Spring! Better luck this year

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 ♥

Summer 2011

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.

Pumpkins!

So, time for an update! I shall start with the traditional British topic - the weather! It's is getting colder, someone forgot to tell the sun that it's only August. Some of us have crops to ripen...make with the warm!! At least this means Nath's contribution to gardening (watering and mowing the lawn) is a less frequent which he's probably grateful for. I may have to teach him advanced weeding next, those mini nettles are evil creatures!

The pumpkin plants are growing really well, a bit too well really, I regret planting the second one so close as they are such huge monsters already. This picture above is of the largest so far, I've wedged a stone underneath to lift it and stop it rotting. A couple of smaller ones have dropped off, we ate one of them roasted in the oven with a sample of our purple carrots (not ready yet, too small) and parsnips (ditto).

Peas...we've had millions of these! You can see the lettuce in the background too. I massively over planted the lettuce forgetting that more or less everything I plant grows (it's a curse I tell you!!). I have found a very nifty way of using it up though, lettuce soup!

Lettuce Soup

Ingredients
Serves: 4

1 Large Lettuce

1 Medium Onion, chopped

1 Medium Potato, diced

25 Gram Butter

450 ml Milk

300 ml chicken or vegetable stock

Salt and freshly ground pepper

4 Tablespoon Double cream, optional

Method
Shred the lettuce, reserving some for garnish. In a saucepan fry the lettuce, onion and potato gently in the butter for 5 minutes without browning. Add the milk and stock.

Bring to the boil, stirring continuously, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Liquidise and return to the pan.

Ladle into warm soup bowls, whirl on a tablespoon of cream if used and garnish with lettuce pieces.
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This is the plait I made with my garlic, they are tiny, I think I should probably have left them until the foliage was more dead. I have left the other tub and will try again in a month, see how big they are then. These ones are plaited and drying.

The Maris Piper potatoes are listing helplessly about now flowering is over, blocking the pathways to the smaller veg. This is annoying, I might tie them up with string at the weekend. I seem to have grown 'true seed', small tomato-like pods on top of the flower stalks. I read that these can be planted next year and will grow potato plants all be it a bit unpredictably as you don't know what variant will grow from each one of the 200 seeds in each seed pod. There's some very interesting info on this here. I have pulled one row of tatties early so we could try some, while they are still smallish they taste lovely (and were a constituent of the lettuce soup!).

Things still to come are peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, florence fennel and butternut squash....to be honest this cooler weather and lack of sun is really not helping!!
I have not stopped planting yet, there is more lettuce on the way *groan* also kale, kohlrabi and some cabbage (if I can find room for the donated cabbage seed to germinate). I want to find room to grow some late onions.

Our other big news is the imminent addition of chickens! 3 from the British Hen Welfare Trust. A big garishly pink Eglu hen house will be arriving Saturday!

In the Heat of Summer - *boing* vegetables appeared!

Here, have a picture of the side of my head (Nath's poopy photography skills meant rejection of gurning shots) with Amy(pink collar) and Jack ('the white one').

Well there isn't much heat at the moment, but there was heat, and plenty of sun (and in England too...who'd have guessed!), which meant our veggies have grown big and healthy. There are loads of fat pods on the peas, finger sized baby carrots have miraculously appeared in the ground and this surprise purple radish has just been discovered...it's huge!!!!!! Shame I hate radish (why is it even considered a vegetable?!), but I'm sure Nathan will enjoy it! The garlic have wilted right down, though the leaves are still green, I don't think they should be lifted yet, but I lifted one as an experiment, it's not bad...not massive but it smells good. The pea was scoffed about 2 minutes after this picture was taken, it's friends will share it's fate soon! In other news I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm too fond of brackets (but maybe it's fine).