Judith in France wrote in
:


LOL, we are all pickle fiends. We had a glut of French beans which I
don't like frozen or bottled so a lot went to waste, courgettes and
squash, courtesy of Nick McLaren here, I made some interesting soups
and picked the courgette very small which I grated in salads. Far too
much fruit, redcurrant, blackcurrants, I made some jelly with it but
left most on the bushes, as we eat lettuce every day, a huge mound of
it, we did have a huge amount growing but we kept pace with it.
Beetroot, too much, cabbage too much. Now we are starting to eat,
Jerusalem Artichokes. I don't know if the melons are ready to eat yet
but we have a few that look ready. We kept up with the cucumber but
the Aubergine were a disappointment as were some odd pea plant (ridged
pod).

Now we have enough mushrooms to feed a small town, we have land
opposite the house which is uncultivated and there are 3 types of
mushroom growing there, Chantrelle, Field Mushrooms (Rose) and a thing
that looks like an inky cap. I'm going to take the dog for a walk in
a few minutes across the field and I have to tell myself to stand back
from the mushrooms, enough is enough!


Hi Judith,
Good year then! Well done you!

My gran used to bottle french beans and they were so nice and sweet, we
used to spoon them straight out of the jar when we were kids. Dont know how
she did them, she is not with us now but Mam and Dad think she cooked them
for a short time and then put them in jars with a light sugar solution.
Bit pointless telling you this as we cant get it right. I think its
probably childhood memories that will never come back.

How do you grow your mushrooms? From a kit?
The price of kits puts us off buying them.
The nearest I ever got with Google is that you buy some mushrooms (grown
locally), peel them and use the peel in peat in a dark place but it didnt
work, surprise surprise.

2 things I want to grow and have always failed are mushrooms and celery, so
can you advise me on mushrooms pretty please?

Baz