I learnt how to recognise dock leaves really early on, solely because my grandmother made liquid plant feed for the runner beans in her small vegetable patch. The black liquid she created came from the scourge of foragers everywhere, stinging nettles. Rubbing a couple of large dock leaves on the affected area really stopped the stinging, this was just as well as the nettle harvesting trips happened at least fortnightly.
We’d strip the leaves from the stems into a large bucket and fill with water. She’d stir it daily and cover with a sack. You knew it was ready when lifting the sack prompted the escape of a large and noisy swarm of flies, it also smelt truly disgusting. The liquid and the black sludge was spread along the row of plants growing up the bamboo canes.
Nowadays I use homemade compost made from grass cuttings, weeds, kitchen waste and shredded paper. The inhabitants of the compost bin, a sturdy box made from pallet pieces and plywood off cuts, go out for the day when the front is removed to expose the fully rotted stuff at the base.
Runner beans make a delicious piccalilli type chutney. I use 900ml cider vinegar, 300gm sugar, 700gm chopped onion, 75gm cornflour, 1 tbsp each of mustard powder, ground turmeric, black mustard seeds and sesame seeds to each kilo of runner beans.
Simmer chopped onions in half the vinegar until tender (20 minutes). Slice the beans diagonally and steam until squeaky. Make a paste of the powdered ingredients and some of the remaining vinegar, add this to the onions with the rest of the vinegar and sugar, simmer until it thickens. Stir in the beans and simmer until the beans are tender. Spoon into sterilised jars with vinegar proof lids. It tastes even better if you can leave it for a couple of weeks.
What’s your favourite chutney?
That’s a very impressive collection of slow worms. They must be very happy in the compost