Summer drawing to a close

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.

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 ♥

September - Mini Harvest

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.

Po-ta-toes!

This cute specimen of Greyhound beauty is Lenny, who's 12 years young. You wouldn't think a bag full of raw, mud covered Maris Pipers would have so much appeal to the canine nose would you?

This pile of spuds is from the middle bed, and is about 4/5 rows worth. I was hampered in my harvest by having had my first horse riding lesson the day before (argh my poor legs!). Still it was exciting to dig in and unearth handfuls of Maris Pipers, rolling out like pale yellow treasure.

Issues: A few had tiny holes in which I am presuming to be Keel slug damage (as Maris Pipers are susceptible anyway), but to be fair that was only a tiny number which I ditched. Most are affected by common scab (also common both with Maris Pipers and sandy higher pH soil) but it's only cosmetic so who cares! I am trying nemaslug next year as after a slow start the garden is now a slug haven...and my beer traps don't work in the rain!

All in all, a mighty fine treasure haul!

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!

Summer is here!

Temperature 25°C, Sunny

So, I haven't blogged in a while, this is mostly because I have been very lax with weeding and it looked a bit unkempt, so I was too embarrassed to show you. Yesterday Nath and I delved into the jungle with Pith helmets and rifles (in case of Tigers, you can never be too sure). All the weeds were tweaked up by the roots, the things we planted sorted from the things we did not (I did that bit, it still foxes Nath') and the tigers were sent packing. There was a brief rest for Nath when he went off to the shops to buy kneeling pads (now I really do feel old!) and several more bags of soil (will it never end!). Upon discovering it was cooler with your head stuck in the potato undergrowth I got stuck in earthing them up, I hope I didn't leave them too long.

Ths picture at the top shows a raised bed showing 2 different types of Lettuce and Peas growing up my home made trellis with Rocket and Butternut Squash growing at the near end (couldn't fit that end of the piccie). Soon there will also be Florence Fennel in there too and maybe Kohlrabi. My Spring Onions failed to show, I think I planted them too late.

The next picture shows the main bed, and the massive plot of Potatoes in the middle bed (how will we eat them all?!). In the main bed we have, closest to furthest away: cut and come again salad, mini Carrots, Pumpkins, Parsnips, purple Carrots, Leeks, purple Radish, Beetroot, Salsify & Rhubarb
This next photo shows the blue tub of Cucumbers (still looking a bit yellow, hopefully moving them to this end of the garden will allow a little more light), and the Tomatoes.

Strawberries need no introduction, they are growing massive! Compare it the size to my fingers next to it.

The Garlic is still growing nicely in it's pots

Also I have started to develop the rest of the garden a little, cornering off two tiny flower boarders, here is a nice Anthemis bought from a National Trust shop. Nath likes this one, it's the only plant name he's learned so far...so expect to hear it a lot! ;oP (edit- he's just scoffed at this comment, aparently he knows lots of plants names, he also knows Fuchsia and Potato). You can't eat this one, but it's a pretty plant, I love daisy shaped flowers, they are my favourites.

I can't do a massive photo session without including a picture of the blogs namesake. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lakers Amy...at play:

So what do you think? Not a bad start I'd say

Potato planting..go go go!

This is me looking particularly not dressed for planting the seed potatoes, and I am very white because I am freezing my butt off because I fannied about all day in the garden centre and then had a mad attack of garden guilt and came home dug the middle raised bed to aerate it and planted stuff at 7ish. This blog is full of tres flattering pictures of me, I might start gardening in eyeliner and lippy! ;op. First in the raised beds is Maris Piper Potatoes. Nomnom!

Top quote of today's garden exercise (after a discussion on giving away some of the millions of seeds potatoes we have for the price of a beer...) Nath (in an inadvertent slightly cockney accent) - "ah but the bed is slightly canted", Bex - "wait...are we back to the beer again?".


A pic of raised beds:

There are 3 beds, two long ones and one shorter one, to allow for the collection of water from the water butt sitting the end of the shed. They are really long beds, I think we might be growing food for the whole road! My earlier idea of joining the Hugh F-W landshare program (to garden someone else's land) may not be needed!

I'm thinking I might put the garden furniture at this end on the decking, could be a pleasant spot to sit.

Nathan's Wellies

What a fine figure of a man! An excellent example of the modern urban gardener, modelling his newly received wellies (thanks Ro!) after a hard afternoons graft digging the raised beds and planting. Well, for most of it I was foraging in Asda whilst the much more green fingered Bex did the digging, but I did heave the compost into the beds!

Speaking of which, 100 litre bags of compost are quite heavy (thanks Ian!); I'd recommend slightly smaller ones if you're carrying them any distance. Still, that which does not kill us makes us walk like Quasimodo, as they say.

So, we now have three made up and filled raised beds, one of which is full to the brim of potatoes (boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em inna stew!) , and the other two ready for planting with the many, many seeds we now have (thanks Jo, John and Ronan!). I suspect we'll get them done tomorrow, as much of today was taken up with a very pleasant trip round Melbicks. We failed to purchase what we actually went for (a seed box for storing our masses of seed, sweet potato for planting), but did acquire other fine garden swag - a huge reinforced bag for planting of tomatoes & some horseradish tubers for tasty roast beef accompaniment later in the year (Bex adds - and Salsify seeds). And chocolate. Mission accomplished!

And now for tea :)