16 October 2015

Cold weather produce

There's not much left of the vegetable garden these days. It's time to go and pull out the wilted and rotting squash vines. That means gathering a dozen or more winter squashes and putting them in cold storage. We'll enjoy them until next summer. Walt has already made one "pumpkin" pie this fall.


We have a lot of acorn squashes, a good number of what they call potimarrons (the little orange pumpkins) in France, and a few butternut squashes. We also have half a dozen gigantic zucchinis, which our British friends call "marrows". They are good stuffed and baked, but we have eaten our fill of them since summer, so these will just go into the compost.


It's pretty cold this morning. In theory, the cold temperatures are good for the squashes, and for my collard greens (above), bringing out their natural sweetness. I'll see when I go out with the dog in an hour of so whether there is actually any frost on the ground. Today, a slight warming trend is supposed to set in, with temperatures in the high 50s and low 60s next week.


The photo above shows a sedum plant that I've had in a big planter box for 10 years now. It sits out by the garden shed. It doesn't start flowering until September, but when it finally does it looks pretty nice. Its French name seems to be sédum remarquable, and the English name "showy stonecrop" (Hylotelephium spectabile).

20 comments:

  1. this October is really cold

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  2. Ken...
    an oversized courgette is NOT a marrow...
    whilst marrows are related, they grow from a squash vine-like plant...
    more like a spagetti squash plant...
    and not a bush like courgettes.

    Oversized courgettes are firm fleshed and have flavour...
    marrows are big bags of water-filled flesh and have NO flavour of their own.

    Courgettes give a continuous run of fruits on a short stocky stem...
    a marrow plant will have three, possibly four fruit on a long straggly vine...

    My Dad used to grow a marrow plant each year... I've had my fill of marrow...
    which isn't filling at all!!
    I'll always cook a "dirigible"... we had one three days ago...
    missed the damn thing under all the other leaves!!

    Love your Iceplant... great Autumn fodder for bees!

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    1. You're the one who said my baseball bat zucchini was a marrow. I'll stand corrected, but I'm not sure I see the difference in the squash fruits. It's just a question of size and maturity, isn't it? If not, the two squashes are very closely related.

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    2. The Wikipedia entry for Marrow (vegetable) says: A marrow is a vegetable, the mature fruit of certain Cucurbita pepo cultivars. The immature fruits of the same cultivars[1] are called zucchini (in North America, Australia and Germany) or courgette (in the British Isles, the Netherlands and New Zealand). Like zucchini, they are oblong, green squash, but unlike zucchini, marrows have a firm rind and a neutral flavour ("overgrown when picked and insipid when cooked..."[1]), making them useful as edible casings for mincemeat and other stuffings.

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    3. I said it looked like a marrow... but commented then that over grown courgettes have more flavour and a different flesh from a true British marrow... and for "a firm rind and a neutral flavour"... read "hide like a rhino and totally bland"...
      but, like I said, the two plants may be related... but they are very different beasties.... one is worth the time and trouble to prepare... the marrow just isn't!!
      All you get from marrows are grown men on allotments feuding over whose got the biggest...
      Like Simon hates squashes... I hate, loath, abhor the marrow! Yeurk!

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    4. As I've said, I have no idea what a marrow is, and from what you say, maybe I don't want to know. Can you buy them in supermarkets in the U.K.? Have you ever seen them on markets or in supermarkets in France? Do people in France grow them?

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    5. To answer the above...
      YES. NO & NO!!
      Says it all really...
      [a rider to the last NO... is...
      not to my knowledge and I can't speak for ex-pat Brits with no taste!!

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  3. Your garden is beautiful, even as the season is ending.

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  4. I love all of these lovely autumn color combinations in your photos these past few days, Ken!

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  5. Once again, two countries divided by a common language. I've read the terms marrow and courgette in English gardening books, but I wouldn't use those words myself. No point in learning them since we use other descriptive terms in the US.

    It's fun to see the differences, but different strokes for different folks.


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    1. Actually, I hate these "naming" things. Every region, every country, has its own ideas and conventions. The names don't mean anything in the absolute. They are only helpful when they are helpful. Otherwise, they are just confusing.

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    2. Ken, both Susan and I will tell you the same...
      the Latin [scientific] name of something is the only true international way of identifying something...
      but things that are man-made don't have a Latin name...
      take the humble bread roll...
      or bap, barm cake, oven bottom and farl-loaf...
      are all basically the same item of bread...
      it just depends on which are of the UK you were born in!
      thus the bap - Scotland, Greater London and the Home Counties...
      the cob - Midlands...
      a barm cake - South and West Lancashire...
      a breadcake - South and East Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire...
      an oven bottom - West Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria
      and the strange folks of Rochdale [Lancashire] call a bread roll a muffin, of all things....
      as you rightly say... confusing!!
      [This is all from the Big Book of World Bread]
      There is no Latin nomenclaptrap for bread rolls!!

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    3. I studied botany and zoology at university, Tim, so I'm clear on the concept behind scientific names for plants and animals. All these squashes we are talking about are Cucurbita pepo cultivars, so all of the same species. What is an immature marrow squash like? Is it blander than a zucchini? Pulpier? By the way, our zucchini plants are not bushes but are more like the creeping vines of the winter squashes, I think.

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    4. I don't mean to act like a dog with a bone, but http://thekitchenhandsstories.blogspot.fr/2006/05/zucchini-courgette-or-marrow.html. For years I've found the British term "marrow" mysterious but I'm starting to understand that it's just a summer squash with a different name.

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    5. Yes, they are all the same species...
      but obviously bred and grown for different reasons...
      the "marrow" on the link isn't...
      it is a large courgette...
      you need a tablespoon to scoop the seeds from a marrow...
      shop marrows are usually between 15" and 2ft...
      diameter of 9" to 10"....
      at one of our allotment shows...
      there is always a section for marrows at allotment shows...
      one plotholder came in with a 3.5ft monster that was well over a foot in diameter...
      and there is a guy in WelshWales who may have beaten the British record of over 150lbs...
      with a five-footer....
      [ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pictured-monster-marrow-weighing-more-6193408 ]
      apparently it did this in just six weeks... it is just a fibrous bag of water!!
      Yes, it is C. pepo... but bred to grow very quickly... rather like Dutch tomatoes!!
      The world record is ... 206lbs 8oz [93.7 kilos].... and grown by... a Dutchman!!

      I haven't eaten any baby marrows... but a fellow allotmenteer who grew the horrible things had...
      once...
      he reckoned they weren't able to be cooked like courgettes... too watery!
      All our courgette plants are bush...
      we grow Iceball, "Ron" de Nice and Précoce Marachaire...
      the latter is a Lebanese-club shaped courgette...
      all of these fruit on a couple of short fat stems...
      no more than a metre long at the end of the season...
      and each stem gives between twenty and thirty fruits.
      Do your seeds come from the States... or do you source them in the brico?

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  6. So the sedum is also called an ice plant. Yours is beautiful in pink. I've only seen the ones with yellow flowers. You are going to love the warm air heading your way. Our week in Alabama has been really nice.

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    1. It's funny, because "ice plant" means something entirely different in California -- not the same plant at all, at least not in appearance. I think the Calif. ice plant originally came from South Africa and grows in places where the temperature never goes down to freezing. So it really is a case of two (or more) countries divided by a common language. Glad your weather has been nice. Ours hasn't been horrible, but we are looking for an improvement this weekend and next week.

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  7. Sedum

    I have learnt the practical use of planting them amongst the perennials and shrubs in the front yard - good way to prevent weeds from popping up in between the gaps or holes .

    It is cold also here and in some higher locations some snow . We go to the polls on Monday :-)

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  8. I planted collards today in my tiny garden plot. I sure hope they grow to be as pretty as yours! Nice looking collards! I also hope the deer don't find them like they did everything else in the garden this summer. It's the first time I've ever had a problem with deer eating everything in sight. Needless to say, my back is killing me and I hope I can move tomorrow! Gardening is tough on me!

    Your Sedum is beautiful. I am going to have to find some like that.

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    1. Good luck with the collards. And the back. When we first moved to Saint-Aignan, we saw deer feeding in our back yard. So we had the whole yard fenced in, hope to keep the dog from roaming and also to keep rabbits and deer out of the yard. It seems to have worked.

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