously, August and September we don’t go away because we work really hard those two months both down here and at home. For example, I peel carrots and he cuts them up into sticks but then it’s nice because on a winter’s evening I just take a bag of carrots out and there they are ready for cooking.
RL: You sound like you like your food!
Both: We like about four or five veg on our plate and a scoop of mash and whatever meat there is. When people tell us their food bills I die because they’re almost three times ours sometimes. That’s when we gloat. Yes, it’s fun. I make wine anyway, but this year I left some elderberries over and put them in the freezer, and last week I got them out and made elderberry and blackcurrant jam. Sometimes you don’t get enough blackcurrants to make a really good batch and you can put them in cheese cakes and all sorts of things, and so I thought if the elderberries were good and it tastes quite nice I would try mixing them. There was a programme I saw about using elderberries instead of cranberries. My granddaughter uses blackcurrant and elderberry as a sauce with her meat. Elderberries are slightly smaller than cranberries but they are more prolific. We also make crumbles with the fruit which the family like. My eldest grandson also likes the chicken soup with all the carrot and onion and potato in and the younger ones like the leek and potato soup that Keith makes.
RL: I have confess that the conversation then relapsed into reminiscing how our parents grew things and kept chickens and we all got a bit carried away, yours truly included, so we’d better stop it here. Well, perhaps this very brief bit above will stir some hearts so that in six months time, many more of us will be harvesting the fruits of our gardens or allotments. I’ll have a word with the “Growing Stuff” department and see if we can’t do some encouraging on those pages as well. Watch this space!
Talking again with Keith & Eve Heritage on Rochford Allotments (12th March 2011)
Back in October - when the sun still shone - we ran across Keith and Eve on their allotment and talked generally about the value of having one. The conversation drifted on to touch on harvesting the produce of the allotment and we promised we would come back and do a follow-up on the produce you can get from the allotment. However shortly after the weather turned wet and very cold and such an encounter has not been possible until this particular Saturday when our paths crossed again.
Although this wasn’t exactly a structured interview or conversation it can, we hope, act as a spur or challenge to our readers to ‘grow their own’. It’s an apt time of the year as we start to get the ground ready for growing things.
So, once again, we (the men) stood around and mulled over the good things that come from the allotment while Eve sat in her chair. Again the wind played havoc with the microphone so it is a bit limited, but here are some of the important bits that hopefully convey something of ‘the good life’. Again they both chopped in and out of the conversation so we haven’t tried to differentiate who spoke.
So, once again, we (the men) stood around and mulled over the good things that come from the allotment while Eve sat in her chair. Again the wind played havoc with the microphone so it is a bit limited, but here are some of the important bits that hopefully convey something of ‘the good life’. Again they both chopped in and out of the conversation so we haven’t tried to differentiate who spoke.
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