Growing In The Cracks

In my quest to lessen where weeds can grow I'm trying to grow plants to fill spaces that would otherwise be taken by weeds. 

One of these spaces is in the cracks in my paving slabs. I left gaps for this purpose though as what I wanted was a sea of creeping thyme between them (mum has this in her patio and I always think it's lovely).

Purple Pea Water

The toehr night I had quite the shock when I took the steamer off the top of the potatoes!

 It was like I was cooking them in ink! 

Above the potatoes I was steaming both Victorian Purple podded peas (but as mange tout) and some broad bean tops (easily one of the most underrated veg out there), both of which must have imparted some of their colour into the water. 

I used to work with a Bulgarian guy who used to moan about how the English cook. 

He used to ask "Why do you chuck the water away? All the Goodness there." 

Then he'd eat the water from his boiled runner beans like a soup as a starter. I think he was probably on to something. 

Other than making gravy from this water though I'm not sure what else to do with it? I suppose it could be saved as a light stock for a soup? 

Do you save the cooking liquid from things you cook?

Best Time Of The Garden Year!!

I love this time of year when we start to pull more than just salad out of the garden! 

Creating meals with lots of fresh veg is always exciting, and I love that the garden is now starting to produce loads! Last nights tea contained two of my favourites, garlic scrapes and broad beans! I need to grow more of both next year.

Another Corner Controlled In The Garden!!!

My garden beds are looking pretty tidy, with only a few left to seriously weed out before planting. 

But there are some big areas of my veg garden that still need a lot of work. This bottom corner is one of them. This area used to be really wet until we drained the field around it, so while it was wet I put in some raised beds (2015 can you believe!). This worked a little bit but in the end they got neglected and the nettles have claimed them as their own.

So now seems the ideal time to take back control and gain a bit more growing space.

Some serious digging and pulling went into clearing this area! I had three barrows full of nettle and dock roots by the end. But with a little path down it I've now gained two more 10ft beds to grow some veggies on.

This is great news as I'm already running out of space and trying to figure out where things could go!

Have you tackled a neglected garden area lately? How did you do it? Plain elbow grease or a better way? Wish I could have got the digger in here to deal with this instead of my spade!

Don't "Panic" Plant

Seed companies have been selling out of seed or having huge orders that they can't cope.

Seeds from America!

I've seen lots of Tweets on Twitter and other sources of people growing gardens while they're in quarantine or lock down. Something I actively encourage as there might be predicted shortage of certain veg later int he year in the UK due to labour shortages as mentioned in my last post.

6 Gardening Tips for Hot Weather

This is a collaborative post.

This year has made me see some real short comings in my garden lately, mainly in the fact that I’m not that well prepared for really hot weather. With the soaring temperatures we’ve had lately it’s something that we all need to give a bit of thought to.

Provide Some Shade

The greenhouse got up to some crazy temperatures on sunny days. I noticed one day that it was well over 50 degrees C in there. I temporarily shaded it by using an old dust sheet on the south side.

Having some gardening supplies, like pots with water reservoirs would help as well. I think I might even move back to having greenhouse beds rather than growing in buckets in the future.

Malaysian Pickle - Quick, Low Allergy Acar

As mentioned in a previous post, I decided my life wasn't busy enough so I've started to volunteer at the local Beaver scout group. This has been great fun and with a group of friends its been fun to have a bit of input into what we get up to each week. 

A few weeks ago one of my friends and I got to plan out the lesson on healthy eating. This is a subject I'm quite passionate about and really enjoy getting my own children to help with food. We were constrained a bit though, having fourteen 6-8 year olds cooking at the same time would be hard work and having enough facilities to keep them all occupied would be nearly impossible!

What Would You Waste Less If Times Were Hard?

Of course none of it is really waste!

But when you grow your own and cook most of your meals from scratch it can certainly create some waste! Below are two buckets of "waste" that I created between Sunday and Wednesday! 

This all gets added to the compost pile and in time will really help to improve my soil. 

Because I grow so much veg I can be a little more wasteful with some of the veg, for example we eat a lot of Swiss Chard at this time of year (two times a week) but I never use the stems! We've got so much growing, it just doesn't seen worth it. 

 In the buckets above there are the leaves and peelings from cleriac, carrots, beets, chard, courgette (last one), shallots, onions and gone over apples.

If times were hard, very little of those buckets would be heading to the compost pile. Everything would be used, veg would be scrubbed before being peeled, leaves would be saved and I'd make lots of stock each time. This is potentially something I should be doing away, but there are only so many hours in the day.

The cooked peeling would then be strained, the stock saved for human consumption and the cooked peelings would be given to the chickens or other livestock. Although not with the current laws of course!

So if times were much harder what would you waste less of?

What potential food source do you throw away?

This Weeks Veg Box

As you know I've been doing a few veg boxes lately and using my friends as guinea pigs. 

Here's one I made up at the start of the week.

It contains:-

One bunch of Di choggai beets (and a white beet "Albino" to try)
Two little gem lettuces 
The last red kohlrabi 
Red cabbage red acre
300g of French beans (filet type, minidor yellow bean)
Yellow courgettes
A small bunch of pruvian black mint
Large bunch of red Russian kale

What do you think? 

Do you like the selection?

What would you pay?

Interesting Beets

I've got quite a few beds of beets in this year and I love trying new and interesting varieties. 

So far I've got three beds I can harvest from at the moment and these are the beets from each one that me and the children pulled up for tea last night.

From left to right Golden, Di Choggia and Albino! 

Only the middle one has got a decent name! Shame really, who'd call a plant Albino! 

The Di Choggia is really beautiful when it's cut up but they all taste amazing. I think I need to do a blind taste test really to see which is best. 

This lot got made into soup and due to the selection it didn't have the deep red colour that you'd normally get from beetroot soup but still tasted amazing served with fresh baked granary rolls. 

What's your favourite variety of beetroot?

Veg Box

Yesterday I put together a little veg box to say thank you to my doctor who had helped me out the day before. 

I think it looked pretty good. It contained:

Red oak leaf lettuce
Butter head lettuce
Bunch of radishes
Mange tout peas
Bunch of Di choggia beets
One kohlrabi.

Producing veg boxes is something I'm seriously considering to do next year at the moment, along with eggs I could also add at the moment kale, golden beets, bunched herbs, bag of mizzuna leaves, Paris market carrots, green garlic and broad beans.

Does anyone reading this receive a veg box? 

How many items do you get and what do you pay (if you don't mind me asking)? 

Do you sign up for the year or on a week by week basis?

Spring Harvests

Lots coming out of the garden already! Good if you like leafy greens at the moment! 

Lettuce Cancan, I've sold most fo these now. The bed will be claered this weekend then sowed with five rows of carrots. 

White seeded Samara, growing for seed and to sella few - these look lovely. 

A whole bed of spicy salad greens, I mmixed this myself but it seems to be a great mix. 

Beetroot bed - I transplanted these but they've taken so well. Three rows, with plants spaced at 4inches

First pull of beets

Di Choggia cut up ready for tea

Beeteroot tart 

A bed of radishes is ready now as well. Love the colours on these!

What are you having out the garden at the moment?

Pea Supports

Call me lazy but I lately I hate growing climbing plants. It's the extra effort of putting up the supports, tying them in and making sure they stay up. 

Trouble is there's lots of plants I want to grow that are not dwarf varieties. These two peas as are a good example, Bijou mange tout and a Latvian soup pea, both grow big and need good supports (seed bought form The Real Seed Catalogue) so a few sprigs of hazel weren't really going to cut it! 

I had a look a bout the place and found some lengths of concrete reinforcing bar about 8ft (2.4m) long. That was going to take some bending from the weight of a few peas! I had six lengths, perfect for two beds. 

Stood on one of my saw horses I knocked them in with a sledge hammer. I kept going until they were stood six feet out of the ground. 

Then with the aid of two young assistants I tied string every six inches up the bars (they held the string for me), I'm hoping this will prove strong enough for them, I've not grown climbing peas before, normally I stick to dwarf ones, so I've no idea how it will hold up.

What do you use for pea supports? 

How big do your climbing varieties get?

Do you think my supports will be strong enough or should I upgrade the string?

Season Extention

There's quite a bit of season extension going on in my garden at the moment! 

I'm trying everything to see if I can get some earlier crops, I've got hoops with net (for birds really), hoops with plastic, hoops with fleece and black plastic to warm the soil, I've been transplanting crops that I started in modules in the greenhouse as well to give me the best possible start outside. 

What do you do to get an earlier crop?

Purple Sprouting

There's not huge amounts to choose from at this time of year in the garden. 

I still have a few leeks left, lots of chard, nettles (hey their edible, they count!) and my love that is - purple sprouting.

Lets be honest, this is not an easy vegetable to grow. I've described it before as the "footballers wife" of the vegatble world.

It's high maintenance, a heavy feeder, in the plot a long time, every insect wants to eat it and every pigeon from miles around can see it and wants to land on it all winter. 

And every year I think it's not worth the effort, until I eat some. Truth be told, I just love the stuff, my one daughter even eats it raw straight out the garden, I'll often find her snacking off the plant! And there is so little else at the moment that I'd be really lost without it. 

So will I be growing it next year? 

Yep! 

And will it cause me so many problems that I think it's not worth it? 

You can bet on it! 

But come April next year I'm sure I'll feel the same as I do now! 

Who else loves purple sprouting? 

What veg do you grow that's loads of trouble and only worth it when you get to eat it?

Row Cover Cloches

I've posted before about my chicken run row covers, my modular sized beds (10ft by 30") mean that I can make something for one bed and it will fit all of them.

The chickens have left the veg garden for the next few seasons and the chicken run turns into a row cover.

Full bed cloche 

I ordered some proper cloche cover off the internet and although it wasn't as cheap as builders plastic it should last a few years. Cutting it up to fit the cloches wasn't easy as it was pretty windy when I chose to do it. My three year old held the tape measure for me and we managed to cut them to size, it was amazing really, as without her help I wouldn't have been able to do it! 

Currently all the covers are held on with spring clamps (like the type that market stall owners use), this means if I want to ventilate then I can lift the plastic up and hold it in place with a clamp. 

I've got four cloches like this made up so I'm hoping it will extend my growing season for earlier and later crops as well as helping some that enjoy a little extra heat in the summer (tomatoes and peppers).

The one above has my early carrots (Paris Market) under it and I'll put one over my early potatoes, one over my beets and one over some salad.

I'm really looking forward to using these this year and seeing how they work out. 

Anyone else make their own crop protection to extend the season?

Quinoa Growing - Small Scale Grain Growing

I'm very lucky to have a few friends who live quite near by and live a very similar lifestyle. 

Last year when I was at one friends house I was very impressed with their beautiful quinoa growing in their back paddock, I asked them to take a few pictures so I could post it on the blog and she's written a great description of what they did below. 

"We planted a 100 square foot bed with about 120 plants. The seeds germinated really easily in the greenhouse in a normal large plug tray.  I planted them out when they were between 10-15cm high about a 10 to 12 inch spacing between each plant and row. They didn't need staking but did need protection from cheeky rabbits. Birds will not eat the Quinoa seed as it is coated in saponin so netting overhead isn't needed. I only watered them a couple of times to get established then maybe twice during growing season when weather was really hot for a prolonged period. They were very low maintenance plans. I mulched around the plants with grass cuttings to keep down the weeds. The colours on the Quinoa when it is flowering is stunning - we planted Rainbow Quinoa and had beautiful yellow, orange and red colours throughput the patch.

The seeds are ready once the flowers start to die back and colours go dull on the head of the plant. You can tell when the seeds are dry enough because they come out easily when you rub them between your fingers. We harvested ours on 10th September last year. They take around 90 days from planting to harvest. Once we had picked the flower heads we placed them onto a tarp and threshed them with garden canes. The kids absolutely loved this stage. Once we have a nice pile we passed it thought a garden riddle to get large pieces of leaf and stalk out. We then used a very simple system to winnow the grains using an electric fab to blow the chaff away from the seed, letting the clean seed drop into a bowl. We had to repeat this 2-3 times to get clean grain. We managed to get 2.5kg of grain from a small patch of very heavy clay soil.

I decided I would wash the quinoa before cooking rather than wash the whole harvest then attempt to dry it all out. The quinoa grain needs rinsing in water twice before cooking to get rid of the saponin. I was surprised how easy this was as the grain feels a bit sticky when you handle it. The result was a delicious quinoa that tasted fresher and nuttier than anything I have bought in a shop. A revelation on cooking the quinoa gave amazing results. Use twice as much stock as quinoa, and  bring it to the boil then simmer until the quinoa has absorbed all the water (15-20 mins). Once the water is all absorbed, remove the pot from heat, cover it and let the quinoa steam for about 5 minutes."

Thank you Sarah! 

I've long been interested in growing grains and trying to provide some of our staples from the garden, for the last few years I've said I was going to try Quinoa but haven't got round to it or haven't had the veg bed space ready. 

I've read that it's one of the only grains worth growing on a small scale, especially as maize or corn doesn't grow that well here. From the look of their harvest it certainly looks like it would be worth some garden space in the future and she's given me with some seed to start my own if I want to.

What do you think? 

Have you ever grown quinoa or another grain to eat?

How did you find it? Was it worth the effort? Is there another grain type crop that yields as well in a small space?

An Organised Garden

Well almost!

The garden is probably at the only stage in the year where it looks remotely organised. 

Beds are laid out, some of last years crops are still in the ground to be harvested and new ones are nearly ready to be planted. 

As I've got quite a large number of beds laid out this year, I've decided to make sure they're numbered. That way I can easily keep records in my diary of what is planted where and I can also say to my wife that she can pick veg from ## bed if I'm not cooking that night. 

I made the number tags from some off cuts of 6mm (1/4") ply, I painted the numbers on with some black oil based paint and then coated both sides of the tags with boiled linseed oil to give them a bit of protection from the weather. 

I then went and tied these round the garden and realised that the planting plan I'd already drawn up (on the computer luckily) was the wrong way round so needed changing, that's why I've not shared it with you all yet!

The girls and I managed to plant some potatoes today as well, it's a nice first early variety called rocket which will be good with a salad, I know it's still early but I plan to use one of my hooped  frames covered with plastic to make a mini polytunnel. Only one bed planted with them so far - bed 13 - unlucky for some!

Who else numbers their veg beds like this?

Anyone else got their spuds in yet?

More Veg Beds

While the boy sleeps I try to get some jobs done. A little two hour window sometimes exists, and i make sure I hit the ground running. 

Lately the main job has been to convert what was my young tree nursery back into veg garden.

This has been quite an undertaking. The perennial weeds certainly took hold around my trees, growing organically it wasn't a concern for the trees but it's taken some time to get the roots out for veg production again. Nettle have a fair root system on them when they get going! 

I think I've pulled out most of them though, I put some straw on each bed, divide them up with paving slabs and then put plastic on the top to stop nutrients washing away and anything growing until I want it to! Before i plant them properly I'll add some well rotted manure and other amendments depending on the crop.

I've still got a few beds to lay extra paths around and alter the size of further up the garden, but I feel that I'm getting there now. Not having the jungle of young trees at the bottom of the garden is already making it look tidier and hopefully I'll be able to start tackling the soft fruit garden as the weeds start growing again. 

With these at the bottom of the garden it should give me thirty 10ft by 30" beds. enough to do some serious growing, increase our self sufficiency and hopefully sell some surplus.

Who else has let an area go too far with weeds then regretted it as you try to get it back into production again?

Five Root Vegetable Stew

I was in the garden today getting some veg for tea. I decided I was going to cook a stew with the brace of pheasants I brought home from the shoot on Saturday. 

I managed to get pretty much all the ingredients from the garden. The veg in the picture above is (left to right) leek, parsnip, black Spanish radish (a cooking radish) salsify, scorzonera and Jerusalem artichokes. I added a bunch of herbs from the garden and some potatoes I've got stored in the shed. 

I've not tried Salsify or scorzonera before and I was very impressed with how they tasted (I'll do a post on them another time). 

The Black Spanish Radish on the other hand isn't doing very well at winning me over at the moment. It's easy to grow and sowed really late, but tastes very bitter, even when cooked. So far we've tried stewing it and roasting it and both times I've left most of it on my plate and the girls haven't touched it. 

It's a real shame we're not liking the taste as it's so easy to grow and being late in the season means you can grow it when another crop has finished. I was under the impression that it was meant to be fairly mild when cooked and a good bulking vegetable in soups and stews, to me it almost taints the whole dish. 

Does anyone else grow this vegetable? 

What am I doing wrong when I cook it?