Garden Blogs

Monday, 29 June 2009

Hols and back...

Hello again! Just back from super camping holiday at the Lizard in Cornwall - glorious weather, lots of walking, eating & drinking, definitely the life! Lots of spying on other peoples’ veg patches as well, starting to become a bit obsessed I think! Anyway, back to the real world (ahhhhh!!!!!!) - but back in the garden & it’s a wonder what a week can do! Everything has grown - that includes the bindweed unfortunately, & doesn’t include those pesky carrots, whose numbers are now down to twelve, which is about a weeks supply at the rate we eat them! But the toms are coming on nicely, the beans are well up their poles & the squashes have got baby squashes - I am very, very excited! Weather was nice enough on Saturday night to continue our outdoor eating theme, so we barbequed some steaks on the fire pit. We made the firepit ourselves out of some old night storage heater bricks, upended in a vague circle, surrounded them with rockery stone & have decorated them with shells that we’ve picked up on our travels to make it look pretty. The grill is made out of an old oven shelf, with an old microwave trivet wired to it. & it works! & it’s also portable - if we get bored of it where it is we just dismantle it & reassemble it somewhere else… I spent Sunday chilling - have planted out a few more purple sprouting broccoli, chatted to the leeks (still some way off the “pencil thickness” they need to achieve before I plant them out - I think I’ll pop them where the carrots were!) A few strawberries had ripened while we were away, & also the gooseberries on our one & only gooseberry bush. Not enough of either to do much with really, so I made Gooseberry, Strawberry & Elderflower jam. The strawberries add a nice colour & sweetness to the gooseberries, & the elderflower gives it a bit of that beautiful summer fragrance - lush!!!! Only enough for one jar, but I had it for tea on homemade scones (thanks to Jo at Henry’s Campsite) & some Cornish clotted cream & it was like being in an Enid Blyton book! I also made Caramelized Onion Marmalade from some of the onions I harvested last week - which caramelized a bit much I think, I’m not sure we’ll ever get it out of the jar! There’s no two ways about it, my cooking is very hit & miss….! Back to work today, complete nightmare….. Thank goodness the beardy weirdy had a glass of wine ready for my return….

Friday, 12 June 2009

The point of growing onions....

My goodness, where has the week gone? After the washout weekend I don’t seem to have stopped - but I’ve just popped out into the garden with a glass of wine to see what’s been going on… Well, the rocket that the hens “trimmed” has revived - & promptly bolted! It’s the first year I’ve grown salad rocket rather than wild rocket, & although it does have a good flavour I think I’ll go back to the wild variety next year. Everything else is looking pretty perky - it’s amazing the power of rain. We have 5 rainwater butts, we never water with mains water, but it doesn’t matter how much of a drink you give stuff with a watering can, it really doesn’t compare with a good dousing of rain. Which kinda helps you keep your spirits up when it tips it down every time you put your nose outside of the back door! Especially on a Saturday & Sunday when you’ve been stuck in an office all week…. My 20(!!) tomato plants are coming on nicely. I’ve grown my tomatoes from seed, an Italian variety called Palla di Fuoco (which apparently means “ball of fire” - bought from The Real Seed Company, brilliant small company based in Wales specialising in heritage non hybrid varieties www.realseeds.co.uk) which are apparently good for eating & cooking - I’m hoping to have a glut so that I can make lots of tasty tomato sauces to freeze for the winter. G has pointed out that tins of good quality organic tomatoes are quite cheap, but I think he’s missing the point! However, I am coming to realise that I should be less huffy about the well worn advice of grow what you like & what costs the most to buy. I’ve now planted 2 rows of carrots, a total of 24 plants. G & I eat tons of carrots! It won’t take long to get through 24! I think maybe in future I should concentrate on the things that have many fruits from one plant - beans, leaves that kind of thing. However, the point of growing onions came home to me on Sunday morning when I came to make my morning frittata when I discovered we’d run out of onions! Now, if there’s 2 things I can’t bear to be without in the house it’s tins of toms & fresh onions - you can live off tomatoes & onions!! So, having had a good stomp around the house I suddenly remembered that I’d got a whole patch of red onions growing in the garden! G was saved from certain death just in time…. So, perhaps it is a good idea to grow a selection of cheap common things just for those times when you forget to buy them… Helping out at another Hedgerow Safari tomorrow, but hopefully back in the garden on Sunday. Need to do a bit more praying over my dwarf beans seeds which are being stubbornly unresponsive so far - & still no luck growing lettuce either, feel like such a fool!