Lakers Garden

The big clear

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 09:52:00 +0000

So yes, small kids and gardening are not an easy mix! Yesterday I started digging out perennial weeds. I've decided that once the frost has improved by Jerucalem Artichokes I am eating most of them *parp* and giving away the others for planting in early spring. They are a bit too happy in the garden and are trying for world domination, taking up two areas. Get back, damn you, get back!

Today I will be planting 3rd hand raspberry canes, which I have mistakenly left in water for a week. Will they grow? I have literally no idea! Also will be trying a spot of permaculture land care by laying dead leaves, and cardboard and topping with compost. I don't have much time for weeding and the middle bed is basically grass at this point!!

Also I need to ban Nath from the compost bin as he's loaded so much scorching chicken run waste that the worm content is basically nil and it stinks of ammonia. I've compensated with dead leaves and comfrey leaves. Hope that works. Also on the cards will be relaying the wee'd barrier on the paths...its overrun!

Summer 2016!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 21:01:00 +0000

The garden needs a GIANT overhaul, since having a baby I did nothing to it, I let nature crawl all over my raised beds, and barring the passing and aquiring of chickens nothing much happened. So here I am, back on the blog and back in the game. Did you miss me? Oh well...Here're a couple of pictures from this weekend:

Salsify have self seeded across the patch, the roots are big and the flowers are about 3ft! They open in the mornings and close in the afternoons!

Ok so my fences sorely need a paint, but I did pretty them up a bit with some recycled bottle top flowers.

My dwarf cherry tree has never yielded a single cherry, now I know why, pigeons!! I have fixed loads of holographic tape to the mid parts of the branches where they have yet to reach, and a wind catcher we bought on holiday. I'm determined to eat at least one flippin' cherry!

Nether Wallop Trading Paper Potter Review

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 12:10:00 +0000

Morning, happy Easter! I have been Missing In Action on this blog, it took me a good long while to get around to doing anything much in the garden, you think it will be easy when the baby arrives, once you've got over the initial shock and 'gear change', but there is always so much to do, growing my own food took the back seat. Hopefully though, and little V is now on her feet the summer will be full of wonderful days that the two of us can spend time together outdoors, and I can become reacquainted with my veggie plot. I have planted my tomato seeds already. Nothing is up yet though.

I made a review of the paper pot making tool I use for my seeds. Deeeeply unflattering angle, but you get the idea!

Maybe you will remember the pots from earlier posts made to this blog, here you can see then with some pumpkin seedlings in them;

They perform much better than you would imagine, holding up nicely when waterlogged. I write the name of the plant on the side in permanent marker. Saves that 'ummmm...what was this?!' moment (we all have them).

If you want to try one of these yourself please have a look at my new venture! I have become a Wikaniko distributor, not heard of them? My shop sells all things 'green' and better for the planet (plus some specifically vegan stuff). Amongst them are quite a few innovations for the garden, including the Nether Wallop Trading Company Paper Potter, and also matching oak dibbers and pot brushes. I even bought my tomato seeds from there this year! There is loads of other great stuff too, if you fancy a look http://Greenviolets.wikaniko.com. Please go and have a look around, tell me what you think, highly recommended :)

Other seeds this year will be from Simply Seeds (I love that place) and the fabulous The Real Seed Catalogue. Can't recommend them enough :)

Summer drawing to a close

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 11:10:00 +0000

As you can probably understand, there has been a haiatus from vegetable gardening this year. Baby V has taken up a lot of my time and because she's not yet on her feet I can't take her out there with me as I'd have to sit her on the limestone chips.

With the help of my mom I have managed to get a few things in the vegge plot; pumpkins and runner beans and some Charlottes seed potatoes from Nath's sister. You can see how those did above, looking good eh. I'm not normally a fan of new potatoes but we recently had a fresh food subscription with HelloFresh. You subscribe to them and they send out a box full of high quality measured ingredients complete with recipe cards for 3 or 5 meals, depending on which option you select. The meat was amazing and the recipies have opened up a lot of new flavours and ideas to me. One recipie had new potatoes in a lovely warm salad, so I remade that dish as soon as my potatoes were ready. Delicious! If you want to try HelloFresh please click http://www.hellofresh.co.uk/food-boxes/ and enter the code MMJ64B at checkout.

End of an era, but start of a new one.

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Wed, 07 May 2014 20:43:00 +0000

I haven't updated in a while because gardening has taken a back seat for a while. As I mentioned I became pregnant in January 2013 and gardening even using raised beds was been impossible with a bump, I just couldn't fold myself up enough and my walkways were a bit too small for earth mother squatting manoeuvres! My daughter was born in September and is by far the best thing I have ever grown! ❤️ I've had help from my dad today and things are getting back on track...so more veg news soon.

I am sad, so very sad to say my beautiful two Greyhounds Amy and Bobbie have died. Both lived into their 14th year, I am so sad they are no longer here, rest in peace Unsung Hero and Lakers Amy, much missed furry friends x

Lovely Lavender

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 10:52:00 +0000

Although not strictly in the vegetable garden I'd like to share with you my enthusiasm for lavender, who's purple blooms remind me of sleepy cottage gardens. As a child I made little scented parcels for my sock draw from the lavender bush in my parents garden. I made them with my Great Auntie Phyllis, a lovely lady who taught me how to care for plants when I was little and who's enthusiasm for gardening was infectious. I like to think she left me a little of her plant 'mojo'! Anyway, if you have a plant, or someone friendly who will let you have some of the flower buds you can have a go with cooking with it, which is even better than scented smalls :) Try this ice-cream:

Sophie Dahl’s Earl Grey and lavender ice-cream

Ingredients

Muslin bag and string, for a bouquet garni
1 tbsp fresh chopped lavender leaves
4 tbsp Earl Grey tea leaves
8 egg yolks
125g of caster/superfine sugar
500ml of double/heavy cream
500ml of milk

Method

1. First make your bouquet garni by tying the lavender and Earl Grey tea leaves into the muslin bag. Make sure the string is tightly knotted. Put to one side.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy and keep to one side.
3. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the cream, milk and bouquet garni of lavender and tea leaves up until boiling point, and then remove from the stove.
4. Temper the egg and sugar mixture by slowly adding the infused cream to bring the egg up to the same temperature, whisking all the time. Strain the mixture and then allow it to cool.
5. Churn in your ice-cream maker as per the instructions. If you do not have an ice-cream maker, freeze the mixture in a plastic container for two hours. Remove from the freezer, pour into a blender and whiz for a minute or two. Pour back into the container. Freeze for another two hours, then serve.

Recipe, From From Season to Season: A Year in Recipes by Sophie Dahl (Harper Collins)

Busy busy!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:01:00 +0000

It's been a lovely sunny week or two in the garden, this has helped lots as we were pretty behind due to a late start with the warm weather here in the UK. A soggy, cool spring meant that some crops needed to be put out later than usual, but everything catches up so fast!

For my birthday at the end of April I was bought some lovely new strawberry plants and a planter by Nath's sister and her hubby. As you can see above they are going well, should have some nice fat strawberries off those. I also have a few older plants in a fabric planter and a few that sneaked into the top bed of the veggie plot, I am going to leave those there, I mean as far as 'weeds' go you couldn't hope for a nicer one than the strawberry!

Another thing currently growing like there is no tomorrow is the rhubarb, this is one of 2 plants that is bordering of triffid in proportions again this year! In a way it's a shame I have such success with rhubarb as I'm not vastly keen on the flavour. Although...this year I have at last attempted some home brewing! So first on my list was rhubarb wine! I can't drink it at the moment as I am now 6 months pregnant but it'll be nicely matured by the time I can. There are many recipes out there, but I went with this one from blogger Lovely Greens:

RHUBARB WINE

Makes 6 bottles of wine

2.3 kg [5 lb] Rhubarb

1.4 kg [3 lb] Sugar

285 ml [1/2 UK Pint / 1-1/4 cups US] Black tea, cooled (make it quite strong)

2.8 Litres Water [5 UK pints / 6 US Pints]

2 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1x 5g Sachet of White wine Yeast

Well sterilised bucket, bowl and utensils

For AFTER fermenation: 1 Campden Tablet

For the method please see the Lovely Greens Blog.

As far as other plants go I have that I need to plant up, these are all the young hot weather plants; melon, squash, courgette and pumpkin. I shall plant these this week I think.

My potatoes are just coming up, apparently I will get a better yield later if I fertilise them with chicken pellets (says my John's Allotment newsletter). Given that my compost is pretty much made up of chicken poo and straw I think I shall be emptying a couple of buckets of compost on that patch. This year I have planted Jerusalem artichokes and they are also coming up now. My runner beans have also gone in the ground now, this is my first year for runners, the slugs already managed to nibble the growing tips off 2 of them, but I am sure they will recover.

I love Spring

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:48:00 +0000

Spring is such an exciting time, warm breezes full of promise, the smell of damp compost in pots on the windowsills, palm-fulls of little seeds. It's a real time of expectation. This year it's especially important to me since I've found out I'm having a baby in the early Autumn! Enough about me though, on to the gardening!

This year I've bought some v exciting sounding seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue and here are my Russian tomatoes (above)! Named Urbikany they are an early tall bush variety. Last year due to the damp we suffered badly with blight, and these toms are apparently faster to mature in our 'glorious' English climate, so they may avoid blight which often strikes later in the growing season.

Other plants sown at the moment are an Italian green knobbly pumpkin, a spherical courgette, a weirdly shaped squash, a cooler climate melon and some butter bean type runner beans. Also I have seeds for sweet violet and a lovely bush sunflower. This weeks job is get those potatoes in!

More excitement came this week from the first egg from our Crested chicken, Rosie. The Crested are (I think) the same as a Columbine, they are part Cotswold Legbar which is an old free ranging breed with cool pompom head feathers which lays blue/green eggs. The hybrids are being developed to produce a smaller hen that will lay plentiful blue/green eggs. I think the ratio is 80% blue/green to pastel. Look it's blue/green, This pleases me greatly as I really really wanted a blue egg layer!

Another brill thing that's happened lately is that Nath's dad gave us some money to buy a space for more chickens, so we purchased an Eglu Cube in pink. It's very spacious and the hens seem to love it although the oldest ex battery chciken is having a problem getting back up the ladder in the evenings, bless her.

New Chickens

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:21:00 +0000

This rather gorgeous little point of lay hen is a Crested from Heidi's Happy Hens. We were determined to restock the chooks since we'd suffered a few unavoidable losses (from soil eating, of all things) and were down to Nessa, the ex battery hen and Isabel the White Star. For ages and ages I had wanted some form of Cotswold Legbar hybrid, partly because of the beautiful feathers and punk haircut, and partly because they have an 80% chance to lay a blue/green egg. So now we have Rosie! She hasn't starter to lay yet, I think it's a tad too nippy still and she's still maturing. I am hopeful though! The other chicken is a Copper Black and her name is Mabel. She's beautiful too, and should in time lay darker brown eggs.

Here they are in the cat carrier (best way to transport a couple of chickens!). The cat carrier is also ideal for freaking out people at the vets who peek in hoping to see a lovely cat *evil grin*

Here are all 4 chickens in the Omlet Eglu (with run extension). They need the bottom of the run levelling and re-filling, as you can see they have performed some major excavation work! Also please note, white chickens do not stay white for long!

"Whatchoo lookin at?"

Spring! Better luck this year

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:24:00 +0000

So, this blog really had bit a bit sad and lonely for the last year. After last year's perils of torrential rain and flooding over much of the UK for most of the summer the ground was saturated, the slugs were everywhere. Literally no man standing after planting out your seedlings and leaving them overnight, and as for direct planting, pah! They even ate all the developing pumpkins off a bought pumpkins plant. I had even gone to the trouble of applying the trusty Nemaslug! I was not impressed. But all is not lost, with every new Spring comes fresh opportunity and a new wave of hopefulness that this year there will be a bit of sun....even in England.

Turn the page and we find ourselves in March. I have high hopes for March, even though a cold snap is promised near the middle of the month. Undeterred I have made the majority of my seed purchases and made a hefty start to the weeding. So what am I planning to grow this year? So far the list is something like Leeks, Tomatoes, Jerusalem Artichokes, Courgette, Runner Beans, Peas, Potatoes, Kale and Chard. I might end up putting a few patches of extras in though, my seed box overfloweth! Again I am hoping to combine vegetables with pretty herbs and flowers in my perpetual thirst for an Alice Fowler style vegetable garden (seems I have made it harder for myself with long wide beds). There are still some plants in from last year; strawberries and chives. I've also planted this years Garlic (late!) as well as 3 of the biggest cloves of last years Elephant Garlic.

I must also mention that a very sad thing happened at the end of November 2012, Lenny, my oldest Greyhound died. I am still pretty gutted about not seeing his furry, loving face any more, but consoling myself with the thought that he had lots of love from us, and a good long life full of seaside trips and castles and gardens since he was 8 (when I adopted him from kennels). I have had him cremated and am keeping his ashes for now, when the others go I will mix their ashes and find a place to scatter them together.
A Greyhound should be free to run with the wind, as they did in life. R.I P. my lovely little Lenny ♥

New Year, things to look forward to

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:18:00 +0000

Happy New Year readers! I hope you all had a really good Christmas and New Years break. One of my New Years resolutions is to keep up to date with my blog. It was a hard year one way or another and the weather was also against me this year (I'm not taking it personally, even the TV gardeners seem to have had trouble). 2012 year was the wettest year on record in the UK. My garden agrees, crops were poor, many many, many, things were eaten by slugs and snails, despite vigorous application of Nemaslug. Bah and indeed humbug.

Never mind, this year I am confident all will be better, and the garden is having a tone of fertiliser on it so hopefully will do better this year!

Playing Catch up & Kill 'Em

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:41:00 +0000

Nemaslug Review

As this year I have been MEGA crap at sowing anything at all at the right time (due to personal circumstances) I have a lot of bare soil at the moment. To top it off there are millions of big fat juicy slugs and huge snails this year thanks to Britain's dire weather; it's rained almost every day for months, with the occasional flash flood (to add that extra groan and mutterings about needing to emigrate!). Have no fear though for the sluggy snaily things (technical gardening term) can be dealt with by Nemaslug. If you don't know what this is it comes as a packet mix of micro-organisms that go to live in your soil and eat your pest by destroying slugs from the inside, they die in the ground (where they live), so no mess to clear up and unlike slug pellets there is absolutely no risk to pets, children or wildlife (so anything eating the dead slugs get no ill effects at all). I was a bit sceptical but I won a free packet last year from following Chase Organics on Twitter (thanks guys!) and I have to say, it really does work brilliantly! I have bought another pack which will go on the garden today, within 2 weeks the slugs will be pretty much all dead. Brutal? maybe...but safe and effective!

Aaanyway, this week I planted out the peas that I had grown in tiny newspaper pots. They are Early Onward variety, so...um...a bit late! But they are growing great guns (that's an expression, I haven't yet managed to grown legumes with firearm capabilities!), I reckon they will catch up and maybe give me a late crop if we end up with some late summer sun (ever hopeful!). I germinated 2 cucumbers with an idea to maybe see if I can force them up to speed by growing them in the sunny extension (will that work? who knows, I don't) and also 2 pumpkins...because I love pumpkins so I'll give it a go and cross my fingers. In the mean time, have a picture of the garlic scape I had on my Elephant garlic (it's a bit mature, they start out curly and then straighten with age). I chopped it up and ate it in a vegetable omelette. Yum!

This is a garlic scape, you can leave them on but the thought is that the garlic bulb will be smaller if you do. So chop them off and lightly cook and eat them.

Poppies...everywhere!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:36:00 +0000

It seems to be a rubbish year for everything barring slugs and snails this year. Mine is a garden of giant molluscs, roaming the undergrowth devouring seedlings and terrifying small children (maybe I'm lying about that last bit). But but but...one thing seems to have had a great time rambling through my garden's scruffier *cough* I mean 'wildflower areas' and that is Welsh Poppies! These beautiful little flowers have been prolific through the summer (ha! Summer! We totally aren't getting one in the UK), they're brightening up the view from the kitchen window with pretty little orange or yellow flowers, and now that the flowers are starting to fade I'm left with loads of drying seed heads spreading hundreds of tiny seeds. I've let some seeds fall to the ground, I've also scattered some in different areas to keep the numbers up. I've also collected loads of them in my palm and stored them in an old spice jar for cake/bread baking. This is a really nice little garden extra I think. I love it when beautiful things have an extra use, don't you?

While I was messing in the depths of my rather extensive spice cupboard (it's getting seriously ridiculous in there, how can one woman own so many spices, and cook so little!) I came across a 3 year old bag of white poppy seeds, usually used in Asian cookery. I decided out of interest to see if they are viable seeds and so I sprinkled them over a pot of soil and...nearly all have germinated! Wow! I've read they will be opium poppies (legal to germinate in the UK but not in the USA, so I read).

Broad Beans

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:58:00 +0000

This is the first year ever that I have grown broad beans. Despite being a vegetable grower there are quite a few veggies that I am really not sure about; beans being a prime example. I have an issue with beans, from runner beans that make your teeth squeak (argh!) to the weird furry mouth texture that broad beans create for me. However, spurred on by watching an episode of River Cottage Everyday where Hugh's life-long broad bean hating friend was converted by his ideas, I took my River Cottage Every Day cookbook in hand and went for the Broad Bean Hummus recipe.

You can see so far the harvest has not been great, although to be honest I only grew them at all because I had free seeds with a magazine and a lot of spare ground in autumn. I did a few myself and gave the rest to dad for his garden. There are lots of not yet ripe beans hanging on the plants, so I can do this again, good news!

Broad Bean Hummus, not much to it ingredients wise, but it tasted lush with a pitta bread. Not at all like broad beans usually do, just fresh and summery Top tip for ya! Use a pizza cutter to slice your pitta bread into strips after popping them in the toaster, you'll avoid getting singed fingers trying to cut them (they get sooo hot!)

Chicken Update!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:15:00 +0000

This year we went from two ex-battery hens down to one....sad huh. Ruby our third chicken was unfortunately very poorly n while recuperating died last year. A month or so ago Clara got poorly due to a crop/intestinal issue and despite the loving attentions of Nath, and our fantastic avian vet (Amicus Vetinary Centre), she had to be put to sleep as she could no longer digest. This left only Nessa who was a sad chook because chickens are flock creatures who do very badly alone. As there was no ex battery rehoming event coming up soon enough, we opted for point of lay chickens. I am a rescuer by natural inclination so I did feel guilty buying new friends, but given the urgent need for company for an increasingly depressed looking Nessa, I think in this case buying younger birds was justified.

Off we went to Merrydale Poultry who I'd read good things about on the web. They had some blue egg layers on their site I'd been eyeing up, as they were sold out I decided I rather fancied the Copper Black Marrans, and maybe a white egg layer. After a chat with one of the owners we opted for a Copper Black and a 'Merrydale Snowbell' which is a White Star hybrid. I'm told ears are good indicators of egg shell colour....more on that in a future post. The birds have been named Gracie (the Copper Black) and Isabelle (the Snowbell). We released them same day into the Eglu with Nessa. That is normally a bad strategy due to territorial chicken fights! Popping them straight in worked great for us because Nessa was so lonely and was just very happy to have some new friends. Within 3 minor comb pulling squabbles the pecking order was agreed amongst the girls and n peace reigned. Fab!

Catching up!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:41:00 +0000

Oh dear, I've been very lax with the garden spring summer. There's a lot of empty ground which I feel v bad about, although I'm plotting what I could get in there, there's always time to grow *something*.

At the moment Lakers Garden has potatoes (sprouted ones left over from last year's), the ubiquitous rhubarb - still insane...I'm thinking as it's late in the season and there's still masses of it...jam!? Also I've grown broad beans and field beans but I can't for the life of me remember which is which...and they look the same?!...argh! The chives are all blossoming, as you can see from the top picture, and there's some spring onions in, garlic in pots and strawberries in the planter.

The leaf mold I created by bagging up the leaves on the drive has now been spread on top of the beds. I have braved the hard slog of digging out the compost at the bottom of the compost bin to supplement the planters. The bottom of it had litterally turned to soil so it was a task and a half to dig it out! In case you are wondering, my compost bin contains bokashi waste, chicken poo and nest straw, vaccum emptyings, grass cuttings, annual weeds, tea bags, budgie cage emptyings...basically anything compostable! It makes for good compost and smaller black bags. Very worthwhile and I feel like I'm feeding my own ground with my very existence. Um yeah, I sound like a total hippy!

The compost bin...I need 2 really, this one is always blinking full!
Ooo...we have new chickens...more on that very soon! I won't leave it so long from now on.

Still Alive!

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:23:00 +0000

I'm still here and still waiting for the cold weather to properly go so I can start planting in earnest. More to come! TTFN!

September - Mini Harvest

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:03:00 +0000

Had my own little mini harvest so thought I'd share the picture! Spuds (Rooster, and a few left over Maris Piper from last year), Carrots (the ones the carrot fly didn't ravage!), 2 different types of scalloped squash and kohl rabi (not bad roasted). Nom!

The rest of the harvest of Potatoes. I feel OK about this amount, much more reasonable than last years epic harvest of doom that we never managed to eat through.

Garlic! Pretty good I think, nice pale pink cloves. I seem to have picked pretty varieties of everything this year! These went into the ground last autumn, to be honest I think I left them a bit too long as they had sprouted extra cloves about the outside, I broke these off and they are in a bowl in the fridge to be used first.

My tomatoes did not ripen *sad face*. There are still a few tomato plants languishing outdoors but as an experiment, these ones, who were taking up space in the main vegetable beds have been ripped up and suspended upside-down in the sun in the extension. The Internet tells me this will allow the goodness to drain down the plant and they will ripen. I remain sceptical, but...who knows! Worth a go, and if not there's always Fried Green Tomatoes!

I have cleared out all the spend summer veg. Still in the ground are scalloped squash, pumpkins (planted too late I think, they look a bit sickly), Parsnips, Onions, Kale, Kohl Rabi, Swiss Chard a Salsify or two and some Cauliflower (purple!). In this month go Broad Beans, Garlic, various winter salad leaves, Toughball Onions, early Spring Onions and possibly some other stuff I have forgotten. The land with nothing on has some field beans as green manure.

Finally, Nigella seed heads removed before they open and self seed all over the place again (nice yes, but a bit in the way). I think I will suspend them upside-down in a bag and collect the seeds.

Summer 2011

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:02:00 +0000

I have been remiss at keeping the blog updated this summer, too much going on, you know how it is. Anyway, I thought it was about time I did a catch up post since I do have pictures.

The summer went well for peas, having planted several patches where last year there were root crops growing. I bought a roll of plastic netting this year for support, which worked a lot better than the string (if a lot less eco friendly).

This year the Blueberry plant I got using my Tesco Club Card vouchers had fruit! (I got it last year). Only about 5 in total but they were tasty and I'm hoping for more next year.

A free home collected packet of wild flowers I got when I bought some Yarrow seed on eBay had languished in the seed box for over a year, so I took an oblong plant pot and scattered them over. How beautiful they were, poppies and all sorts.

Last year I was not fast enough at pulling out the huge amounts of Nigella (Love-in-a-mist) I had sown, and the seed heads scattered a huge amount which germinated this year and produces a carpet of flowers, I hadn't the heart to pull them up so I let them grow.

These are Asparagus Peas, they look a lot prettier than they actually taste, You eat the interesting looking pods before they reach 3cm. Personally I hate them, they are furry...bleuck! Never again! Shame as the little red flowers are lovely.

The Summer squash grew quite well, this is what it looked like when it was small.

I don't think I have a picture of the Salsify when it was flowering, but you can see a similar picture of what mine looked like like here. When the seed pod opened up it looked like a giant dandelion head.

Late Spring/Early Summer

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:26:00 +0000

Thought I'd better update on how things are going so far. The Peas are in their final positions and planted around their feet are transplanted spinach plants which should give them shady toes while they reach for the light. Spinach is a real life saver for the shady spots and I have a terrible craving for it at the moment, so I have grown two varieties, one normal and one Jamie Oliver red stemmed variety ("bish bash bosh whack it in tha ground job's a goodun"?) for a bit of colour interest. Also for the first time I have planted Swiss Chard, I haven't the foggiest idea what it tastes like!?

I have completed a plan of the final locations of all the veg again this year. I am following crop rotation rules to minimise pests and diseases and ensure good quality organic crops, but also as an experiment I am trying a less formal arrangement of vegetables, mixing them up a bit and putting more emphasis on the beauty and landscaping that can be created from vegetable plants. This was inspired by reading Alys Fowlers book The Edible Garden, it's a lovely read and very inspiring. I'm not sure all the things I have planned will work, but growing is a yearly experiment I am still discovering what grows well in my soil and in what positions, and even then who knows what weather will beset us. We seem to have a lot of 'weather' in England, it can be rainy in the morning, hail at lunch then heatwave in the evening (I might be exaggerating a bit...but you know how we Brits like to discuss the weather!).

As per usual I have grown way too many tomatoes, I really need to re-home some. Currently in the ground I have a small gathering of onions (I was determined to grow some after failing miserably last year), the previously mentioned peas (growing up the shed and fences this time), carrots, garlic, tomatoes and trailing tomatoes (in tubs), rocket, garlic and early and main crop potatoes. Freshly planted out from the greenhouse last weekend are the squash (now quite big and flowering already), sweetcorn, cucumber, peppers, broccoli, Kohlrabi.... Also the Sweet Potato slips arrived and have been planted in kitchen roll tubes indoors to root train them. Just planted seeds for Asparagus Peas and Pumpkin in the greenhouse.

This year I have 2 gardens to plant, my parents are letting me plant up theirs too as they have just cleared out masses of space to grow veg. So far they have similar plants to me and the same informal-ish design. Hoping it goes well, their plot gets much more sun than mine really and is much more sheltered. Fingers crossed!

Spring Advancement (maybe!)

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:59:00 +0000

Well a week or so on and most of my seedlings have sprouted, I have a lot of sweet corn shoots (pictured above) plus tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, a few onions (for some reason I never do very well with growing onion family seeds). The large broad leaves of the scalloped Squash are now up (pictured below), although amusingly some resolutely stuck their heads in the soil and poked their bums (roots) up to wave at the ceiling. I guess I planted a couple of them upside down (how you tell I'm not actually sure!?).

I have bought and planted a few roots of Bocking 14 Comfrey, which I am hopeful will sprout. Comfrey is a plant that draws nitrogen and nutrients from deep within the soil with its' long roots, it stores these nutrients in it's leaves which can then be used to benefit your plants. You can use it to make a Comfrey tea (cut the leaves and soak them in a covered bucket of water until it smells manure like) to feed to them as liquid feed, or you can add the leaves directly to your compost heap. Maybe even plant it around your compost pile to ensure that the leaking nutrients are caught by the Comfrey and put back. Bocking 14 is a sterile seeded variety of Comfrey, useful for keeping it under control, as a result of this you'd have to get yourself some by buying roots cuttings. I bought mine from eBay, I am quietly hopeful but if they don't do well then I haven't exactly wasted much, the average price is very reasonable. It says plant horizontally though, this fills me with deep misgivings, I killed the Horseradish by doing that (remember kids, always read the instructions!!).

I also just bought some caffeine spray to keep the pesky slugs off my young plants. I'm not naming it yet, it might be crap, so I'll keep that to myself until I've had the chance to road test it on the lettuces!

Here is what the tiny egg from a few weeks ago looks like when cooked. It did have a yolk, just a tiny weeny one!

I'll leave you with a recipe. Nettle Pesto, I tried this last week and it's lovely (if a bit garlicky!). I think next time I'd use a bit less garlic. The mesasurments are in cups, because it was an American Blog I borrowed the recipie from. There is a link to that here - Fat of The Land Nettle Pesto

Nettle Pesto

Ingredients

2 Cups of Stinging Nettles (blanched and chopped = about 6 cups raw)

1/2 Cup finely grated Parmesan

1/2 Cup Pine Nuts

4-5 Large Garlic Cloves

1tbsp Lemon Juice

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method

Boil the nettles for a minute or two to neutralise the sting (you'll still see the hairs but don't worry, they will be soft).

Ball up the nettles and sqeeze the water out.

Add to food processor with other ingredients and half the olive oil.

Whizz it up, and you're done!

The excess can be frozen in ice cube trays

________________________

March...on Spring! (hohohocough)

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:40:00 +0000

I think....it might be Spring! Since my last entry I have lightly dug most of the garden in preparation for planting. Since I was totally disorganised at buying the green manure on time (plants that grow overwinter and keep the nitrogen in the soil) mostly the soil was bare over winter, save for the autumn/winter veg. This means that in 2 beds I have allowed the nitrogen to be leached out through the soil over winter, the other had peas, and their clever nitrogen fixing roots that I left in after I chopped my peas down will have helped to keep the nitrogen in. On that bed I added some leaf mold that I made from the leaves collected on my drive last year. On the other 2 beds which are very sandy I have dug in some of my compost from the compost bin, which is now bursting with worms (great for the compost...not so great for me *twitch*). I discovered this when I opened the bottom hatch and 5 shiny red worms dropped out and squiggled across the concrete, "Naaaaath...heeeeelp!?".

Last Saturday I went to The Edible Garden Show it was a fun day out and I did come back with a few ideas and lots of tips on chickens. Worth going for the animal tent alone, it had pigs and goats and many different types of chicken (I wish I had room for a Orpington). I also came back with an Oak Paper Potter. These are very handy little tools allowing you to create 4 small paper pots from one sheet of newspaper (no glue or water required, just roll it round the roller and scrunch the bottom in the press), I have already made a nice tray full of pots to plant my seeds and seedlings into (as you can see above). I intend to buy the watering rose tops you can buy for old drinking water bottles (bottle top waterers) so I can water my indoor seeds without washing them away (how clever!). I've planted some lettuce and baby carrots seeds directly in the ground, but I do plan to start off as many plants as I can in mini pots to avoid early slug damage when the seedlings are too small and tender to cope with being munched, and so I can replace things as we eat them...that's the plan anyway!

Mushrooms are growing in my walk in wardrobe...brown closed cap, and intentionally of course. Actually they aren't growing yet, they have just had the casing layer added and I'm waiting hopefully. They're in the walk in wardrobe bit as it's an outside wall in there, and so much cooler than the rest of our terraced house, so a good temperature for shroomies.

On the chicken side of things, I had to show you this. Nessa laid us a mini egg a week or two ago, sadly it wasn't chocolate (shame) but it is freakily small. I thought chickens only laid this sort of egg when they were just at 'point of lay', but the web tells me this isn't the case. It's known as a 'wind egg' and can also happen to older hens. It's an egg without a yolk. An interesting site about abnormal eggs can be found here.

It's hard to imagine that last year in March the garden looked liked this:

February - Of eggs and chickens

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:08:00 +0000

February's going fast! Most of January was spent getting over December. The weather is starting to warm up, the first planting has began and the chickens are looking cheery. Over the winter period Nessa, our big cute friendly chicken had stopped laying. As Clara was still in lay we assumed that Nessa was probably not having a break for winter and she had reached chick-opause (menopause for chickens, geddit?!). Hmmm, I thought. Disadvantage - the halving of egg production, and no more recognisable speckly brown Nessa eggs. Advantage - not squating once a day to lay a torpedo must seriously narrow down her chances of dying a premature death (egg peritonitis is nasty, and caused when the eggs slightly leak inside the chicken, the bacteria multiplies and makes them poorly). Well now it's February she's decided that that's her winter rest over and she's started laying again! The new style egg she's going for this year is more compact and less eye wateringly huge than last year. Clara must be green with envy as the ones she is laying at the moment are very much torpedo-tastic whoppers, I am presuming the required face for the delivery of the egg pictured above was >_< . You can see the size comparison (top pic)!

At the weekend, if the weather is dry I will let the chickens wander over the now mostly empty veg patch, and they can clear the ground of any unwanted grubs.

Here's a nice chicken cuddling picture for you. Proving the ex-batts are the most lovely pets, this is me with Nessa. Excuse the picture quality, that's iPhone's for you.

Christmas and New Year

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:19:00 +0000

*waves* Hello web folks! Christmas is over, New Year too. It's been another busy one with dinners at various parents houses (hands up if you don't want to see a plate of turkey again until next December!?). There was a lot of homemaking for us this Christmas, my two niece's received a knitted scarf each, various other family and friends got Pumpkin Jam, Plum and Vanilla Jam, Plum Vodka, Plumbs in Brandy. I also made some dark choc and mint sweeties. Nath got some of the sweeties and a knitted fish hat amongst his presents.

The plums came from a very old tree down the end of my parents back garden. I feel quite sentimental about this particular tree as it's older than I am (and I'm 35...in case you are wondering). When I was very small it used to bear a toddler swing off one of it's old gnarled branches. I have no idea how long victoria plum trees should last, fruiting is always a bit sparse and some years there is virtually no fruit and any fruit borne is dropped before ripening, but it did OK this year (any advice for caring for an elderly plum tree would be much appreciated! If you have any advice please leave me some advice in the comment section below).

I home made more presents this year than last year, and I hope to increase this again next year. Not only is it a more cost effective and self gratifying way to spend my money (buying ingredients) but it also means that the biggest gift I give my loved ones is this special season is my time and personal consideration. Surely worth more than splashing the cash.

How considerate of nature to give us a picture perfect week or so, with a thaw just before we go back to work. I am hoping this will give me enough time to scrape up the leaves from my front drive and spread that over the veg beds and dig up the remaining veg (parsnips and salsify...which hopefully made it through intact). I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and wish you all a happy New Year.

Shhh! The garden is sleeping.

noreply@blogger.com (scarybex) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:13:00 +0000

The garden has been very cold this week, most of the snow has cleared and the nightly freezing fog is decorating the garden with ice crystals. It's very pretty. The picture above is the Nigella seed heads.

Bejewelled cobwebs adorn the metal shed.

There are many jobs I need to do in the garden, like raking the leaves that fall from the roadside trees in front of our house and spreading them over the vegetable beds as winter mulch, and I still have some supplies in the ground but it's too cold to dig. I'm not sure it's a fun time of year to be a chicken really, they must be chilly and glad of each other for warmth.

Still, despite the inconvenience it does make for a lovely spectacle.

Update on the Pumpkin Jam - Try it, it's scrummy on toast...a bit like mulled wine jam really.