Claire's crops and crochet

2014 in Crochet Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:07:00 +0000

Now that the new year has come, I find myself reflecting on the crochet projects of 2014 and the realisation that it was only the second year with crochet. I am amazed how much you can do with really very little knowledge. Right now I don't think there's a pattern I wouldn't attempt and it is becoming easier and easier to think of a need and to crochet up something without the aid of a pattern. Practice does make it easier and I'm a crochet addict so I do get a lot of practice.

When I first started with crochet and tried to learn from a book I thought I would never get the hang of it and found it really painful to have my fingers positioned exactly as in the diagrams but then a friend suggested trying Youtube videos and I was away.

As I go through the pictures of my past projects what is nice is that so many were inspired by presents for birthdays and special occasions such as new born babies.

A necklace for a friend's birthday to go with the birthday card I made her.

And a brooch for another friend's birthday.

Pin cushions for my sewing friends.

Lots of flowers for a flower garland for my 3 year old niece

Teddy bear garland for my new born niece's cot

Baby brogues for my colleague who had twin girls.

A rug for our hall way. My hubby wanted something to improve the heat insulation in our drafty hallway so I got to work on this rug (made to measure very snuggly into the space). It took ages as its made with tshirt yarn. I'm sure I grew some muscles when I made this one!

I made some coasters as a wedding present for a work colleague.

Monsieur Lapin for my 3 year old niece. (He was surprisingly easy to make - 2015 will surely see more friends for this little chap)

And the Christmas beanies for my friends and family

There are of course some crochet projects which I haven't photographed yet, my crochet mood blanket 2014 (an instagram and facebook initiative - crochet mood blanket 2015 is just starting), my waistcoat, some coasters and I'm sure there were a few others that slipped the iphone's lense.

For 2015, my projects todo list already has quite a few items: beanie hats for 2 of hubbies friends (an order from hubby of course!), slipper boots for me, a crochet head band to keep my hair out of my eyes in yoga, a few different types of beanie hats for hubby, crochet mood blanket 2015, a furniture cover to stop the bunnies from chewing an item of furniture... I'm sure I could add to it, but it's a good starter for the new year. I'm also hoping to make more items of clothing and I mustn't forget my little niece's birthday in March.

What projects are you planning to do?

Why Quinoa's going to be a mainstay on my allotment

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 08:59:00 +0000

It's the second year I've been experimenting with growing Quinoa.

Last year's green house quinoa

Last year, I grew it at Winterbourne Garden's, Urban Veg garden http://urbanvegwhg.wordpress.com/ in the green house and a little bit outside. To be fair it was planted out very late and the quinoa grown in the green house was better than those grown outside.

Previously, I thought it was heat that helped but after growing it again this year I think it might have been the rich compost in the green house versus the soil outside.

I didn't get a huge crop from last year's attempt, about a jam jar's worth. I used some of these seeds to grow this year's crop and cooked with the rest.

This year, I've grown some of the quinoa in compost in tomato bags and the majority of the quinoa on my work allotment (about 10 metres away from where I grew it last year!) They've grown OK in the compost tomato bags but they've grown amazingly well on the allotment - I'm so glad I planted the majority there! They're well over a metre high and loads of grains on each plant. It looks like my first proper bumper crop of quinoa. I love store cupboard food growing in abundance! They've grown much higher than they did in the green house. The conditions on my allotment are a very nice loamy soil that I feed with compost each year and a sheltered sunny south facing spot. Although we did have a great growing season in the UK this summer, I think it's the condition of the soil that has made them shoot up this year.

This year's allotment quinoa

I've started to crop the ones that have fallen over already - they're drying in our outbuilding, but I've yet to crop the majority that is still growing on the allotment plot.

And it's such a versatile thing to use in the kitchen. You just store the dried seeds in a jar and use a few handfuls when you fancy. What could be easier? NB: Just before you use them you must thoroughly rinse them until you don't see soap suds as they contain saponins.

You do need to get to grips with removing the seeds from the flower heads. There's some really good instructions on http://www.realseeds.co.uk/grains.html I work mine out of dried flower heads when I'm watching TV.

Earlier in the season I used some of the leaves in salad and they were delicious as a salad leaf with a few small oca leaves to create a flavour mixture. They are a very close relation to fat hen, which also grows really easily in our gardens and especially on my allotment - so maybe if the fat hen's found my plot maybe I just have all the right conditions for growing quinoa and I should just not over analyse it!

If you've been inspired to try growing quinoa, my original seeds were Rainbow Quinoa from Real Seeds http://www.realseeds.co.uk/grains.html I sowed the seeds in trays in early May. As it was mild enough already, I kept these outside until they were ready to plant in early June.

Are you growing quinoa?

A visit to the Handmade Fair, Hampton Court

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 09:31:00 +0000

Last weekend I took the long trip to Hampton Court for the Handmade Fair http://www.thehandmadefair.com/, well it's not that far from Birmingham when you stop in Earlsfield en route!

I went a long with my friend Miranda and started our day at the Super Theatre with a Mollie Makes Mashup between Benjamin Wilson http://knityounexttuesday.com/about/ and Sew Over It's Lisa Comfort http://sewoverit.co.uk/. A really entertaining start to the day. Benjamin was making a tie dye slashed tshirt and Lisa was making a dress - both had to make their garments in 45 minutes - no pressure!

We then had a little walk around for 30 minutes and then learnt to make pompoms with the new pompom making contraption (I now want several in different sizes!) and contributed to the guinness book of records attempt for the longest line of pom poms. Rosy Nicholas http://www.rosynicholas.com/ was also very entertaining, especially with her suggestions of what you can use pompoms for!

We had a really delicious lunch and took a little breather. The food on offer really was excellent - very impressed. Had a little wander in the tents, bought tshirt yarn for my huge rug for our hallway and a Sew Over It 50s dress pattern and then watched a pompom making demo on a contraption that looked very similar to a bendy wire hanger - looked a bit advanced for me - I'm still wanting the plastic contraption with the arms we saw in the pom pom making tent.

We kept walking past lots of people I recognised from Mollie Makes Magazine - the Tea and Chat bit.

The afternoon session was our skill workshop - Upcycling furniture. Jay from Out of the dark http://www.outofthedark.org.uk/ was our expert. He taught us how to paint furniture to a high quality and gave us a step by step guide. He not only taught us to paint but gave us great advice on how to do it as economically as possible. I was so inspired by the session that I'm going to upcycle a boring white ikea wardrobe we have in our bedroom. I will paint it (with my hubby's help) with a wallpaper print on the front of the doors and front of the drawers. The wall paper is already on order, I just need to go shopping for paint and I think it will be a bright turquoise.

I had a great day at the Handmade Fair. I came away brimming with ideas. I loved the workshops.
I've been to craft shows before but usually they are a mass of stands with some experts doing talks, but this was really hands on. Everyone who attended had to have a go at trying something. Brilliant idea! The only thing that we were missing - it would have been great to have experts we could go up to with questions as we had a dress pattern problem and didn't find anyone to talk to. Maybe it was there - we just didn't know where to find it with so many things going on.

This really was a great day out, hugely inspiring, really positive vibe, workshops were fantastic - looking forward to next year's fair!

Summer Time Crafting

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 19:09:00 +0000

Often in the summer months, crochet, sewing and other craft projects take a back seat until the cooler darker evenings draw in but this summer the projects have been rolling on. It's what I do when we're watching TV in the evening (I try and stop myself from doing them in the day or I wouldn't get anything done!)

I must admit with all the lovely weather we've had this summer that the allotment plot did get plenty of attention and I've got some cracking crops to show for it, especially the 1.2kg Ram's Kodu Squash. But I'm sure lots about them will feature in a gardening post.

The biggest project I have on the go right now is a crochet rug being made out of T-shirt yarn and a 10mm hook. I'm spending a fortune on eBay for the yarn - I think it'll be about £100 in materials by the time I finish but it will be the cosiest rug we've ever had when I finish and I'm not far from the finish line. Hubby will be happy as he wanted me to make it for a more draft proof hall this winter. It's been a long project and I've found the best place to crochet it is on the bed as it's so big, bulky and heavy now. It is 64 stitches wide and will be about 2 metres long when I finally finish. As long as it's finished by October we'll all be very happy. It's the first time I've tackled Tshirt yarn as a material - you need muscles for it and there's a fair bit of yanking involved! My other big project is the crochet mood blanket. If you're into your crochet and have an Instagram account, chances are you will be taking part in or will have heard about the crochet mood blanket. The idea is to make one granny square a day for your blanket and by the end of the year you will have a crochet mood blanket. Some people crochet a colour depending on their mood - I started to do that but quickly gravitated to crochet the colour I was most drawn to and which went with the other colours nearby the best.

I visited a lot of friends London way over the summer so train journeys were fantastic to catch up on my mood blanket squares. I'm mostly behind (I'm currently a week behind on schedule) but it's a lovely project and my bedroom will be so full of bright colours when I finish.
It started making me thinking what other things I can make with lots of granny squares. Our household may start filling with brightly coloured cushions in the same style as the crochet mood blanket.
In between all the crafting and gardening, we managed to squeeze in an 8 day trip to France to visit my 91 year old grandmother. She was very chuffed and found it curious that I wanted to see pictures of my great grandfathers. My curiosity was sparked with all the talk of the first world war and I wanted to know what my great grandfathers that fought in the war looked like as we never get to meet that generation. As we were passing through villages in France there were a few that were decorated for village festivals. I will definitely take some inspirations from these. They look like they were made with paper tissues.

There was a wedding over the summer and one of my colleagues got married. I just didn't know what to make as a wedding gift. Pinterest came to my rescue, I googled lots of coaster images until I stumbled onto some pictures which inspired me to make these. I think the picture that inspired me was from Craftsy.com. If you like making flowers these are easy to make. It's all based on trebles and experiment until you find the right amount for the row and the space. So for example, the first row is trebles (I think about 20). The second row is two trebles a chain or two chains space (depending on what yarn you are using). The next row is 3 trebles and a chain or two space and the fourth row - I experimented a bit to get the flower effect with half treble, treble, double treble, treble, half treble. There is a slip stitch in between petals.
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Plot inspired dinners

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:58:00 +0000

Yesterday I had quite a haul from the allotment. A large Ram's Kodu Squash, a golf ball sized turnip and about 100g kale. I was so proud of my allotment's contribution, I showed my hubbie what I'd grown and brought home for our dinner.

So last night's supper was chopped up fried sausage, chopped squash, onions, tomatoes fried together for about 20 minutes. I added kale cut into small strips in the last 5 minutes. I also added some left over tomato salad dressing as the sauce and some chillie flakes (from home grown chillies that I grow on our bathroom windowsill) and just before serving I add turnip peelings - as an alternative to pasta. I just stirred through so it soaked up the sauce for about 30 seconds and then served.

Turnip peelings sounds like a waste product but it really isn't. It's one of the most yummy things you can do with turnip! First peel away the top layer of your turnip in the usual way and disgard this bit (I feed this bit to my rabbits). Once it looks all white carry on peeling your turnip but save these peelings to eat yourself. It's great in salads or in the fried veg dish I cooked last night.

Today, Sam and I went back to the allotment at lunch time. I got a bit of childish excitement wondering what I'll be going home with today. I'm a bit short on veg this week as we haven't bought veg for the last few weeks due to lack of planning with our shopping. So today's haul has been enough salad potatoes to make a potato salad - I'll make home made mayo to go with this. Also, as I cut back the rat tail radish bush an envelope's worth of rat tail radish for tonight's salad.

I've noticed I'm starting to plan what I'll cook next based on what I'm likely to be able to raid from the allotment and the home veg patch!

Seed sowing in July/August

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:04:00 +0000

Last week, I took a day off work to clear the soil on the new side of the plot. I had some help from a great friend who dilligently sieved the soil. It is now perfect to sow some seeds.

Whilst at Hampton Court Flower Show a few weeks back Alys Fowler's advice was that now is the time to grow oriental veg. So I went through all my seeds looking for the orientals and anything that can be sown now for Sam (my new fellow allotmenteer) to grow.

I gave her a full assortment of everything we could possibly sow right now in my possession.

Here's a picture of the full selection she chose: turnips, white radish, rocket, beetroot, salad leaves (now that we've passed mid summer the hope is that these will not bolt) and mizuna. I think we're pushing the sowing window for turnips and beetroot but we'll see. You never know - autum might be mild. I would also like to get some kohl Rabi and some Kai Laan in the ground before it's too late - I love the sweets stalks of Kai Laan!

When I sow seeds on the plot I also do a second sowing at home in modules just in case the pests eat the emerging seedlings. On the plot the battle is with slugs, lots of birds, mice, squirrels. Some allotmenteers have had what looks like badgers dig up their potatoes. I always garden organically and I've often found when sowing seeds I often don't see them emerge so now I sow things in modules at home, make sure that the main stem is sturdy and then plant on site.

On the new section, I've also been populating it with seedlings I had ready for growing: leeks, quinoa, chard and orache. I've also moved some globe artichokes to the plot as once they are established this will be a much better site for them than my cooler home garden.

From my side of the plot we have quite a few things cropping: last of the broadbeans, chard by the bucket load (Fiona, these are the seeds you gave me for Christmas - thank you!), kale and radish pods.

The sweetcorn and squash plants are growing well so a bit more comfrey feed and I think we'll be eating summer squashes soon. Although a pest does like chopping the sweetcorn down so we may not get to eat corn on the cob, but we'll see.

Please, any suggestions you have with dealing with the pests organically would be very much appreciated.

My visit to RHS Hampton Court Show

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:34:00 +0000

Last Sunday I trekked down to London for the RHS Hampton Court Show.

It was really interesting to see the variety of gardens on display this year. There was a clear theme of meadow gardens. Perhaps that's the brief the RHS set for the competitors. The garden that had this most down to a tee for me was the Jordan's garden which not only featured the meadow flowers mixed with tall grass in seed but also the grains that go into their boxes of cereals. This is a great message and something that is brilliant to educate children/adults with - just after the garden display there were complementary pots of cereal with a dollop of yoghurt - not only beautiful but educational too. See your food growing then eating it!

Other gardens I really liked was The Flintknappers Cottage - A story of Thetford. It featured flint and products from the area such as hops and other useful plants.

For me, my top favourite garden was this one, pictured here with the recycled metal drums used as plant containers and metal artwork. There were productive plants like nasturtiums and beans to name but a few. There was a guy playing a guitar (I think there were several guys who had guitar shifts!). The garden was called A Space to Connect and Grow.

After the show, you couldn't buy the plants from this space as they were going to dismantal it and set it up in Peterborough at a youth group (by the cathedral I believe if you ever want to track it down).

It wasn't just the edibles in the display that I loved but the thing that was so brilliant for me was the use of the recycled rusty old oil drums with a new life as a plant container. Brilliant!

This year I didn't find so many gardens that combined veg, herbs, edible ornamentals and pretty ornamentals. These are my favourites - I love productive gardens. So I was disappointed not to see these. I would have also liked to see garden displays that would be achievable in a city garden making good use of space with edibles and ornamentals mixed through. Something I hope they touch on in future years is the use of recycling water such as combining water catchment with clever designs and maybe renewable energy.

Teddy Bear Garland

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 17:34:00 +0000

I made these for my newest niece (just a few months old) but I think my 2 year old niece liked them the most!

Baby Brogues

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 17:31:00 +0000

Here's the latest gift I learnt to make, these were for a colleague who is expecting twin girls. I've made a few since. Everyone seems to be having babies!

The Work Allotment has just got BIGGER!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 17:26:00 +0000

For the last year, I've been sharing half a plot with a neighbour who shall we say last summer was a fair weather gardener.

When I first took on the plot, I would have preferred a whole one but the soil was so rich and it was a very sheltered sun trap that I thought half an exceedingly good plot was better than a whole really bad plot. I had to remove the weeds which was a lot of hard work, but now I have a really lovely half plot where I am trying to grow the 3 sisters combo of sweet corn, french beans and squash. I also have strawberries, rat tail radishes (for radish pods), broad beans, abundant chard and kale. It's all going great but whilst I've been doing all that hard work on my side, my neighbour hasn't been to tend their side since last summer.

I was biding my time till there was no more work to do and then I was going to ask if she was ever coming back and if I could take it over.

This week a colleague needed a break from the office and asked if she could come along with me to my allotment for lunch break. She loved the allotments so much that she was really enthused and wanted to grow veg, but she hasn't grown it before.

That gave me the push to actually find out if the neighbour was coming back and the good news is she'd abandoned it. I just wish I'd asked the question sooner! My colleague will garden my plot with me and I'll share all my growing knowledge with her as we work the plot. It'll bring back my Master Gardener days with Garden Organic, when I was a South London Master Gardener.

So far I've lent her my veg patch book with post it notes on all the pages of veg we can plant in September. We've still got half a plot of weeds to dig out but I'm sure it'll be easier this time sharing the hard work.

Pumpkins and Winter Squash

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 12:57:00 +0000

As you may have already sussed I'm a bit of a cucurbit growing addict!

Last year, it was my first summer in Birmingham and I planted out my summer squash and winter squash to very disappointing results. I didn't get one fruit off any - and my absolute favourite variety of pumpkin, which has fared well in previous typical british summers, almost grew a single reasonably sized fruit only to become slug fodder when its skin was still soft. I was pretty devastated to say the least. There were many heart sinking moments.

To be fair last summer was difficult for most of us growers with a few vacancies appearing on allotment waiting lists here in Birmingham as some people gave up.

Not to be dragged down by recent cucurbit failures, I tried to learn from them and hit the web in search for varieties of winter squash and pumpkins suitable for our iffy summers.

From http://www.realseeds.co.uk/wintersquash.html I selected the Boston Winter Squash and Hokkaido. They are both from the Hubbard variety of pumpkins / winter squashes. Hokkaido has grown really well for me this summer - it was rampant and quickly dominated the pumpkin patch. It's leaves are finally starting to shrivel now in early October, but its grown some beauties and I know we had a cracking summer, but I planted my pumpkins late (organising my wedding distracted me somewhat) and they were only planted in early July.

I planted 6 plants in my staff allotment plot next to the Urban Veg site http://urbanvegwhg.wordpress.com/. This is a real sun trap so when its hot, its really hot here. The soil is fertile and I added a scoop of home made compost underneath each plant. They were a roaring success here with a reasonable amount of crop (about 2 fruit per plant and at least 1kg) (1 x hokkaido, 2 x Boston Winter Squash, 1 x Heritage Seed Library Georgian Candy Roaster and 1 x Zapallito de Toscana http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/variety.php?IdNum=688. I also planted some summer squash varieties on my patio in 5 litre sacks (a white patty pan, a summer crookneck (both from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/wintersquash.html) and Ram's Kodu (another HSL variety)) I am also growing a Hokkaido and a Zapallito de Toscana on the patio. It is more practical to save seeds from my patio as on the staff allotment the bees from Urban Veg always get there before me.

The pumpkins on the allotment have done much better than the patio plants - that's not to say that the patio plants have done badly as they have all produced but they were a bit slower to produce with smaller fruit.

After this year's pumpkin experiments, next year I will grow a variety of each to save seeds on my patio garden and will grow just a single variety of each pumpkin and winter squash on the allotment.

There is no point to grow two plants of the same variety on the allotment plot as they were so prolific there. I will also continue to research varieties which should do well in our cool, short summers. Often varieties of all veg types that grow in the mountains of Japan seem to do very well here and I will be on the lookout for more. I will also keep saving seed as I may be able to breed a good variety of pumpkin that has naturalised to my two sites within 3 years. I will definitely be experimenting with the Hubbards as I was so impressed with how well they grew this summer.

I have yet to harvest my fruit, with the allotment pumpkins all sitting proudly on a bathroom tile so the hard skins can dry nicely. It may be a little early to say and maybe a footnote will be needed once I've harvested, wintered and cooked a few varieties.

My Comfrey Tea Method

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:42:00 +0000

Lately I've been chatting about comfrey tea with fellow gardeners so much that I thought it was time to share.

I started using comfrey leaves and making my tea purely by what made sense to me and I later started to research methods after the event and mine is slightly different to the main recipe on the internet which seems to me to be shove about a whole comfrey plant worth of leaves in a bucket, weigh down with a brick and add water. Wait for 4 weeks. Then dilute 1 part to 9 parts in your watering can. Add feed to plants that need lots of potash and nitrogen.

However, as usual, I didn't research the method at all before starting. I had my bucket and I added a generous handful of comfrey leaves and filled the bucket. I waited about a week or so and the top of the water in the bucket was looking a little metallic, presumably from the nutrients from the leaves. I started using a cheeky bit from the bucket at this early stage. The water was clear but it seemed to be having an effect with only this small amount of time. Mark Ridsdill Smith http://www.verticalveg.org.uk/ was right - its strong stuff!

Each week, I added a generous handful of leaves and the solution got stronger and stronger as the weeks progressed.

I now have the habit of feeding the whole garden with 1 part comfrey tea and 9 parts water in my watering can. I then add a big handful of comfrey leaves and add water (rain water if I have it available). Let it stew for a week and then use it to feed the garden again.

It's really strong stuff and I'm starting to see some really gutsy plants - especially rhubarb which has done a summer sprout of new leaf and the pumpkins.

Please be warned that some people find the smell a bit repulsive. It doesn't bother me all that much but when it's really ripe and full of nutrients, it smells a bit like something's died in it. A good location to keep your bucket is the far end of the garden (as far away from your house as possible). When I feed the plants, I never notice the smell near the plants.

Comfrey contains potash which is great for your flowering plants, fruiting plants and it also has nitrogen too for your leafy vegetables, so I pretty much give it to everything.

I grow comfrey in the garden but I prefer to use foraged comfrey leaves as I believe the plants in the wild have found a place with their favourite nutrients and these might not necessarily be in such large supply in my garden's soil. However, it's great having a backup source in the garden just in case I forget to go foraging on the way home from work.

I'm now considering making tea out of those tough perrenial weeds that you don't want to add to your compost.

How do you make yours?

Growing chillies in the bathroom

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:36:00 +0000

OK so the title to this post might strike you as slightly odd which is understandable.

Its not the first place you think of to grow food so the bathroom may seem a little unusual as a food growing location. Back in March, when I was trying to work out where to grow my chillies, I thought I would give it a go.

In years gone by I've grown chillies in the plastic greenhouse on our patio which works a treat. Place chillies in plastic green house, water chillies and zip it up. You'll come back the next day to see condensation throughout - but I've always found that the chillies enjoy the humidity and don't need watering too often to maintain it. So that was my previous tried and tested method. But this year the plastic had holes so I had to think of something else.

I needed a Plan B... Next best thing I came up with was the windowsill in my bathroom. The way the room is arranged is that the windowsill is smack bang next to the shower. Usually we have two showers a day in my household and this hot and steamy environment has been working a treat for the chillies. They've been cropping all the way to their ripe red selves from May onwards this year. The first to ripen was an F1 cayenne pepper (I usually don't do F1 varieties preferring open pollinated varieties as you can save the seed from these - but these were free!), followed by pretty in purple (from Real Seeds), Bulgarian carrot and Numex chilli. Pretty in purple have been the most prolific this year.

What we've really been pleased about with this method was how early in the season they started to crop. Usually I haven't managed to get them to crop before August (not to their fully ripened colour). What strikes me is that the bathroom being a typical run of the mill bathroom and not a purpose built chilli hot house has frosted glass. It only lets in so much sunshine. But they are cropping beautifully despite that. I believe that they need heat and humidity more that sunshine but sunshine obviously helps. If we've had a good sunny day, all the chillies use up all the water in their soil and are bone dry at the end of the day, if it's cloudy the soil in their pots remains moist.

And as the temperature in our bathroom is roughly between 20 - 25 degrees C I'm hoping that we will be getting chillies well into the autumn months - now that will make my new hubby Matt very happy indeed ... bring on the curry recipes!

My blogging absence and my wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 11:54:00 +0000

It's been a while since I last blogged and the reason was I was getting married.

What a lot of work and time it takes to organise. I had to really take myself off from my usual volunteer commitments.

When I say organise... I made a lot of things for this wedding: my dress (hard work to turn around within 6 months), my bridesmaid made her own dress, the bunting for the venue decorations, presents for the flower girls, the invitations... So on top of the usual wedding preparations there was a lot of additional. If you are thinking of making a wedding dress - this is a huge amount of work. It will make you exhausted for the number of hours you put in and it is not far off blood, sweat and tears. I think I should add that this was the first dress I've ever made so there was added pressure of steep learning curves, mastering easing and a whole host of other things. However, walking up the aisle in a dress that you've made really is priceless and well worth all that effort - I felt so proud of all our hard work.

My garden really missed me and I missed gardening but there was a gardening element to the wedding of course... My friend Tim Watts kindly gave me a wedding present before the event - my bouquet, button holes for family, ushers, bridesmaid and mini bouquets for our two lovely flower girls (they're both nearly 2 years old). He put me in touch with the wonderful florist Jenny John Flowers. The brief I gave her was cottage garden - no big show piece flowers - really natural feel with umbells if possible and lots of little different flowers. We picked the flowers 2 days before the wedding in Urban Veg (where I volunteer) - big thank you to Clare Savage. What Jenny came up with on the day was so beautiful I couldn't have been happier. She even managed to include a californian poppy - these grew in Grandpa's garden and I love them. This was not easy as they are so delicate and have such a short flowering length. I also had several herbs in there: mint, fennel, lavender and I'm sure there was much more besides. Big thank you to Jenny John for putting together such beautiful bouquets.

PS. I had help with the dress from 2 lovely friends: Janet Astle and Dawn Foster-Denham.

If you want a peak at some photos our photographer blogged about our day http://www.diamondsanddoodles.co.uk/2013/08/matt-claire.html

My turnips have gone to seed - post 3

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 18:22:00 +0000

Back in the summer of 2011, I was trying to grow turnips in containers. I disappeared for a week's holiday and when I returned the turnips went to seed and flowered. It was probably due to the lack of watering in a week that had triggered this - growing in a pot they don't get as much moisture and I think they need cool, slightly damp soil.

Last summer, I grew turnips directly in the earth and I was blessed with some beautiful golf ball sized roots - they were so nice I ate them raw in thin slices in a salad.

In conclusion, I would suggest that turnips do not grow well in pots but love to grow in open ground so if you have a small urban container garden with some flower border edging - plant them in the flower borders!

The flowering veg plot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 11:30:00 +0000

I love nothing more than giving plants the room to do their thing with a little bit of natural abandon.

I think its a bit along the lines of permaculture - but I still dig ground over now and again before I plant my garlic bulbs or sew some seeds in a bed and I only grow a few perennial edibles so I don't quite think I'm one of the perma crowd set yet.

What I like to do is allow my veg to self seed. My first motivation for this was to save my own seed as I became more and more of a Heritage Seed Library addict. So I like to encourage my plants to flower and seed and it makes the veg plot look beautiful! My favourites have to be the umbellifereae flowers of the parsnips, carrots and parsley. Brassica flowers can look very bold with their bright yellows.

Right now in mid June, the veg in full flower is kale, kai lan, parsnip, parsley, chives, broad beans

and soon I will have radish (followed by their tasty radish pods), salsify, amaranthus, pea flowers, bean flowers, garlic scapes, egyptian walking onion flowers and if I'm lucky the globe artichokes.

Since I've been letting my kales flower at abandon I've been spotting ragged jack kale sprouting up all over the place. Performing its very own crop rotation. Eventually when its self seeded enough around the plot I will dig over the bed where I've been growing the kale and grow something completely different. By then I'm sure I'll have kale growing where it wishes in different spots around the plot.

I have this idea that when a plant germinates naturally it will germinate earlier and at more optimum conditions with a longer growing season than when I deem it safe and warm enough to plant the seed direct. I first starting thinking about this when I found things germinating from seed that got into my wormery compost. When I found it particularly hard to germinate seeds I started to chuck those difficult ones in the wormery so that when I used the compost on the patch I would get seedlings springing up randomly.

I really enjoy this type of veg patch - its relatively low effort a little like helping nature along and guiding it with your choice of what you want to grow rather than you physically cultivating it. Its not completely easy gardening - you do need to manage the weeds you don't want growing in your plot.

There are some seeds I will always plant myself such as peas and garlic but wouldn't it be wonderful if the carrot and parsnip flowers self seed across the plot and I get some surprise roots growing in a new place. The weeding will be such an adventure of discovering new seedling gifts from my flowering veg plot.

Grandpa's strawberries

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:19:00 +0000

Back when I moved to my Tooting garden in 2008 I took some baby strawberry plants from my Grandfather's garden. He'd recently passed away and it was nice to have a little something that had been nurtured by him growing in my container garden.

Now strawberries do best with space to crawl about and send their runners out in all directions but I had a container garden so these poor strawberries had to survive in a pot and I kept encouraging the runners back into the same pot. To be fair I didn't get many strawberries but the ones I got I savoured. I even fed them worm compost.

So since 2008 these strawberries have been soldiering on but not doing much except making runners.

I realise the school of thought is to throw plants away every 3 or 4 years and replenish but I couldn't part with these plants - they were my grandfather's afterall. So the last few years I've been concentrating on feeding the runners into new pots to establish new plants from Grandpa's parent plants.

This year I had a lovely surprise... From Grandpa's original plants I have some nice big flowers and promise of fruit. I don't quite know how this has happened. Maybe its because I moved the plants back closer to their original home when I brought them to my current garden in Birmingham (grandpa's garden was in Oswestry, Shropshire). Maybe it was our harsh winter. Maybe it's because a borage plant grew in the same pot as the strawberries last summer and as it shrivelled away last autumn it fed the strawberry plants.

Whatever the reasons I'm going to celebrate the fact that Grandpa's strawberries are flowering on plants that should by all rights be well past their best!

My take on crop rotation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:08:00 +0000

In my veg plot I like to do a combination of square foot gardening and if you've got a space, fill it (no matter how small). I choose square foot because I really think you can get a lot more variety growing than with traditional rows. The other reason is I find it helps with growing in crop groupings and allows you to grow more.

You don't have to be too prescribed, but just mindful of what you want to plant and what's grown there before. Beans, salad and squash family can pretty much be grown anywhere - the ones to watch are brassicas (cabbage family), onion family and solanaceae (potatoes/tomatoes). Be careful with salad (some can be brassica e.g. mustard greens, rocket) and flowers (some can also be brassicas e.g. wall flowers). Radishes are a brassica too so even though they are really convenient for a tiny space maybe choose some salads if you've grown turnips or kale there before.

I like to keep a seasonal plan of what's where but I'm not always good enough to record every detail! We all have our faults - luckily I'm blessed with a good memory.

In my higgledy piggledy patch I like to plant some poppies in between. They love the disturbed soil of the veg patch and I suppose I can loosely argue the seeds are a food source?! They do make the patch look stunning too.

I have an allotment!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000

I've always wanted one and now I've found a small one very close to work. I imagine myself spending lunch hours tending to my veg.

You may ask why I wanted an allotment? If you're a regular to my blog you will have seen pictures of my veg plot and large garden. We rent our home and garden and for that reason I've never had the opportunity to grow the longer term investment crops and perennials that need a few years to reach maturity. So there are certain crops I've always wanted to grow but haven't ... until now that is!

I've always wanted a little patch of home grown asparagus. I wait for the asparagus season every year and look forward to lightly grilled asparagus with fried eggs - pierce the yolk and it dribbles on to the asparagus - there's nothing better! And yet I have never tasted "fresh out of the ground" asparagus. I usually get mine from the farmers market and put them in a jar of water to keep them fresh for as long as possible. But now I have the opportunity to finally grow some of my own. Well asparagus has been my main motivator.

There are other things I plan to grow on the allotment plot such as oca, spuds, pumpkins and squash. If I've still got some space I'd like to grow some peas and beans.

I'm also looking forward to some good seedling swaps and seed swaps with my allotment neighbours. I love saving heirloom varieties and am Heritage Seed Library addict. I'm also looking forward to the plot side chats and horticultural debates with my new allotment neighbours. Maybe we'll even exchange some allotment inspired recipes.

So now my windowsills are full of seed trays of pumpkins and beans getting ready for the plot and I've ordered my asparagus - I thought I'd go for plants so I don't have to wait quite so long for my first "fresh out of the ground" asparagus spear!

Frankenstein's Pepper

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

I've been growing my chillies, sweet peppers and aubergines in a heated propagator on the windowsill in our office.

I like to check my seedlings very regularly (at least twice a day but much more if its a bank holiday or a weekend). On one of these visits I didn't notice that I replaced the lid on the stem of my favourite sweet pepper "Sweet Chocolate". At the time it was the only sweet chocolate capsicum that had germinated so naturally I was devastated - but in the next moment I had one of those.... What if moments.

What if I push the stem of the part that snapped off into the soil. It works for tomatoes so I wonder if it works with peppers - they share the same family after all.

I am pleased to report that it worked and my sweet chocolate is happily growing more new leaves and romping away.

Sadly the stem that was left over hasn't really turned into anything but I'm very pleased that the sweet chocolate survived and that crudely shoving the broken stem into the soil was so successful.

Snow unlocking the garden's secret micro climates

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:39:00 +0000

We've had a lot of snow here in the Midlands. Quite a few bouts. It feels like Narnia - is spring really coming this time? There's still a lot of snow on the ground in my garden.

It's made me wonder if I'm doing the right thing with my windowsills full of seedlings for late spring plantings. (Chillies, tomatoes, aubergines and yacon) Should I be growing things that are less challenging? After all we may have another summer like last year. There's talk of the slip stream that caused last summer's rain and cool temps being responsible for all the reoccurring snow. Must admit last summer and this winter have dampened my gardening spirits somewhat.

But snow doesn't just have to dampen our spirits completely, we can use it to our advantage. As the snow is thawing in the back gardens some of my garden has thawed and other parts there's still snow on the ground. I've been talking pictures of the garden as a record to show me where those cold spots are. Its telling me a lot about the micro climates and if I understand them better it will help me garden and work with the micro climates in the garden. It's really interesting because there's parts of the garden that get sunshine and these have still not thawed after a few sunny days.

To the left of the veg patch looks like the warmest part (lucky for my broad beans - yes they're still alive!). The middle towards the front seems to be the coldest part and the rhubarb grows there. From the middle to the right still all has snow and the far right is warmer than the middle in the front where the rhubarb grows but it is only marginally warmer. I have a globe artichoke growing in the far right side which has seriously been sulking in the snow. I'm going to move it to a much warmer part of the garden where it will be happier and the thoughts are the back of the flower border where it will get plenty of sunshine and more shelter (this was one of the first areas to thaw).

I already knew that my patio is quite a few degrees warmer than the rest of the garden and will be trying to grow my tenders plants there, its also a bit of a suntrap too. I had also carried out studies to see where sun shines on the garden through out the year to learn where sun lovers should be planted.

A more scientific way to do this would be a soil thermometer but I've been looking and never quite seen a good one I want to invest in. The snow does this job in a very visual way.

But despite my new knowledge I'd still like the Narnia winter to be fully over and spring to march into the garden!

Seeds, seeds, and more seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 18:45:00 +0000

I'm having a wonderful afternoon surrounded by all these packets of seeds of possibilities of things I could be eating in the spring, summer and beyond... Serge Gainbsbourg is playing in the background and I'm seed sowing in my warm living room whilst another cold snap is starting outside.

A fortnight ago I sowed some chillies and aubergines (2 seeds of each) in my heated propogator. On the first sowing I've had at least one germination of each seed but for a few the second seed didn't appear so today I've resown a few (cayenne pepper and bangladeshi chilli).

Today with the cold snap on its way I decided to take advantage and sow some seeds that need cold stratification to germinate: Alexanders (Smynium olusatrum) a parsley like herb and Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis Odorata) interestingly both from the umbelliferae family (which includes carrot, parsely, coriander and many others that have the umbel flowers). I've never tried this before so it will be exciting to see a new type of germination. On the packet it stated that the sweet cicely need sowing on the surface as they need light to germinate as well as cold.

Today was also the day to make a start on the tomato sowing. Varieties I am trying this year include varieties I've saved from previous years including a variety I saved from the Regents Park Capital Growth Allotment Garden in 2011 (a purple cherry tomato) - I tried to grow it last year but it got blight, luckily tomato seeds can be viable for up to 6 years. I'm also trying the tumbling tom Moskotka, Principe Borghese, Roma tomato (a fave of ours), HSL Ryders Midday Sun, Chadwick Cherry, Golden Sunrise and last but certainly not least Real Seeds Gigante Liscio Vine Tomato.

This week I've also been planning for the future season and after some interesting twitter discussions I placed an order with the wonderful Real Seeds. There'll be some new additions to the repertoire this year that I am sure I will need the help of some space at the amazing Urban Veg garden to be grown: Yacon and oca.

So lots of exciting prospects for the coming season.

What exciting seeds are you planting?

Gardening Guilts and signs of spring

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:43:00 +0000

You may have noticed I've been a bit remiss with my blogs. Well I tend to write when I'm doing lots in the garden and I feel inspired... of late, it hasn't felt like there's been much to write about and that's because the snow's been stalling me. Really? I think that's just an excuse! And gardening at the lovely Urban Veg just makes me feel more guilty about my absence from my own patch. There we've been sowing broad beans and salads for the green house and its really starting to be populated with baby seedlings and lots of seed trays.

Meanwhile, at home my seed box has barely had a ruffle since I restocked it over Christmas. I should be sewing those seeds that need an extra long season like the chillies and the aubergines (summer willing - pleeeease!). All my seeds are organised in month order so its not as if its hard to do and over Christmas I bought my seed compost so there really is no excuse. Hopefully committing my gardening guilts will spur me into action!

In terms of the garden, hey it might be winter still but there seems to be lots of signs of life starting up. We may be getting lots of snow but that's not halting everything out there. Over the Christmas period garlic started to peer through the soil and the HSL crimson broad beans germinated (I think something got a taste for one of them though) and despite the snow keeping the ground cold there are some lovely rhubarb shoots in such a vivid red and little lush leaves making a start. The chives are starting to grow too.

So if the more hardy residents of the plot are braving their first shoots I really should get on with my window sill sowing in earnest and dust off the heated propagator for those chillies and long season tenders. Its about time my windowsills are bursting with young seedlings!

Quinoa Quest

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:11:00 +0000

I have recently started volunteering at the wonderful site that is Urban Veg, a whole acre within the gorgeous Winterbourne Botanical Gardens.

With so much space and a patch of ground that needs a crop, I was inspired to suggest quinoa, rainbow quinoa to be exact. I know Real Seeds can provide the seeds, I've never grown it before (so there's the adventure of growing something a bit different) and the idea of this multi coloured super food crop is both beautiful, nutritious and something I'm really eager to try.

So far I've been asking a few friends who've grown it before what they're experiences are. Fiona (Viveka Gardens) said that it was OK to germinate but went really leggy before planting out despite putting tin foil underneath their pots (to try and counteract the leaning towards the light effect). Fiona blogged about Quinoa earlier in the year.

At the Urban Veg garden on Sunday, we pondered over the instructions - puzzled as to why Realseeds suggest sowing seeds as late as May on the seed packet.

We wondered whether the reason was due to daylight sensitivity, after all they originate from the Andes. Cool in temperature but quite close to the equator.

From my many recent twitter discussions (thank you to all who shared their experiences) I think it may be to avoid planting out very leggy, pale seedlings.

However, the scientist in me wants to run an experiment of planting a few seeds weekly from March (to test which is the best time to sow in the UK) and then plant out the best seedlings in final growing position in late May/early June depending on how favourable the weather is next summer.

In any case, when I start growing quinoa I'm sure my vast experience of growing chard will come into play as it is a fellow chenopod favouring similar growing conditions and an alkaline soil.

Any quinoa tips would be massively appreciated before we venture into our very own quinoa experiment next Spring.

Preparing the garlic bed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:12:00 +0000

Its way way time to plant my garlic. I usually aim to do this in October, but we had a holiday away in Singapore and with the nights drawing in its hard to find time in the garden.

However, we had it today. There was pleasant sunshine, if a little cold but a fair autumnal day all the same.

So I set myself to the task of preparing the beds for garlic and shallots. I decided upon the spot where the peas grew this summer. Some of the pea plants had not quite given up the ghost, but it's time for the garlic all the same. Its unlikely the few flowers I spotted would materialise into peas.

Interestingly this year, peas were the most surprising of my veg plot survivors. I planted them in April, they took a long time to appear as the ground was not warm (I thought the birds were stealing them but I'm pretty sure now it was the ground temperature preventing them from germinating) and then from July through to late September they just kept producing peas. Usually the heat of July kills them off but as we had such a cool summer, they survived through the summer into autumn. But today it was time to turn the soil to its next occupant.

The old pea shoots were added to the wormery for my worms to chew their way through and turn into wonderful worm casts. Then I started to weed the bed. The soil that the peas had been inhabiting now looks incredibly rich and loamy. The weeds were easy to pull as the ground is nice and moist. As I was weeding away, it made me think how much we get to know our soil from weeding. The aromas, the weeds that succeed there, it tells us so much.

And what weeds was I finding in the soil today? Well as the veg patch was a grassed over patch of earth some 6 months ago, there was plenty of grass. There were also a few docks and their long tap roots and buttercups. There was also the aroma of mushrooms and interestingly a strong aroma of carrots being pulled. I have never planted anything from the carrot family there so can only assume that there was a wild member of the carrot growing away happily until I chose to weed.

I was not surprised to smell mushrooms as my garden seems to be full of them at the moment. As to what kind, I have no idea as yet but I am eager to find a local mushroom foraging course and as soon as I know more I will be able to share.

If you know of any Midlands based fungi foraging walks please do pass the details on to me.

As with usual gardening sessions in November, I started to lose the light and my fingers and toes started to get very cold so I only have 2 sections out of 3 prepared for my garlic and shallots but I am hoping for another fair afternoon tomorrow to get those bulbs planted in.