More sowing and bottling courgettes

Third day in a row an entry! The clouds from yesterday moved on a gain and today the sky was it’s usual Mediterranean blue with a slight cool breeze making the temperatures very pleasant indeed. I was out sowing the terrace I raked over in the rain yesterday. Sowed out corn lettuce, parsley, mixed lettuces, rocket, courgettes, more dwarf beans, radishes, cauliflowers, and spring onions. Susan in the meantime was spraying the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers with Bordeaux mixture to prevent fungal infections after the rains.

We are starting to bottle some of the over production, there are only so many courgettes you can eat in a day. Oh, by the way, for any of you Americans reading this blog, my spell checker keeps telling me I spelled courgette and aubergine wrong. Of course in American they are zucchini (as in Italian) and eggplant. So at the moment I am making some ‘zucchine al naturale’ out of my Liguria in arbanella’ recipe book. It simply involves making a brine out of 1 litre of water and 300g of coarse salt. Cut the courgettes into thin fingers and put into clean jars. Cover with the brine, seal and slowly heat in a water bath. When boiling point is reached, simmer gently for about 45 minutes. That way we should have some courgettes to add to our pasta in winter.

Above you see one of my courgettes.