Mark's Veg Plot

If I'm growing salads, does that mean it must be Summer?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I'm fed up with cold, grey windy weather. I want it to be Summer. I want to sit outside in the garden in the evening to eat my dinner, with a glass of cool white wine in my hand and eat salads!

The big plastic crate in which I sowed all sorts of salad seeds, on 1st April, is yielding its first leaves now. The ones that have grown fastest are the Rocket and the Greek Cress. The slower-growing Lettuces are finding it hard to compete.

I'm cutting the biggest leaves first, to allow the smaller seedlings to get some light. Actually, I'm very pleased with the quality of leaves I'm getting. I find that Rocket is particularly vulnerable to damage by Flea Beetle, which makes its leaves very tatty, but these seem to be perfect. Perhaps the beetles didn't think to look in that crate!

Around the side of the house I have established a Salad Farm on the contraption that serves as my potting-bench, using any old containers I can lay my hands on:

There are a few each of four types of Lettuce: Green Oak Leaf, Valdor, Fristina and Delicato, and 12 individually-potted "Pancalieri" Endives (only 6 in the pictures - they won't all fit on the worktop).

I've just realised that according to Sod's Law, these are bound to be at their best at the time we head off on our holidays (12 June)! I'm not going to sow any more Lettuce seed until we get back from our holiday, because my Garden Helper team is going to have enough to do already, without having to tend to vulnerable little seedlings.

Lettuce "Marvel of Four Seasons"

Roast Lamb with lemon potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The title hardly does it justice, but this post is about a meal I cooked on Saturday. Jane was away in London at a club committee meeting, so I had the kitchen to myself all day: bliss!

I started by baking some bread. Having been so successful with this the first time round, I followed Paul Hollywood's basic recipe again, but this time I made a "tin" loaf:

It worked - and I even remembered to grease the tin! I think the result proves that my first-time success last week with the Bloomer was not just a fluke. This time I paid particular attention to getting a nice crisp crust.

The bread subsequently became part of our Starter, some of it used to mop up some of our best olive oil, and some of it buttered, to eat with these - home-grown radishes, dipped in salt:-

Here is the Starter then:

Main Course was leg of Lamb, roasted on a bed of lemony, thymey, garlicy potatoes. I had got the butcher to remove the bone from the meat and "butterfly" it - in other words make the joint into a fairly thin, flattish piece of meat. I marinated it for a few hours with olive oil, garlic, black pepper and lemon juice:

The meat marinating

When it was time to cook, I peeled and roughly chopped about 750g potatoes, quartered two lemons, peeled and lightly crushed 5 cloves of garlic, added them to the pan and then sprinkled them with a good handful of fresh Thyme from the garden. I placed the meat on top of a "trivet" made from a large onion thickly sliced, and poured in two dessertspoons of white wine vinegar and a generous glass of white wine. Then into the oven it went for about 90 minutes, on a medium heat. At one point I added a bit of water and another splosh of wine, because I felt that the potatoes needed more moisture to avoid being burnt. Incidentally, the Rick Stein recipe on which my dish was loosely based recommended cooking some "traditional" roast potatoes as well, because the ones under the lamb might not be useable. I followed this advice, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The potatoes infused with the lamb juices and all the other flavourings were actually the star of the show!

Ready to go in the oven

The Rick Stein recipe suggested cooking the meat to the Well Done stage, and since I do tend to like my meat slightly beyond the Medium stage, this is what I did. In retrospect I think the meat would have been nicer cooked slightly pink. It wasn't half tasty though!

The end result

So then the Dessert - Rhubarb Cream made with home-grown Rhubarb.

I cooked the Rhubarb in a covered pyrex dish, adding a tablespoonful of water, some peeled raw root ginger, a squeezed orange and about a dessertspoonful of Sweet Freedom (a sugar substitute suitable for diabetics). While this was happening I softened a couple of sheets of leaf gelatine and put them in a pan with about 200ml Elmlea Light (reduced-fat cream substitute) and gently warmed it until simmering. By this time the Rhubarb was cooked and I added the warm "cream" to it, stirred it in and decanted it into some glasses before putting it into the fridge to set. This is the result:

Just for completeness, I want to mention the fact that I also cooked some Good King Henry shoots, and served them as one of our veggies, alongside the Lamb. As ever, we were totally underwhelmed by this vegetable. It has some similarity with spinach, and some similarity with PSB, but is nowhere near as good as either. I think I'll just treat it as an ornamental plant from now on.

Should I add that the meal was complemented by a nice bottle of "our own" (Wineshare) Cabernet Merlot? No, you probably guessed that for yourselves!

Harvests at last!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Slowly, slowly, the harvests are beginning to arrive... I have put together here a little collection of photos to illustrate what I have harvested in the last week, purely so that I can participate in Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.

Radishes. These are "Flamboyant 5", a variant of "French Breakfast".

Baby Leaf Salad. My own mix, but with a strong element of Rocket and Greek Cress.

Rhubarb "Victoria".

Good King Henry. Treat these shoots as you would Purple Sprouting Broccoli. In other words, cook very briefly. You can use the leaves as you would use Spinach.

Well, it's not a huge harvest, but at least it's a start! (And of course I don't count the herbs; we're always using herbs. We take them for granted.)

Cucumbers. Dare I plant them out?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My cucumber seeds were sown on the 26th April, and since then have been living under the Growlights. This has made them grow exceptionally strong and even. The Growlight House has been a real boon in the poor weather conditions we have endured so far this year. I don't know how I managed without it.

I have eight cucumber plants in all - four each of "Melen F1" and "Iznik F1" - both Lebanese or cocktail types, whose fruits only grow to about 6" / 15cm in length.

However, the plants are getting quite big now and it is time they were planted out, or at least began their process of hardening-off. I'm feeding them regularly with Baby Bio plant food, because there can't be much nutrition left in the compost in their tiny 3" pots.

Last year it took my cucumbers a long time to get going, because I think I planted them out too early and they hated the cold conditions, so this year I'm being more careful. I had been hoping to put them out in my big Woodblocx raised bed, this weekend, with protection from some bell-cloches, but with night-time temperatures still in single figures I think this might be premature. Instead I will put them outside in one of the mini-greenhouses during the day and bring them in at night, for at least a while longer. Maybe by the end of next week things will have improved?

In due course I plan to have two sets of 3 plants each, growing up wigwams of bamboo canes, with one plant of each variety held back in reserve - as is my normal practice. Last year my "Iznik" plants grew a lot taller than the info on the seed packet had led me to believe, so this time I will probably provide them with 6-foot canes instead of 4-foot ones. (That's if I have any canes left over after building the wigwams for the beans!).

On a totally different subject, since several of you expressed an interest in Good King Henry when I wrote about it the other day, I would like to show you some photos of it being prepared for culinary use. (Just don't build your hopes up concerning its culinary merits!)

As harvested. Lots of leaf - use like spinach

Trimmed - stand the shoots in water until ready to use. They wilt quickly

Ready for cooking- stems are a bit like PSB

Arty photos

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

This is just a collection of recent photos. (There will be a "proper" post later this afternoon, as usual).

Lily of the Valley

Cornus Alba "Kesselringii" - this one has dark foliage and almost-black stems

Dogwood - Cornus Alba "Kesselringii"

Another Cornus - official name not known

Ditto

Variegated Dogwood - cornus Alba "Gouchaultii"

Aquilegia

Wild Garlic

Fern

Looking back at these, I must observe that photographing white subjects is difficult! You should see how many shots of Lily of the Valley I took before I got one that I was reasonably happy with.

There will be beans...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Hooray, my beans have germinated! Well, most of them anyway. In the persistently cold conditions we have been experiencing, I thought they would be reluctant to show - and who can blame them?

Runner Beans are a staple for me. I grow them every year, and I always feel insecure until there are some in and well-established. These are Runner Bean "Scarlet Empire", a variety which did really well for me last year. It's obviously early days still, but they look pretty strong so far.

Runners need a good support system to climb up. I use 8-foot bamboo canes, like this:

The canes are pushed into the soil about one foot, but that still gives me a frame that is about seven feet tall. Anything taller than that is impractical because you won't be able to reach the tops! The support-system needs to be pretty sturdy, because the plants will get very big - and at some stage will hopefully be laden with pods. A row of mature Runner Bean plants has a lot of wind-resistance too. One year the winds were so strong in July that I had to string a piece of nylon washing-line from my Runner Bean canes to a tree at one end and the house at the other in order to keep my bean-poles upright.

Don't you think the bean in this next photo looks almost like a young bird with its beak open and begging for food? No? Well it must be just me then...

Alongside the Scarlet Empire I have another of my old favourites - climbing French Bean "Cobra". This is a very vigorous variety, which produces exceptionally large pods.

In the past I have frequently had problems with maggots of some sort attacking the roots of my young bean plants, so I have taken to using nematodes as a counter-measure. This has greatly reduced the problem, though it has not entirely eliminated it. This is the type I'm using; it's a general-purpose type that counteracts several different types of pest.

For those of you unfamiliar with nematodes, they are a type of microscopic parasite worm that attacks and kills the maggots and grubs that feed on our veggies. They are so small that the packet you see in my photo contains 10 million of them (though my pack was a couple short. I think I'll complain and send them back!). To apply them you empty the pack into a watering-can full of water and pour them into the soil around your plants. If you don't want to apply them immediately you can keep them for up to a month in your fridge. I'll be applying mine to the beds in which my beans will be planted, very soon.

I have today erected two wigwams of each of 7 canes, for my French Beans as well, so my garden is a veritable forest of bamboo!

At the base of some of the canes I have planted some Parsley. My neighbours probably think I'm crazy: "He'll never get Parsley to climb those poles, will he, the silly man?" Actually I have put the Parsley next to the poles in the hope that they will be less vulnerable to fox/badger damage.

Wild Garlic and Good King Henry

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I wrote yesterday about herbs. Today I would like to showcase a couple of plants that are also herbs, but possibly not as well known as the traditional Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme... (Cue: sounds of "Scarborough Fair" heard in the background).

The first one is Wild Garlic. I'm trying to establish a patch of it that is big enough to allow me to use it for culinary purposes. Right now I have only this tiny clump, brought back from my Mother-in-law's house last year, but I understand that it spreads quite rapidly so hopefully I won't have too long to wait:

The little white flowers look very delicate - but I bet they would be nice as a salad ingredient, alongside some Chive flowers!

There are several buds in the clump, so maybe I could already pinch one or two...?

One dish I am really looking forward to being able to make with this is Wild Garlic pesto. It should be pretty powerful.

The other herb I want to show you today is Good King Henry.

Although I have in the past used it once or twice as a Spinach substitute I have never been very impressed with its culinary qualities. On the other hand it does look very attractive...

...especially when flowering.

Those flowers produce hundreds of seeds, which ALL seem to germinate. Look how many tiny GKH seedlings there are in this nearby patch of Marjoram! (They are the ones with the pointed seed-leaves.)

Herbs

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Late Spring / Early Summer is the best time of all for herbs. After the austerity of Winter they relish the warming weather and reward us with a bountiful flush of fresh new leaves. Jane and I both love using herbs in our cooking so we make the most of this bounty.

The Rosemary is flowering at present:

The type of Rosemary I have doesn't seem to produce many flowers. Some of the bushes are several years old, but they have never been exuberant with their flowers.

At least this one seems to understand that I planted it where it is mainly to help screen the unsightly compost-bin a little!

This is Lemon Balm - Melissa. We don't use it as a herb, but I like it because it produces masses of little white flowers that the bees absolutely love.

The Chives are very nearly flowering. At present they have loads of buds enclosed in their papery husks, waiting to burst open.

The Mint that I divided and re-potted in March has come back strongly. I have four big pots of it, like this:

I even managed to produce a decent quantity of Parsley. So much so that Jane described it as a glut! Trying to flatter me, I think... On her "Onions and Paper" blog she recently wrote about using some of it in a Tabbouleh, and then she made more of it into Parsley Sauce for with some Gammon we had last weekend.

One of my favourite herbs is Oregano, seen below. I just wish I had some home-grown tomatoes to serve it with!

This is Marjoram, a close relative of Oregano. It has leaves that are more rounded than the Oregano.

Just recently we have been using a lot of Sage. For instance, the other day I did some roasted Butternut Squash drizzled with olive oil and a liberal scattering of chopped Sage leaves. It's also good in a risotto that Jane sometimes makes, which has in it not only Butternut Squash and Sage, but also some chilli. Just now, the Sage in my garden is looking particularly lush.

The new leaves are much greener than the old ones, which are more of a silver-grey colour.

As well as the plain green variety of Sage, I also have a couple of plants of this really striking green-and-yellow variety:

Probably the most versatile of all herbs though, is this - Thyme:

That one in the previous photo is "Common" Thyme, whereas this one next is the Broad-leaved version:

I've just realised how many photos there are in this post, so I'd better stop. You've probably got the message by now- we like herbs!

Mark's Flower Plot

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I think that many of my readers will associate Mark's Veg Plot primarily with vegetables. These days, however, I am paying more attention to the visual aspects of gardening. Here are some more photos of plants in my garden that currently have significant ornamental qualities. Of course many of them are not "just flowers", but are the flowering elements of plants that will eventually be eaten.

Aquilegia

Daffodil "Sundisc"

Tulips

Dogwood

Aquilegia

Fern

Blueberry

Blueberry (with ant!)

Strawberry

Pear blossom after petal fall

Pear

Busy, busy, busy!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Dodging the ~~April~~ May showers, I spent a large part of the weekend working in the garden. At this time of year it's necessary!

I have potted-up most of the rest of my tomato plants, just keeping a few in reserve in case of disasters. I now have 14 plants in big pots:

My highest hopes for a good crop are vested in the ones I have put in those self-watering planters that my MIL gave me. Here you can see some of them with their water-tubes poking up:-

My first row of Broad Beans has grown to about 15 inches tall now, so I have put in place new support and protection arrangements - tall wooden stakes support a net to keep the wildlife off, and a pattern of soft string stretched between the stakes provides support. As the plants grow taller I'll add another couple of layers of string.

I picked the last of the PSB and removed the plants, so now I have two vacant raised beds, ready for my beans. One bed is going to have Runner Beans in it (14 plants), for which I have now erected this frame of 8-foot bamboo poles:

The other will have the climbing French Beans. Some of the Chicories that I cut without removing the roots have re-sprouted, so I have left them in place. I may be able to get a small crop of young leaves from them before I need to dig them up.

I have resisted the temptation to use these beds for growing salads, so the only place I could find in which to plant my Lettuce seedlings was this...!

Those are old plastic washing-up bowls with drainage holes drilled in them (the black tray in the centre is just the seed-tray from which I have transferred the lettuces). I have put four seedlings in each bowl. One has Green Oak Leaf:

And the other has Marvel of Four Seasons:

Meanwhile the recent rain has given the Asparagus a real boost. I have picked a second lot of 5 spears, but there are about 20 more visible now.

The Asparagus needs little attention at this stage. It's simply a question of judging the right moment to cut the spears. Keeping the bed free of weeds is desirable too, since it makes the spears easy to see.

This coming weekend I had been hoping to plant out some cucumbers - under cloches - but unless the weather improves dramatically I think this is now unlikely.

The chilli plantation

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

This year I'm growing more varieties of chilli than ever before. If I had more space, I'd grow even more chillis! The plants are rapidly increasing in size and it will soon be time for me to decide which ones to keep, and which ones to give away. I know that a couple of my "Garden Helpers" who look after my garden when I'm away on holiday will gladly give the spares a good home.

A few days ago I moved the young plants into bigger pots. They were originally sowed in 3-inch pots, small enough to fit under the lights of the Grow Light House. For the past few days thay have been indoors at night and outside during the daytime.

They have now outgrown the 3-inch pots, and besides, the Grow Light House is full of cucumber seedlings, so the chillis have been moved into 5-inch pots, and are now living full-time in the plastic mini greenhouses:

I am a great fan of these little greenhouses, and have just acquired two more (making a total of four). With their big zip-up flaps they are ideal for this time of year, when the daytime temperatures are warm, but the nights are still cold. They are also good for protecting young plants from the strong winds and heavy rain which we so often get in April and May. Whilst it is nice that they are lightweight and easily portable, they are a bit flimsy though, and you will see that I have weighted mine down with a couple of house-bricks each.

In a couple of weeks' time these plants will be big enough to fend for themselves without protection, and will be upgraded once again - this time to 10-inch pots, their final homes. When that time comes, I'll probably only keep 10 or 12 chillis, and say 'Bye 'Bye to the others.

I'll definitely be keeping this good -looker. This is "Black Prince".

Indoors, my Scotch Bonnet plant from last year now has several small fruits on it:

Just need some warmer weather now...

Softening the outlines

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The harsh outlines of Winter have been replaced by the softer look of Summer. My micro-pond is rapidly disappearing in a welter of Lily of The Valley:

Just out of shot to the right there are two Tulip flowers.

These are ones left over from a previous year. I certainly haven't planted any Tulips for several years now. I had forgotten about these ones, and I didn't even remember what colour they were. It looks as if they will be pink:

The Philadelphus tree / shrub that I pruned so severely last Summer is also smothered in fresh green shoots.

It still looks ugly at present, but hopefully in a few weeks time it will look OK. It couldn't really be worse than it was before I pruned it!

The Euphorbia is at its best right now. Green can be such a cold colour, but this shade of green is anything but cold:

The Golden Hops are romping away now, clothing the dull wooden fence panels with a fresh coat of zingy colour.

Talking of fence panels, the ones on the other side of the garden will soon be hidden by the rapidly rising Raspberries (how's that for alliteration?):

You can probably just see that I have put back up the wires which I had to remove when the fence was replaced a few weeks ago.

The ferns are also doing their thing. Their brown, dessicated stumps are suddenly bursting into life and thrusting up lots of rapidly-uncoiling hairy new fronds...

Topping-up the compost

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Over the Bank Holiday weekend I did a task that I can't claim to enjoy, but which is very necessary - and ultimately very rewarding: emptying a compost bin. The bin is question is one of the 330litre black plastic "Dalek" bins - ugly, but with the addition of a few thousand worms, a very-efficient compost-making machine.

To get at the dark crumbly soil-like compost, I had to remove the top 50% or so of the material, which was in various stages of decomposition / digestion by the worms, but even so I ended up with a very pleasing quantity of the "good stuff". This has now been distributed in a thick layer over the most needy parts of the plot. No.1 priority was the raised bed in which I hope soon to be planting Runner Beans:

The next-door bed which houses the last of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli also got a dose. This bed will play host to my Climbing French Beans.

Incidentally, this is what the broccoli looks like now - the secondary spears are at a useable size - but once these are gone, the plants will be pulled up and consigned to the same compost bin that I have just been emptying.

Round the base of the fruit trees I put a thick layer of compost. I don't expect it to stay this neat for very long - the Blackbirds will be kicking it around before the day is out, I know.

The Raspberries got their share too:

Applied like this, as a mulch, the compost will help mainly to conserve moisture in the soil, but later on it will gradually get absorbed into the soil itself, adding nutrients and contributing organic matter to improve the soil structure.

I have been gardening on this plot for 22 years now. Each year I do this distributing of compost at least twice (emptying my bins in rotation), and I use a fair bit of commercial compost for tubs of potatoes, tomatoes and such-like, but the level of soil in the raised beds never seems to rise significantly. Where does it all go? Just think what the plot would be like if I didn't apply this compost. Presumably the levels would be a lot lower.

Impatient

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Gardeners are always impatient, aren't they? Well, I certainly am. It's scarcely a month since I started sowing seeds, but already I'm yearning for a harvest. I've put in seeds for some quick-growing vegetables to tide me over until the slower ones get going. Like this Baby Leaf salad, for instance:-

This is a mixture I assembled myself, comprising many different things, like lettuce, rocket, cress, corn salad, spinach, beetroot etc, etc. It is growing in a large plastic crate full of compost:

My seed distribution was a bit uneven, evidently! Actually it's not quite as bad as it seems at first sight, because if you look closely you can see several tiny red lettuces, which don't show up in the distant shot:

Some of these will be ready in a couple of days I think. I'm going to use it in "cut-and-come-again" style, snipping off individual leaves with a pair of scissors.

I also have some other lettuce seedlings which are nearly big enough for planting out:

...and some much smaller seedlings, which are nowhere near ready for transplanting yet. These are a mixture of "Valdor"( foreground), "Delicato" (the red one in the centre), and "Fristina" (rear). As you can see, the germination success rates have been a bit patchy. The seed-tray on the right is supposed to contain two different types of Endive, but one type failed completely to germinate, though to be fair, the seeds were quite old.

The Endives that did germinate are the variety "Pancalieri".

Elsewhere, in amongst my Broad Beans, I have a few Radishes that are just about ready for pulling:

Radishes are the classic impatient gardener's vegetable, because they can be ready to harvest within a month of sowing if the conditions are right - in other words wet and warm. This year I have put lots of Radishes in, sowing them as a catch-crop between the rows of slower-maturing veg. So far however, this is all I have harvested:

Speedy potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

It seems like only a couple of days since I noticed the first tentative potato shoots emerging from the compost in their pots. Now the plants are racing ahead, making up for lost time after the freezing conditions during March and early April. The ones inside the plastic greenhouse are noticeably further advanced than their less fortunate siblings outside:

One in particular is miles ahead of the others. This year I have been really disciplined and labelled every single pot, so I know that the tuber growing in this one is called "Swift", which seems rather apt.

This wire-protected pot has no protection from the elements, only from the wildlife:

I have just planted my only Maincrop potatoes - four tubers of "Pink Fir Apple" - which are in the big pots seen at the back of this next photo. I have given them bigger containers than their Early cousins, since I know that they can grow into very big plants. Hopefully the extra space will also allow them to deliver a bigger crop. Notice the anti-fox / badger precautions as usual.

Blight is always an issue to be aware of when growing potatoes. This is why I grow mostly Earlies, which are harvested before the blight appears, but I usually grow a few PFA as well, because I just love them and I think their superior flavour and texture makes it worth taking the risk of losing them.

Planting-out tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Keeping a very close watch on the weather forecast, at the weekend I judged that it was time to plant out the first of my tomatoes. They had grown a lot in the last couple of weeks - so much so that they had nearly outgrown the 5" pots into which I had transplanted them:

I'm still not 100% confident that we have seen our last frost of the year, so I didn't want to plant them all out at once. I have hedged my bets. The best three of the "Maskotka" plants have gone into the Woodblocx raised bed (at last, I have planted something in it! A long-awaited moment...)

In order to help these plants get established, I have put each one of them under a large plastic bell-cloche.

Unfortunately, the local wildlife like this raised bed as much as I do, so the planting of anything in it has to be accompanied by the relevant precautions. I have therefore erected a net to cover the whole bed:

Over on the other side of the garden I have filled with compost a big container made from an old water-butt, and into it I have planted two "San Marzano" tomatoes. This is a bush type, so it will not grow very tall. It produces large red plum-shaped fruits with few seeds, ideal for making into sauces.

Of course, after planting-out comes the inevitable anti-wildlife protection:

I have put a few plants into big square planters equipped with bamboo canes supported by some of those cane-supports that I bought the other day...

Despite my best efforts, one of the cane-supports is still very wonky, so its tomato is going to have to learn to climb at a sharp angle! (See below, right).

Significantly, I have not potted-up ALL of my tomato plants yet. I still want to be able to bring them inside (into the garage, for instance) if the weather turns nasty, and once they are tied to tall canes this become impractical. So the other plants will remain in their 5" pots for another few days.

Another week, or ten days maybe...

Pear blossom

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Last year my "Conference" pear tree produced no fruit at all. Because of the atrocious weather it was a bad year all round for fruit, but I think my tree probably wouldn't have produced any fruit even if the weather had been OK. Sometimes a fruit tree adopts a biennial fruiting pattern if it gets insufficient water and nutrients, and I think that's what has happened to mine. The soil in my garden dries out very easily and it is hard to keep it moist. Maybe this year it's my turn to get a good harvest. There is certainly some blossom on the tree - if perhaps not as much as I would like!

I am hoping that we won't get any more frost this year, though a couple of degrees of frost is probably less damaging to Pear blossom than strong winds and heavy rain. We haven't had much rain for quite a while now, and I have actually been out with the hosepipe to give the fruit trees a good soaking.

At least it looks as if pollination won't be a problem...

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P.S. Yesterday I had my first-ever go at bread-making. The other day we bought a copy of Paul Hollywood's inspirational book "Bread", and it definitely made me want to try my hand at this skill. Now, as you probably know, I'm not normally one for slavishly sticking to a recipe, but Jane had told me in no uncertain terms that "baking is a science, not an art", so I decided to follow Paul's recipe precisely. He suggests that a novice baker should start by baking a white Bloomer loaf, so that is exactly what I did. This was the result:

I have to say that Paul's recipe was very clear and easy to follow. If I can make a loaf like that on my first attempt, he must be a magician!

We ate a slice of the bread about an hour after it was cooked, with lots of butter on it. It was amazingly tasty, and though I say it myself, the balance between crispy crust and springy crumb was perfect. Later on, we ate more of it as a starter with our dinner - pieces dipped in our best olive oil, with a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Then this morning, with home-made Seville orange marmalade... As Jane said to me "home-made bread just doesn't keep, you know!" :-)

First Asparagus of the season

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

This is always a satisfying moment for me: the harvesting and consumption of the first few spears of Asparagus of the year. The first batch is never very big - this one is only 5 spears - but My Goodness, they are delicious, and all the more so for the eager anticipation we have endured these past several months! I'm sure that if Asparagus were available in my garden all year round I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much.

Once Asparagus starts pushing up its spears they grow very rapidly - several inches in a day is not unusual. Sometimes I inspect the Asparagus bed before I go out to work in the morning and think "No, there's nothing there that's worth cutting", yet when I get home in the evening a whole load of them are ready!

These spears posed on a dinner-plate give you a good impression of how big they are. When you buy Asparagus in the shops it has always been trimmed. The lower parts are generally considered too tough and fibrous to be worth eating - though you can use them in vegetable stock, or possibly in soup as long as you're planning to pass it through a fine sieve.

The flavour of fresh Asparagus is quite strong, so even a small quantity is a viable ingredient. These 5 spears went into a pasta dish that Jane made, along with pesto, toasted pine-nuts and shavings of Parmesan cheese.

I hope these five are just the first of many!

White Hart cheese and Medlar Fruit cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Here are some more gorgeous local products sourced at the Hampshire Farmer's Market held in Fleet last Saturday:

This is "White Hart" from Loosehanger Cheeses near Winchester. It is rather reminiscent of Camembert. This award-winning soft cheese, made with milk from Ayrshire cows, is mould-ripened, with an outer skin described by the maker as a "white velvety coat". This particular specimen was for us at the perfect stage of ripeness - silky smooth, oozy and almost walking away of its own accord! In terms of taste, mild and mellow, certainly not as "in your face" as Camembert. We loved it.

To accompany this cheese we bought some Medlar Fruit Cheese, from J4Jelly. This is a product akin to a very intense fruit jam, and supposedly of a consistency that makes it sliceable. The ingredients list mentions medlars, spices, oranges, lemons and sugar. I think it is very similar in concept to the Spanish quince cheese called Membrillo. On the jar it says "Slice thinly and serve with meat." When we tried a sample at the market it was indeed firm enough to slice, but the substance in the jar we bought is definitely not. It is nice, yes, but just not sliceable. Not a big problem though, since it is easy enough to spread it on a cracker, or even to serve a spoonful of it alongside meat like you would with Redcurrant jelly.

We weren't overly impressed with the Medlar Fruit Cheese. Pleasant enough, but unremarkable. It tasted to me mostly of the spices, rather than fruit, but then again I don't think I have ever tasted a Medlar on its own, so I'm hardly qualified to judge!

I had a look at J4Jelly's website, to see if I could find some more about them (like for instance where they are based - presumably not far from us), but to be honest the website is remarkable for the paucity of information it divulges! [P.S. Used the postcode shown on the jar to establish that they are based in Farnham, Surrey, about 4 miles from us.]

In my final photo you can see that we chose to serve our cheeses with some miniature Artisan Swedish Crispbreads from Peter's Yard., which were perfect hosts for the two other products.

Just for the record, I would like to add that to put me in the mood to enjoy the cheese I started off with a glass (or two) of my delicious home-made Sloe Gin, which somehow seemed in keeping with the general theme...

Strawberries and Carrots

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

No, I'm not suggesting eating strawberries and carrots together!

I've never had much luck with Carrots. They always get riddled with the maggots of Carrot Root Fly. My current strategy for minimising this problem is to grow the miniature "Finger carrot" varieties, in plastic crates in a raised planter, which puts the carrots three feet or so above ground level:

Opinions vary on this, but some people say that Carrot Root Flies fly at a very low altitude, so maybe my planter will be out of their reach. Results last year were not bad, considering the poor weather, so maybe it's not an Old Wives' Tale.

This year I am growing a mixture of "Mignon", "Mini Finger" and "Amsterdam 3 Sprint". Hopefully at least one of these varieties will do well. They are still tiny, but the germination rate seems to have been OK:

I have been considering whether to try to protect the carrots with Enviromesh. My emerging plan is based on supporting some mesh over some wire hoops. It's not really required just yet, so I have plenty of time to try out a few prototypes.

Meanwhile, in the Strawberry patch...

This year I have the grand total of 13 strawberry plants (if you discount the Alpines). Not a lot, I know, but more than three times the number I had last year! For want of space I'm growing them in containers:

On the left is one of the wooden wine-boxes from Majestic Wines, and on the right two plastic storage crates (£1.69 each from Tesco!) They are the same type as the ones I'm using for the carrots.

The reason why I'm growing the strawberries in containers is not simply lack of space elsewhere: it's also because when the berries are ripening I will be able to move the crates under cover where the birds will not be able to steal them!

The strawberry plants suffered badly from the severe weather in the Winter, but they are beginning to revive. They are certainly all alive, though a couple of them lost almost all their leaves (bottom right in this next photo).

In addition to these I have about 20 Alpine strawberry plants, but I'm realistically not expecting a harvest from them this year, since they have been grown from seed, and most of them are still very tiny. Maybe I'll get a few berries from the three bigger plants that survived the Winter, which are now growing away nicely in my other wooden wine-box:

Propagating Primroses

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Inspired by Sue's post on her blog Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments on this subject, I have been increasing my stock of Primroses and Polyanthus. [Polyanthus is the type which has multiple flowers on each stem, whereas Primrose flowers are borne on single stems.]

Last year I bought a mixed pack of six Polyanthus from my local Garden Centre, and they performed very nicely. I put them in pots so that I could move them around the garden, adding a splash of colour here and there. When they had finished flowering I transplanted them to the border at the bottom of the garden, where there were already a number of Primroses which I had had from previous years. The other day I noticed that several of the plants had produced babies:

Since I'm always on the lookout for free plants, this was an opportunity too good to miss. I dug up several of the tiny plants, noting with satisfaction how strongly rooted they already were, despite their small size:

Some of them were still attached to their parents, so had evidently been propagated via the root systems, but others were completely detached, so must have been produced by seeds.

The little babies have ended up in a rectangular stone-effect planter which I have had for many years. I had earmarked it as a suitable container for placing next to the big Woodblocx raised bed in order to soften its rather harsh outline, but I hadn't yet got anything to put in it. Now the solution has produced itself!

Unfortunately, the clump of "natural" Primroses that I like so much hasn't produced any babies, but it is certainly a lot bigger than it used to be. Just look at these two pictures of the same plant two years apart:-

April 2011

April 2013

This year has been a good year for wild Primroses. All the banks along the sides of the motorways and roads here in Hampshire are absolutely full of them. Really beautiful!

Goat Curry

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

At the weekend we went to our local Farmers' Market, and as well as some of our regular purchases like Loosehanger cheeses and Trout pate, we also got the first locally-grown Rhubarb and Asparagus. I have heard that goods sold at this type of market have to be produced within (I think) a 50 mile radius, so this Asparagus will certainly have travelled a lot less Food Miles than the stuff from Peru that our supermarkets persit in selling. In addition to all these things we also bought some goat meat. I have been wanting for some time now to make a Caribbean-style Goat Curry, and now I have had the opportunity.

Goat meat is available in the Asian butchers' shops in the big towns round here - like Reading, where there are big Asian and Caribbean communities, but it is not commonly found in either the supermarkets or our local butchers' shops. Fortunately, there is a stall on our Farmers' Market which sells goat meat. It is called Devese Farm Animals, and their business is based in Wickham, near Southampton.

As you can see from the photo above, we bought 340g of diced Goat Mutton, a quantity perfect for feeding two people. The meat is lovely and lean, and very dark coloured. It's rather similar to very well-aged Lamb.

Goat meat has a reputation for being tough, so I planned to cook my curry for a long time - about three and a half hours. So here's my recipe:-

Caribbean-style Goat Curry (serves two)

Ingredients

Approx 350g goat meat, diced

1 large onion, peeled and roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

As many fresh red chillis as you like (or for authenticity, a Scotch Bonnet if you have one), roughly chopped

1 bunch spring onions, separated into white parts and green parts, roughly chopped

1 5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 Tbsp Dunns River All-Purpose Seasoning

1 Tbsp Carribean curry powder (one with lots of Fennel and Allspice in it)

1 Tsp dried Thyme

1 Tsp ground Allspice

Several sprigs of fresh thyme (leaves only)

Several twists of freshly-ground black pepper

1 litre of stock (I used beef)

Approx 3 Tbsp vegetable oil, for frying and marinating

Method

1.Make a marinade

Put about 1 Tbsp oil in a large bowl, along with:-

the crushed garlic

the grated ginger (grate it over the bowl to avoid losing the juice)

the All-Purpose Seasoning

the curry powder

the dried Thyme, black pepper and Allspice

about half of the white bits of spring onion, and half of the fresh Thyme

[the rest of the fresh thyme and spring onions are used in the accompanying Rice and Peas dish]

Mix the ingredients to form a gooey paste

Add the meat to the bowl and massage well to ensure it is thoroughly coated with the marinade

Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for a few hours

2. Make the curry

Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a flameproof pan and brown the meat, having removed most of the marinade from it

Remove the meat to a bowl and keep it warm

Put the final 1 Tbsp oil into the hot pan and soften the onions over a low heat (approx 5 mins)

Add the remaining marinade and stir it into the onions; cook for another couple of minutes

Return the meat to the pan

Add the chillis, and all of the green parts of the spring onions

Add the stock

Bring the pan to the boil, and then cover it and put it in the oven

cook for about 3 hours or until the meat is very tender, adding more stock/water if required to achieve a nice consistency of sauce.

Just before adding the stock

At serving time

3. Serve

My curry was accompanied with Rice and Peas (home-grown black beans in this case), cooked with coconut milk, fresh Thyme and the white parts of some spring onions (see above), along with some plain-boiled Spring Greens (like Collards) - on this occasion pretending to be Callaloo!

Well, so much for the stereotype. The Goat meat was meltingly tender and beautifully tasty. We shall definitely be buying it again. Very impressed. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of heat in the curry (it really needed the Scotch Bonnet), but the taste was lovely. I particularly enjoyed the flavour of Allspice - a current favourite of mine. And what can I say about the rich coconutty Rice and Peas? Heavenly!

Transplanting Broccoli seedlings

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I have planted out the Tenderstem broccoli seedlings that I showed you in yesterday's post. Tenderstem is for me the Summer equivalent of the Spring's Purple Sprouting Broccoli. As the name suggests, it is eaten more for its stems than for its flowers, though the young leaves are also nice - a bit like Spring Greens or Collards. I have planted six seedlings in the bed which already has the Shallots and Parsley in it, spacing them at intervals of roughly 35cm.

I planted the seedlings quite deeply, ensuring that the soil level was about where the cotyledons ("seed-leaves") had been. I pressed the soil down around the plants with my hands, since brassicas like firm soil conditions. I then watered them in and protected each one with a "Brassica collar" which will hopefully deter the Cabbage Root Fly from laying their eggs on the stems.

Then over each one I put a plastic bell-cloche.

These will protect the young plants from the weather for the next couple of weeks. In view of the frequent showers of rain and hail we have been having, I think the protection will be very welcome! As you can probably see, the whole bed is also covered with netting, aimed at dissuading the foxes and badgers from rooting around in it.

Tenderstem Broccoli grows very rapidly, and I hope to be harvesting from these plants in about 8 -10 weeks from now. If you want to regular supply throughout the Summer, it is recommended that you sow successionally, but I will probably grow only this batch, because I will want to plant Cavolo Nero in this bed later on.

BTW, note the still-empty Woodblocx raised bed in the background of the last photo. This is reserved for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers - which of course can't be planted out until the weather warms up some more.

Progress report - end of April

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0000

There is new life bursting out everywhere, and my garden is quickly transforming itself from uniform brown bare soil to patches and rows of lush green.

The first row of Broad Beans is looking really healthy. No damage at all so far!

Every bean I sowed, with the exception of one of the spares, germinated. Since the plants all look fine, I have now removed the three spares from the ends of the rows, leaving 14 good plants in place.

I hadn't the heart to throw away such strong-looking seedlings, so I have stuck them in the ground over near my Rhubarb. I don't expect they will do very well there, because it is too shaded, but at least they have a chance of survival!

Since I already have two more rows of BBs in the ground, the spares that I sowed in pots in the garage are probably not going to be required and I have already arranged to give most of them to a friend.

The herbs are growing away strongly now, and most of them have already reached a pickable state.

Greek Oregano

Lemon Balm

The Raspberry plants have lots of shoots on them now. Which reminds me, I must get round to re-attaching their supporting wires which I had to remove when my neighbours had their fence replaced.

I expect the neigbours will now have Raspberries growing their side of the fence too!

These are some of my Brassica seedlings - Tenderstem Broccoli (for Summer harvesting) and Brussels Sprouts.

Since each of them now has two or three proper leaves (you can see the cotyledons or seed-leaves have shrivelled up now and are falling off) they are just right for planting out.

Tenderstem Broccoli

Brussels Sprout "Brilliant"

I think I will put my plastic bell-cloches over them to keep them warm, because the daytime temperatures here are only 10 to 12C and at night-time it is still very cold, occasionally frosty.

The Broccoli plants are going to go in this bed, alongside the Shallots:

In the background (upper left of photo) you can see some clumps of Parsley - mostly the flat-leaf type - which I have just transplanted. This year I am going to try very hard to grow enough Parsley for our culinary needs, which is really saying something, since we use a lot of Parsley - and would use more if we had it!

Meanwhile, the Purple Sprouting Broccoli season is nearly at an end. Last week I picked loads more spears. The fridge is full of it!

All that is left now is the secondary spears. If you cut the main spears just above a leaf-joint two more (much smaller) spears will grow.

The potatoes are looking good too, with strong green shoots coming up in all the pots, especially those benefitting from the cover of the plastic seedling greenhouse:

One of my jobs for the next few days will be to earth these up with another layer of compost.

The peas are just starting to climb the canes now. If I get any crop at all from these it will be a bonus. These few plants are ones that I originally started of indoors, aiming to eat them as peashoots, before realising that they are semi-leafless and therefore not much use in salads!

Finally, the climbing beans are sown. I have sown eight pots, with either 6 or 8 beans in each, according to the size of the pot. These are Runner Beans (Scarlet Empire and Firestorm), Climbing French Beans (Cobra), and a couple of the varieties sent to me by Jude, author of that fascinating guest post about heritage beans called The Glorious Bean. I would like to be able to grow ALL of them, but I'm being very disciplined (realistic) and sowing only a few each of "Veitch's" and "District Nurse", both of which I plan to use for drying. Nothing much to see in my photo of these, apart from the inevitable anti-wildlife protection...

All we need now is some warmer weather - and with a Bank Holiday weekend looming I suppose that is a vain hope!

The Blueberries are flowering

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:30:00 +0000

All of a sudden the Blueberries have burst into flower.

Hopefully the severe pruning I gave them last year won't have done them any harm - in fact it may have re-invigorated them.

In common with many fruits, blueberries produce flowers at the same time as new leaves. So we have these at the same time:

Flowers

And new leaves:

The smallest of my 5 Blueberry plants was only acquired last year. Its new leaves are green, whereas the others have red ones which only turn green later. (And of course back to red in the Autumn!). I wonder if this means that is a different type to all the others?

I strongly recommend Blueberries for someone who is new to fruit-growing. They grow quite happily in pots (though they like acid soil, so it's best to use Ericaceous compost), and produce a decent amount of fruit whilst requiring very little maintenance - except that they are loved by most children and all birds, so require a bit of protection when their fruit is in the final stages of ripeness. Actually I reckon that my local Blackbirds have developed an addiction to slightly-underripe Blueberries. They know that humans like the berries fully ripe, so they steal them a few days beforehand. This year I intend to be ready with my precautions well in advance.

That reminds me to say: I have a pair of Blackbirds nesting in my hedge at present. My neighbour's cat has already staked-out the site, and will no doubt be trying to grab some of the baby birds when they fledge. I must confess to having a degree of sympathy with the cat, because I have a love-hate relationship with Blackbirds. I love the sound of their song on a Summer's evening, but I hate the way they scratch so enthusiastically in the compost in which my little plants live. I also hate their persistent "Cat! Cat! Cat!" alarm call, especially at 5.00 a.m...

By the way, I have deliberately been posting more frequently these last few days. I just have so much I want to photograph and write about, because for me it is a really interesting time of year in the garden.