It is that time of year again

how about gooseberry wine?

Last year due to amount of courgettes slapped on the kitchen table. I made chutney,courgette lasagne, cake, soup pasta and much more. Indeed if DH produced another I would not have been responsible for where it might have ended up. Mercifully the puppy has dug up this years plants.

On my way, sarahellenwhitney!!

Wish I lived near Whitewave and MOnica - I'd relieve them of some of their courgettes and gooseberries!!

A friend once made me a tub of courgette ice cream ...vile it was.

I have harvested my entire crop of strawberries without the assistance of any foreign labour gang......4 of them!

Each years I offer my overloaded raspberry bushes to friends. Help yourself.
What do I get?
'Can't you pick them for us as we don't have time'

Gooseberry and elderflower cake is wonderful.A Ruby Tandoh recipe from her book Crumb. I have made 3 this last week for birthdays.Wish I had gooseberries on my bushes. Just have gooseberry sawfly instead!

Hi MOnica
Here's a recipe for gooseberries I recently cut from The Lady. Waiting for DH to pick the gooseberries AND do the baking!

Prawn courgetti for lunch

And in line with a surfit of cucumbers

Lamb cutlets with squashed avocado and cucumber for supper

Look for a courgette cake recipe - delicious. Bit like carrot cake. But do warn anybody eating it what it is as it has green bits in it, which may not appeal!

My hubby walked around to our local yesterday for a swift half of beer and met up with his pal who had just been to his allotment and picked some beautiful raspberries he had put them into plastic containers and distributed them to all the regular customers in the bar they where so delicious he said the crop has been massive this year.

Gooseberry jam is lovely, and adored by grandkids, freeze as much as you can, sure local friends would be delighted to take some off you. My cucumbers are only just in flower, and tomatoes very slow this year.

Anya. I've gone all hippy dippy and had a go at the Three Sisters method of growing sweetcorn, beans and squash together.

The Iroquois native Americans must have all had university degrees in maths. The planting plan is a real head scratcher so I've cheated simplified it.

The trick, I've been told, is not to grow beans that need regular picking throughout the season. They'll swamp the corn and you'll be trampling all over the squash trying to get at them.

So.....I've gone for Borlotti beans which have only just germinated, giving the corn time to get away nicely and the butternut squash time to spread. The beans won't be harvested until they've dried in the pods by which time we'll be sick of butternut squash and the sweetcorn will have probably fallen over

DH says I'm a glutton for punishment.

Yep!

Courgettes are a law unto themselves. I think they need to be planted when the 'moon is in the 7th high and Jupiter collides with Mars'

Don't mention courgettes to me. I planted quite a few and none came up!, Last year we had loads! Fed up!,

I am not really keen on courgettes, so have grown patty pan squashes this year instead. Enjoying them!

monica how i wish i had that problem!!

I had the grand total of 5 gooseberries from my one bush, what is your secret for so many.

Gooseberries freeze beautifully.

Send any spare courgettes over to me. Our chickens love them.

Funny how in the early seventies they were seen as a luxury and there would be many a discussion in the local pub involving recipes, pollination, whether or not you could eat the flowers, would they freeze etc,?

Now they're everywhere and I still grow them.....Madness!!

We are away this week, but when I left the courgettes were in full flower. I expect to return to a crop of marrows.

Wrong saying there - sorry!

Thanks for the warning ww! I can't stand courgettes (nor can dh luckily!) but our next door neighbour has an allotment and seems to grow them by the ton. He leaves them on the doorstep and I then have to distribute them round friends and family on the quiet.

I realise that I should have owned up ages ago but he was so chuffed with the first lot that I couldn't say anything and it's now carried on for years. Hoist by my own petard!

His potatoes, tomatoes, lettuces etc are always really gratefully received.

Gooseberries seem very prolific this year. I love them and just freeze the surplus.
I've been giving DSs any extra produce, as a bribe for watering duties, when we're away.

I could do with suggestions for gooseberries. Picked 34lbs last week from 5 bushes but most came from just 1 bush.

All the usual fruit desserts, crumble, pie etc, Gooseberry fool, can't jam them as we rarely eat jam, any ideas?