Garden Blogs

Saturday, 30 May 2009

Nearly our first strawberry of 2009!!!!

Can’t believe it’s week ago since I did my last blog, not sure where the days have gone!! Anyway, not a lot has happened garden wise this week, except the normal weeding (and my goodness how quickly they grow), mowing lawns and watching our flowers and veg enjoy the sunshine. I did get excited yesterday because we had at least one strawberry that looked like it would be ready to eat today. So in preparation I got my bottle of Pimm’s out along with my Pimm’s jug, lemonade, fresh mint, etc, all ready to celebrate the first strawberry of the year only to find it was half eaten this morning!!! I think it may have be birds, so tomorrow we are off to get some netting. I don’t mind sharing, but pinching the first one is a bit rich. I have included a variety of photos this week which I hope you enjoy. But before I go, I thought I would share with you a tried and tested (and never failed) recipe which we had last night. It’s a marinade for Chicken Tikka, great for bar-b-ques or cooked on a griddle. Basically you whiz together all of the following :– 75-100ml of Rachel’s Greek yoghurt, 1tsp red chilli powder, 2 pinches of dried fenugreek leaves, 1tsp ground cumin, fresh ginger (about inch long), 2 cloves of garlic, 1tbsp veg oil, 1tsp lemon juice, and 1/2tsp garam masala. This is enough for 4 to 5 chicken breasts which you slash across the thicker part and then pour the yoghurt mixture over the chicken breasts and leave to marinade overnight. Cooked on a griddle pan it only takes about 15-20 mins, as I said we had it for dinner last night with our home grown salad leaves and new pots (not ours they’re not ready yet), and a very nice bottle of wine – enjoy!

Saturday, 23 May 2009

Forest of Dean - Part 2

This week has proved that patience pay’s off. Having planted asparagus last year and watched them grow, but not able to pick any (apparently they grow better if only picked after the first year’s crop), we were really excited to pick, cook and eat our first asparagus tips, all within 30 mins, along with spinach leaves from the garden and poached eggs from a lady in our lane. Can’t get much fresher - delicious!!!

Unfortunately the same principle applies to rhubarb, we planted ours last month – so next year we look forward to crumbles and rhubarb and ginger jam. What a wash out weather wise. Our runner beans were desperate to be planted out, so we took a chance they would not get wind burnt or snapped off by the gusty winds and we’ve got away with it - they’re fine. Really pleased to say that the poles for the runners survived the winds too. French bean seeds have been planted and are starting to show, along with the second planting of beetroot, turnip and spinach seeds. Leek plants have also made it into the ground – they look great all standing to attention.

Dodging showers/rainy days we have managed to plant out in the cottage garden perennial flowers, such as Rudbeckia, Verbascum, Foxglove and our Lupins (yes, some survived the mouse attack!). This has made room in the greenhouse for Fuchsia cuttings, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings, also some Thai Basil (some of which will be making their way to friends we are visiting soon in Sussex, don’t worry we won’t forget the leek plants we promised you!). We have decided to put most of our tomato plants in a bed in the greenhouse, last year the tomato’s planted in the veg patch caught blight. Hopefully we will able to tell you later if this makes any difference. Also thinned out the parsnips. We plant 3 seeds in a hole and then thin out the two weaker ones – seems a shame to do this as the thinnings did look good plants but they don’t seem to transplant very well. A good tip for parsnips if you have stony ground, is to use a long pole/stick to make a cone shape hole and fill it with compost or sieved soil, this means the parsnips don’t split as they try to grow around stones! You can do this for carrots but instead of a cone shaped hole dig out a row about a spit deep and fill with compost.

One last thing, if you plant marigolds in amongst your tomato plants and runner bean plants they are less likely to get affected by green and white fly. Have a great Bank Holiday weekend. PS thanks for your comments – will post a pic of the dogs next week as requested by Tom in Devon!!

Sunday, 17 May 2009

Welcome to The Forest of Dean

Over the next few months I am looking forward to sharing my garden with you. We moved to the Forest of Dean 18 months ago from Southampton hoping for a more rural way of life, and we have not been disappointed. Our property is on a hill, so level’s, or rather lack of them have meant we have divided our outside areas into three separate parts.

We have two young and lively Labradors, so the first area (our front garden) is the only part of the garden they are allowed in. So far it has not been properly planted up, as the few plants we have added have been trampled on and are looking rather sorry for themselves. We are hoping that some time in the near future, when the dogs are calmer, we can introduce a natural water feature in the lower stone tier which the previous owners built.

The second area is to be a semi formal cottage garden. Since last year we have grown as many perennial flowers as possible from seed. This has proved to very successful, in-fact friends and family have also benefited!! The new lawn we layed in 2008 has shrunk in size as we keep enlarging the flower beds to accommodate the plants. The greenhouse has more flower seedlings which we have been sowing since March, these are growing very well, so I can see the lawn shrinking even move once these new plants have hardened off.

The third and final area is our kitchen garden. I especially love this area, it is wonderful picking and eating your own produce. So far we have planted first and second early potatoes, beetroot, turnip, onions (red and white), shallots, primo cabbage, spinach and parsnip. In the greenhouse we have two types of leeks, kohl rabi, lettuce (which we have been eating since March), tomato plants and celeriac all of which will be planted out after the frosts have gone. Not all things go as planned………...a couple of weeks ago we left a very small gap open in the cold frame to circulate the air overnight. The next morning we found a mouse munching his way through our dwarf lupins, cabbage and kohl rabi plants – lesson learnt there!!! Hope you have enjoyed looking at our photos and I look forward to next week’s blog with our news and updated photo’s.