Radish Crisps

I have found a way to prepare radishes that makes them really tasty! Really moreish!

Radish 'crisps'

1. Chop radishes into even thickness slices.
2. Spray an oven tray with spray oil, place the slices on and sprinkle lightly with garlic powder and paprika, finish with a spray of oil.
3. Bake in the oven on medium heat until the top sides have browned, flip and return to oven.
4. When they are browned both sides and a bit crispy take them out and salt to taste.

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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).

Bokashi Update

Just a little note to let you know bokashi bucket one fermented itself to completion and was emptied in the main composting darlek 2 weeks ago.  The smell was fine, it was just like pouring in a bucket of pickles, which after all is basically what it is.  Ours didn't have much in the way of animal products in it really, a fish spine or two and some small meat bones.  I should have taken a picture of the result, but it didn't look a lot different to the last entry (click on bokashi in the tag cloud to your right).  Since then the compost bin has been much much hotter, I can see signs of compost already, and also there is pretty much no smell (my worst fears about not being able to sit down that end of the garden weren't realised).  All in all I'd say bokashi-ing your waste is worth it, okay you have to buy the bran (the activator), but you do get vast amounts of compost for the garden in return and with that and the paper and plastic recycling our waste is down to one bin bag a week now, which is mostly dog poop (nice!). 
So yes, go buy one.  See if your council has any schemes to sell them cheaply to you.

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

All is quiet

I haven't blogged for a bit, mainly because we're waiting for it all to grow. Let's see, I think most things are up although not a lot has it's second set of leaves yet. The radishes have, they are quite big already. I shall take a photo when the sun decides to shine again (England is being rained on this week...it's like monsoon weather I nearly drowned the car in a rather deep puddle yesterday). I seem to have failed at spring onions, I did think I was pushing it a little to plant so late...oh well, it's only one line across one bed, I'm sure I'll find something to fill it with.

In the mean time have a look at this little chap (above), he's a Tawny Mining Bee. When we were digging the soil to put the beds in these guys were quite upset buzzing about looking confused, it's because they make their nests in the ground and I had removed their entry point. These pretty ginger bees are harmless (they have a really mild sting that would have trouble penetrating our skin) and love to nest in sandy soils. I felt sad that when the paths were in we might cover over some bees burrow holes, but it seems that they are happy to carry on using the raised beds as their homes. Doubtless they will make good pollinators, so we're happy and the bees are happy too!

Making paths

Thanks to the wonders of B&Q and their builders section we now have shiny new paths for our veg plot. The builders section is cheaper than the ornamental stone in the gardening section. We bought many (many many....many) bags of limestone chippings (2 person job to push the trolley) and a roll of weed-proof fabric, which we then tried to cut and fit on one of the most windy days in May so far. They may have been some bad tempered muttering...and one accidental stoning.

Strawberries!

My first strawberries are starting to form! A work mate gave me these plants, they'd been started off in a greenhouse so have a nice head start. Now they are sitting in the sun trap of my patio, behind a gate where the hounds can't get to them (it's not just the widdling that's a problem when big dogs are around plants...they are quite fond of 'pick your own', so I have to hide soft fruits from greedy woofers). The bag was also kindly gifted, it's a huge bag and the strawberries are already taking over like mad things. I've never grown my own strawberries before, I'm excited to see if they taste different to shop bought!

More on the main plot later...

Planting at last!

Yesterday I re designed the 'Grow Veg' plan to encompass the actual dimensions of the garden, this was a pain in the (water?)butt as the garden is all mad angles. But I have it, the final plan for this year! It may all go horribly wrong, I am very unsure about the bed near the shed, which I think might be too stony for root veg (and I have 5 types in that bed), but the bed at the top of this plan has fences which I think might please the pea plants.

Planted so far are the Spring Onions, Horseradish, Salsify, Potatoes, Rocket and 2 sorts of Lettuce. I have decided I really like seed tape (bought accidentally), it costs more but it's the easiest thing ever...even Nathan could manage to grow it *runs and hides*. Now I'd like it to rain so I don't have to get the hosepipe out.

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 :)