The Seasonal Supplement: Issue 2, Late-Autumn

storecupboard silliness | ever-changing pesto | elephant garlic

Nov 13, 2022

November on the smallholding. The last leaves and apples tumble from the trees, smoke wafts through the air from nearby chimneys, and there is a tangible slowing of tempo as we move towards winter. We still have plenty of things to do, but the jobs are shorter, quicker, often rushed, so that they can be squeezed into daylight hours. Cutting hedges. Raking leaves. Stacking pots and seed trays. Chopping wood. Barrowing compost. Brisk tasks that generate warmth against an autumn breeze that easily penetrates the woolly gaps in a moss-stitch jumper.

Evenings are no longer filled with processing gluts. Instead, they are a chance to rest a little. Catch up on the odd TV show. Read. Ponder. Plan. Usually we do this fireside, flames crackling, but not this year yet. It is still unseasonably, disconcertingly warm. Snug knitwear and thick socks are enough to keep out the cold. The matches can stay in the drawer for now.

At mealtimes we look over the rows of preserves, stored veg, and the hotchpotch of food in the freezer. There is much to choose from. Griddled courgettes packed in oil; pear puree; roasted tomato passata; dried mushrooms; plums in honey syrup; goose egg pasta; and all kinds of other edible reminders of seasons past. A veritable feast. We are starting to lift the odd lid here and there, but with a degree of reluctance. It’s just that it was so much work to get everything made and stowed away. Hours and hours of time to get from earth to larder (or fridge or freezer). And with everything looking neatly stacked, it seems a shame to ruin an organised row by taking out a jar. Concerns addle our minds. This year was a great year for tomatoes, what if next year isn’t? What if there are NO tomatoes at ALL next year? How on EARTH will we manage without the tomato chutney supply? It’s silly. We know. Passata is way more important that chutney. And while it is true that there is no guarantee of a good crop next year, there’s no point in turning the kitchen into a harvest museum. We need to eat. And we need to learn lessons from last year when a large jar of preserved asparagus, several bottles of fruit cordial, a pot of carefully dried and podded borlotti beans, and a huge quantity of walnuts went to waste because we waited so long to eat them that they found themselves respectively mouldy, fermented, hard as a flagstone floor, and shrivelled. So now we nip this kind of nonsense in the bud and fetch the cutlery. Or, in the case of this month’s seasonal recipe, a nutcracker…

A seasonal recipe

This is the basic recipe for our ever-changing pesto. It’s continually being tweaked as the seasons and crops turn over. Wild garlic in spring, a mix of basil, oregano, and calendula petals in summer, earthy kale or the peppery hit of rocket in winter. But the heart of the recipe remains constant: wild hazelnuts (foraged from woodland and gardens) or walnuts (from our own trees or those of our kindly neighbours) for the nutty part; an organic mature Somerset cheddar for the cheese; a clove of homegrown garlic; and a glug of cider vinegar made from the orchard apples. We often double or triple (or even quadruple) the recipe, as it freezes well and defrosts quickly – very handy for a speedy dinner when time is tight, and tummies are rumbling.

Everchanging Pesto: The Autumn Variations

Makes 1 jar

Ingredients:

50g soft, peppery or herbaceous autumn greens (e.g. carrot tops, nasturtium leaves, parsley, sorrel*, kale, rocket, or a mix), roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

60ml apple cider vinegar

75g shelled walnuts or hazelnuts**, roughly chopped

50g mature cheddar cheese, finely grated

120ml sunflower oil or mild olive oil

Method:

Making the pesto couldn’t be easier, just put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse for a few seconds until you have a thick paste. You might need to stop, scrape down the sides and then pulse again to get everything well combined. Stir through a little more oil to loosen it if needed. Then season to taste with a generous pinch of sea salt. Spoon into a jar and cover with a layer of oil before screwing on the lid. The pesto will keep happily in the fridge for at least a week, as long as the jar is clean and the top is covered in oil.

* if using the lemony tones of sorrel, it’s worth leaving out the cider vinegar to begin with, and add a swig at the end if more acidity is needed.

**we often toast the hazelnuts before adding them to the mix for a little extra flavour, but prefer to leave the walnuts raw.

A podcast to listen to

Gardens, Weeds & Words by Andrew O’Brien

This fantastic podcast is back for a new series, and we are really looking forward to listening in. Each episode is made up of an interview (there has been a whole array of interesting guests over the years), a carefully chosen reading of a piece of garden or wildlife writing, and some thoughts from Andrew, who always so perfectly captures the spirit of each season with his warm words, engaging descriptions, and stories.

Something to plant

It’s garlic planting season* - this year, we’re growing two types and keeping our fingers crossed that they don’t get hit by the dreaded rust:

Elephant garlic: a hardneck variety that - as its name explicitly suggests - produces ginormous, heffalumping cloves. They are at least twice the size of your average pudgy clove. This appeals to us greatly, mainly because getting the skins off smaller varieties can be a bit of a faff. In stark contrast to the size, however, its flavour is apparently quite mild – still garlicky, but very much on the mellow side. It’s our first time growing this variety, and we’re excited to see how it does (we’ll report back).

Picardy Wight: a softneck variety which we’ve grown many times before and love for its good flavour and excellent keeping qualities (it stores until late spring). Plus, like all softneck garlic, it can be plaited and turned into the perfect kind of country kitchen décor: rustic, natural, and edible.

* garlic sets can be planted anytime from September – March (depending on the variety), but we like to get ours in the soil before Christmas to give the cloves as much time as possible to expand and divide.

A few snippets from our November task list:

Bottle cider. The demijohns of juice that were bubbling away after last month’s apple pressing have finished fermenting, which means it’s time to bottle. To make the cider sparkle, a small amount of honey will be added before capping (to feed the yeast and produce carbon dioxide).
Check the apple store racks for squiffy fruits and remove as needed. One bad apple can spoil the lot…
Research and choose some new apple trees to plant in the orchard.
Empty and refill the leaf mulch cages.
Move manure onto raised beds. A neighbouring smallholder with some surplus sheep and cow manure has kindly offered to drop a steaming pile off in our orchard in exchange for a couple of jars of honey. It will need swiftly relocating to the vegetable patch. Wheelbarrows and spades at the ready!
Tidy the veg patch, just a little: burn blighted tomato plants and mildew-blanketed squash leaves; compost the flint corn stalks and other spent foliage; cut back the asparagus.
Seed inventory. A quick sort through the seed tin to work out what we have and what we might need to order for the spring.
Mend the hay rack in the sheep paddock.
Chop, split, and stack the apple wood. An enormous branch from the oldest apple tree in the orchard came down in the wind a few weeks ago and needs to be cleared up. The tree (a mystery variety) is still standing for now, but it looks like the centre of the trunk has rotted, so it may only be a matter of time before the rest of the tree topples too. We’re hoping for the best, but just in case, we’ll take some grafts of the tree over winter so that if it does come down, it can live on in other parts of the orchard.

We so hope you enjoyed The Seasonal Supplement. We’ll be back with another next month (if you don’t mind us popping up in your inbox again). In the meantime, do leave us a comment – we’d love to hear from you. And feel free to let us know if there’s anything you’d particularly like us to write about in future issues or posts too - we’re all ears!

The Journal of Modern Smallholding