On the allotment, I managed to inherit two large patches of rhubarb with some impressive crowns. I was actually surprised at how early you can harvest rhubarb, even without forcing it. See, I still have a lot to learn about growing veggies.

So off I trundled on Sunday, having decided that rhubarb crumble was on the menu for dessert, following our Sunday (veggie) roast. Whilst being blown to pieces, I pulled up a whole armful of sticks of rhubarb of varying sizes and thicknesses. Here’s a completely au naturel action shot of me approaching aforementioned rhubarb:

The ones that were far too thick and stringy were cut up (to aid decomposition - yep, MORE compost talk) and thrown (literally, from afar) onto the compost heap. I’m rubbish with portion sizes so I kept pulling and snipping the leaves off, and deciding that I didn’t have enough for one rhubarb crumble, would pull some more. This went on for a fair few minutes. I have a fear of cooking and not producing enough food for a meal that will leave me feeling satisfied. Or full to bursting. So as a consequence, I pretty much always cook far too much.

Now, bear in mind that there are only two of us here at the Smallest Smallholding. This is how much rhubarb I ended up with for my one crumble:

Once I got home, I washed and chopped up the rhubarb, cooked it with about 3/4 of an inch of water in the saucepan, and added about 6oz sugar. Once it was soft, and wafting delicious sweet acidic smells out of the kitchen, I strained it a bit and had to divide it into two dishes. I rubbed together 8oz of plain flour, 4oz of (fair trade) demerera sugar and 4oz (organic) butter together for the topping, sprinkled it on liberally, put a little more sugar on top and put both in the oven at gas mark 5. After about 20 minutes, my rhubarb crumbleS were ready. We served them up with Green & Black’s caramel and hazlenut ice cream.

Fan-bloody-tastic. My first allotment harvest was a veritable success.

I’ve been running a chat forum for a few months now. It’s basically a place where like-minded souls can chat about many subjects including green living, foodie subjects and recipes, rural issues and politics, smallholding, sustainable living and allotmenteering, arts, crafts and traditional trade skills, health & wellbeing, or just partake in a bit of random general chat! We currently have members from around the globe, as far reaching as Germany, South Africa and Australia, as well as a core of English folk.

The hope is that I’ll be able to expand the website to include a proper online magazine in addition to the forum. There will be articles covering subjects such as rural crafts, ethical shopping, seasonal produce, recipes, wildlife, hen and bee keeping as well as gardening tips and ways and means to live the good life. Some members have already volunteered their services to write articles on their specialisms, and I’m always on the lookout for interesting contributions. I’m also currently compiling a (free) business listing for anyone that has a service to offer or products to sell, and is a member of the website, or related to a member of the forum. The hope is that this will grow in time to provide a really comprehensive list that will prove useful for both country and town dweller.

The forum is called Rural Muse and can be found at www.ruralmuse.co.uk

As far as I know, part of the Smallest Smallholding is sited on the remains of an old orchard, most of which has vanished in the intervening years. We have a very old, knarly Victoria plum tree, two damsons and crab apple. The crab apple, when uncovered after years of struggling to grow under 6ft brambles and bindweed, flourished and every year has provided us with a pretty impressive crop of apples.

Thing is, we never really knew what to do with them.

A few years ago the main bough had split, but as the three fruit trees were in a handy triangular position, we used them as interim washing line posts. The washing line kept the crap apple together and it seemed perfectly happy like that. It seems though that the wind and rain of late (typical English summer weather), as well as this year’s quite frankly ridiculously large crop of apples had taken its toll, and today I discovered that the largest branch was precariously hovering and swaying about. So Rich did the manly thing and sawed the bough off, leaving me to contend with breaking the branches down into firewood for the winter. Handy!

But it seems we should have really bolted the thing together as now, we’ve lost a good third or half of the tree. Still, it seems pretty happy with what’s left. And I have less apples to contend with.

Apparently crab apples have a high content of pectin - great for jams and jellies. But to be honest, I usually leave them for the birds in the late autumn, and any left overs get slung on the compost heap. This year I was hoping to use at least some of them, so any tips or ideas of what I can do with crab apples, beside crab apple jelly, would be greatfully received!

My Mum was always baking when we were children. Suffice to stay, she’s still baking and now so am I. Love it. I love the way it makes the house smell (like ‘good times’). It’s like a kind of therapy, especially the bit where you get to eat your work.

Mum’s latest fad is courgette cakes - my cousin is currently overrun with the blighters, so to help her out my mum offered to take a few off her hands. Instead of the usual courgette offerings - grilled, roasted, stuffed etc - Mum decided to make a courgette cake. And my word, is it tasty! The recipe is from Mum’s cousin Sue, who in turn probably got it from somewhere else…but here it is:

Courgette Cake

(Makes 2 x 1lb loaves or can be Tray Baked)

8oz Courgettes - grated. Peel if you don’t want a green cake!

5oz Margarine

9-10oz sugar

4 Eggs (Beaten)

11oz Self-Raising Flour

2tsp Ground Cinnamon or Mixed Spice

4-5oz Seedless Raisins

3oz Chopped Nuts

2tsp Vanilla Essence

Method: Preheat oven on Gas Mark 4. Grease tins or tray. You can line the tray bake with greaseproof paper. Cream the marg and sugar, beat the eggs and then add the flour alternatively, making sure that it is well mixed. Beat in the cinnamon, courgettes, raisins, nuts and vanilla essence. Cook for 1 hour. Make sure that you leave the cake to cool once it is done, as the mixture is quite moist. You might find that you have to really gently ease the cake out of the tin with a pallet knife.

N.B. Rich tore down half the ceiling in the kitchen and made a big mess, so when that’s cleared up, I shall have my own picture of my courgette cake. For now, there’s some nice courgette muffins to look at.