Growing
The garden delivers!
Monday 25 June, 2007
Hip hooray! This weekend, we've had new potatoes, peas, broad beans, gooseberries and raspberries from the garden. Oh, it was lovely.
The goosebarries have gone mad - we've NEVER had a crop like this before. We did manure the bed this year, so that's probably what it was but it's a bumper crop and huge berries, to boot. Lorna and I finished the gooseberry crumble tonight for tea.
We had fresh raspberries on our Bran Flakes this morning, too. What luxury!
We've got wee, tiny courgettes and the tomatoes are starting to fruit - so small I needed Claire to point them out to me!! Dan got the squashes and pumpkins out yesterday, into the three sisters bed (in the rain). It's sunny today but blowing a gale and it's not very warm. Still, it keeps the midges away!
Planting plan progresses
Friday 13 April, 2007
Well, the implementation of the planting plan has progresed this week. The weather has been dry, sunny for the most part and warm during the day. It's been windy here, but it's always windy here.
It's amazing how much you can get done with a couple of hours concentrated effort. Dan and I spent Tuesday morning in the gardena nd got loads done. I get less done on my own because I get distracted - I take Smokey a carrot; decide to tidy the garage a bit; sweep up and so on. It's mostly productive in a way (or so I tell myself).
Easter break
Thursday 5 April, 2007
I'm on holiday for two weeks - I only work when the schools are in session. In addition to my springcleaning, I'm getting on in the garden. The weather has been brilliant - warm, sunny, bit of a breeze (just right for drying the washing!).
I've sowed cucumber, marrow and courgette in the greenhouse. I'm hoping to do a "three sisters" bed a la Carol Klein - using sweetcorn, beans and squashes together in one bed.
I also sowed some lupins, marigolds and alyssum - I never grow flowers and always regret it. Actually, I think I'll go and do some more now!
Onions, shallots and potatoes
Saturday 6 January, 2007
I've promised Dan that I will take more to do with the vegetable growing this year and I do intend to keep it. Unlike last year, when I undertook to look after the orchard and didn't. Actually, pruning trees is a bit scary - I'm happy to scalp the buddliea every year beacuse it grows like a weed, but I'm a bit anxious about doing long term, or even terinal damage to the trees.
So today I sorted out my onion sets (Jet Set), which came yesterday. I took out any soft or rotten ones and spread the rest on a tray, which is now in the spare room, to keep them cool and dry until planting time in March.
Old seeds, new seeds
Saturday 30 December, 2006
Because Dan's busy with work things, I've been delegated doing the seed order. As ususal, we ordered mainly from The Organic Catalogue. I've tried to pick varieties recommended by Sarah Raven in her book "the great vegetable plot". I couldn't get all of them but was pretty close. I've also ordered "Sungold" tomato seeds from Thomson and Morgan - the OC didn't have them and Sarah highly recommends them.
Having placed the orders, I then found a box of old seeds in the shed, not in the "seed box", where I had looked BEFORE placing the order. So I had a very satisfying clear out of them.
Vegetable Expert
Thursday 21 December, 2006
Just came across this advice site which I hadn't seen before: Vegetable Expert. It's got the sort of comprehensive growing advice we always intended to have here (but never got around to!) plus tips on storing and cooking veg.
Gourmet Garlic
Sunday 24 September, 2006
One of the first bits on content added to our site was my short guide to growing garlic. In my enthusiastic naivety it was intended to be the first of many growing guides, but here we are over 3 years later and it's still a wee orphan. Anyway, I digress. We get a lot of visitors to the site arriving from Google and other search engines searching for information on growing garlic. Originally the guide suggested that buying and planting supermarket garlic was the best way to start, and would give perfectly good results.
Victoria plums
Monday 11 September, 2006
Our Victoria plum tree did much better this year than last. If you recall, I ate the entire crop last year - four plums. This year, we got about four pounds of plums - they looked lovely on the tree, like big rubies.
Unfortunately, the heavy rain after the long dry spell caused them to split so, rather than share them with the earwigs, we picked them all and turned them into chutney.
I used Delia's "Old Dowerhouse" recipe. We haven't tried it yet as it has to mature for a month but the recipe was recommended, so we're sure it will be lovely.
In search of the perfect truss
Friday 18 August, 2006
No, I'm not looking for surgical support! I'm actually on a quest to replicate those perfect, uniformly ripe trusses of tomatoes on the vine which the supermarkets produce and peddle at exorbitant prices. Naturally mine will taste vastly superior, but that's no challenge.
This year I've done much better with my tomatoes than ever before, thanks largely to Sarah Raven's excellent book The Great Vegetable Plot. I've followed her advice of watering from the bottom and feeding from the top, and the results have been brilliant, especially for my cherry varieties, Sweet Million and Super Sweet 100.
New recipe - Half-the-garden soup
Sunday 6 August, 2006
Pretty much stolen from HFW, but it's so good I had to post it - Half-the-garden soup.
