Posted in Personal life

“And A Marrow!”

In this month’s issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’m talking about late summer gluts in the garden. The copy deadline is half way through the previous month to the cover date, and a month after writing this article, we’ve only just finished dealing with our surplus fruit, but still the lanes round here are dotted with baskets of free apples, squash, and other produce for sale or for free at the garden gate.

close-up photo of apples on tree
One of several apple varieties in our garden

Before I moved to Hawkesbury Upton, I couldn’t understand how people could leave windfall fruit to rot. My previous house, in Tring, Hertfordshire, was a tiny two-up, two-down Victorian terrace with a back yard rather than a garden, so growing fruit and vegetables was out of the question. So when a neighbour encouraged us to strip her crab apple tree of all its fruit for our new hobby of winemaking, we were overwhelmed by her generosity. Only now that my kitchen is full of baskets of windfall apples – plus a bucket containing 27 pints of fresh apple juice – can I empathise with her relief at offloading her surplus to a grateful home.

When we moved here from Tring, the garden was one of the biggest attractions of our new house. Its substantial lawn was edged with mature plum trees, and an apple tree divided the lawn from the kitchen garden, where soft fruit bushes flourished. Over the years, we’ve added crab-apple, pear and more apple varieties, and damson and cherry trees have planted themselves. (Thank you, wild birds!)

Our plum trees have also multiplied, due to our habit of picking a ripe plum to eat on the move before chucking the stone on the ground wherever we happen to be. One summer, I anticipated a fairy ring of plum trees springing up where my aunt had sat in the garden, working  her way through a dish of plums and leaving a circle of their stones around her chair.

row of seven flagons of cider fermenting
One way of coping with a glut of apples: cider!

This year we’ve had our largest yield of plums yet.

In the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s good to have a reminder that nature can also be benevolent – so much so that it’s been hard work even to give away our surplus.

There’s only so much jam one can use. When I put my latest jars of plum jam in the larder, I discovered we still had four jars from last year.

At least our plums are delicious, unlike the marrows that Nick Cragg throws in with every lot at the Show Day auction. His cry of “And a marrow!” always raises a laugh.

But in the absence of this year’s Village Show, what are we going to do with all our marrows? At the 2021 Show, I predict record entry levels in the spirits category.

Anyone for marrow rum?


image of square version of Best Murder in Show cover, ready for new audiobook
Now available as an audiobook as well as in paperback and ebook

If you like the idea of the Village Show, you might enjoy my novel Best Murder in Show, the first in my lighthearted Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series. Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook, it’s a cheery read to help you eke out the summer for a little longer. 

Buy from online retailers here.

The paperback is also available at Hawkesbury Stores and to order from all good local bookshops.

Posted in Events, Personal life, Writing

The Alchemy of Marrows

My column from the September 2019 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

My current stockpile of marrows from my cottage garden

“A glut! How rural!” said a city-dwelling friend when I complained about an excess of vegetable marrows.

The dictionary defines a glut as “an abundant supply – more than one could need or sell”. Some might argue that when it comes to marrows, a glut is any number above zero. At the Hawkesbury Show, auctioneer Nick Cragg always raises a laugh when he adds “and a marrow” to the list of items in a lot – you can’t give marrows away in the country at this time of year.

photo of auction in progress at Hawkesbury Village Show with Nick Cragg and Terry Walton
Country Property auctioneer Nick Cragg this year was aided by BBC Radio 2’s allotment guru Terry Walton

But each spring, knowing they’ll provide a guaranteed crop, untouched by the caterpillars and slugs that decimate brassicas, it’s hard to resist the temptation to plant them. This year, in an attempt to make the inevitable glut more interesting, my husband planted a yellow variety.

What’s more, we’ve now alighted upon a satisfying way of using them up: with the aid of a spiraliser. This hand-cranked mechanical cutting device is a bit like a giant’s equivalent of Grandma’s old-fashioned mincer.

photo of a spiraliser sideways on
The spiraliser – reminiscent of the traditional mincing machine

Position the marrow on the shaft, turn the handle, and a tangle of long, thin ribbons emerges through the cutting disc. Spiralising yellow marrows, I feel like Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold in the Grimms’ fairy tale.

photo of spiraliser end on with ribbons of golden marrow
Tada! Spinning marrows into gold.

Simmer or stir fry the spirals briefly to provide the perfect vehicle for the pasta sauce of your choice. Who’d have thought the much-maligned marrow could give you three reasons to be cheerful? Courgetti spaghetti, to use the gourmet’s euphemism, counts as one of your five a day, save calories and carbs compared to pasta, and reduces your marrow stockpile.

So if you came home from the Hawkesbury Show with a marrow surplus to requirements, now you know what to do with it. And if you didn’t, I’m sure there’ll still be a few going begging in our household by the time you read this…


Seasonal Fiction for October

In Trick or Murder?, Sophie’s adopted village of Wendlebury Barrow must choose between Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night – risking the wrath of the strange new vicar, the Reverend Neep, who bans their traditional Halloween festivities. Join Sophie and friends as she tries to get to the bottom of what drives this strange fellow – and to prevent the despatch of more than just a guy on the village bonfire. For more information, and to read the first chapter for free, click here.


cover of Trick or Murder?
Available in paperback and ebook, with a lively story spanning Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night

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