The Garden - 2009

A few months back we made some big changes to the garden. Gone are the majority of the pots from last year and in are raised beds made from recycled pallets, of which was Hubby's idea. Initially I was a bit anti getting rid of all the pots we had spent ages sourcing, but with a bit of shuffling and ridding of pots that had cracked, Hubby got down to making the raised beds. He picked up the pallets for free from work. His resourcefulness shows no ends, though at the moment he has put a stop at the idea of making a shed from old pallets...though if we had a garden big enough I'm sure he'd give it a good go.

With the lessons we learnt last year we've planted a slightly different selection of veg this year and have improved our gung-ho method for vegetable growing thanks to a mini greenhouse from Ikea and the ingenious Paper Potter.



Planted so far this year we have strawberries, radishes, spinach, beetroots, carrots, mixed salad, artichokes, rhubarb, broad beans, garlic, peas, kale, sweetcorn, brussel sprouts, leeks and the grape vine has sprung back into life, but there is yet any fruit on it. We also have some Purple Sprouting Broccoli ready to be planted. In addition to all this we also have the odd mushroom thanks to some free mushroom compost that had been given to us.



I also now have a dedicate area for my herb garden currently we have mint, thyme, rosemary & sage. Once the garlic has been harvested I can use their pot for a second herb garden containing chives, coriander, basil & another herb I haven't decided on yet. Due to limited space in the garden we now have a general rule - it can only be planted if it has culinary uses. Hence the Butterfly Lavender, not only does it look good, smell good, keeps flies away but can also be used in the kitchen.

The one little problem we've had this year was the salad we grew. We sowed too much of it at once, couldn't eat it fast enough and it bolted. The radishes have been deliciously spicy and it won't be long before the strawberries have ripened. I'm looking forward to trying everything else once it has been harvested. Nothing beats vegetables fresh from the ground.

The Garden Update

Things have been busy in the garden. We're very much throw it in, leave it and hope for the best kind of gardeners, some stuff worked better than others. We're new to vegetable gardening so it has been a steep learning curve. We've also had to contend with slugs and caterpillars chomping away at the leaves. Where is the resident Mr & Mrs Toad (who usually live under the BBQ) when we need them?!?

I suppose we're living proof you can grow veg in containers in a small garden and with no greenhouse. Although we're by no means self-sufficient the few veg we have managed to grow has helped to cut down on shopping bills and nothing tastes better than veg picked fresh from the garden.


When I saw the seed packet for Rainbow Carrots I knew I had to have them. Although the seed packet was mixed it produced mostly white/yellow carrots that looked like parsnips. They may not have been the traditional carotene orange, but they sure tasted good. Sweet and succulent with a strong carrot flavour. They were very easy to grow, but lost some due to bolting back in July.


This year we've grown 3 varieties of tomatoes. Tumbling Toms in hanging baskets plus Black Tomatoes and some tomatoes that according to the packaging are the sweetest in the world. They were started in Hubby's dads greenhouse. We have lots of tomatoes, but none are ripen and ready to eat yet. We need to good few days of sunshine to get them red. If they don't hurry up and ripen we'll be making a huge batch of green tomato chutney.


Today we dug up the last of the beets. These are the same beets I used in my crazy coloured beetroot risotto. The shape of them means they are perfect for growing in pots. Like the carrots we lost some to bolting, but whats left are lovely sweet and earthy beetroots. When they started to grow they were so sweet and tender you could eat them raw.


I think the Blue Ballet Squash plants deserve the award for the "I can take over the garden" award. We started out with 5 seeds. 1 didn't germinate leaving us with 4 in the pot. As the plants grew 2 of the plants were transferred to my parent's garden, it has now got to the point were I'm donating one of the plants to school's Gardening Club as they are beginning encroach on the rest of the garden. According to the literature that came with the seeds "Each plant should produce two or three fruits up to 2kg each". Trust me, the rate we're going we'll be eating squash for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I love the way the plant winds itself around anything it can grasp. It's amazing how strong the little coils are. This is also one of the seeds we've been growing for the River Cottage Seed Project. In the next week we're hoping to try some of the flowers.


Now for the disappointing veg we've tried to grow. The picture above is the only Blauhide french bean we have. It's about an inch long. I don't think we'll be cooking with it any time soon! It's a shame as it is one of the River Cottage seeds. It could be that the pots are just not suitable for the beans.


These Falstaff sprouts were doing fantastically until a few days ago. We've had a sudden infestation of caterpillars. Probably explains why the garden has been full of butterflies recently. Serves me right laughing at the state of the school gardening club's cabbages, earlier on in the week, which are in a similar state.

So with the lessons we've learnt this year Hubby has already ordered seeds for next year. Bring it on!

Curry Monday - Chard Aloo

For the last few weeks the garden has truly bloomed...and bolted in some places. A combination of hot sunshine and lots of rain made the rhubarb chard we had planted as part of the River Cottage Seed Project bolt over the space of 2 days. A bit of searching around the internet found that we could still eat bolted chard (unlike bolted radishes, yuk!)

I used the lovely Mallika's recipe for Saag Aloo. I'm not sure if you can use the word "saag" if it is made with chard, hence why I've called it Chard Aloo. I made a very tasty curry that I will certainly be having again.

Mr & Mrs Robin and the River Cottage Seed Project

We have a cheeky pair of robins that have been around for a couple of years and often come to have a nosy when Hubby is gardening. We think they have a nest somewhere in the eaves of the outhouse as over the last week they have been busy feeding from the insect suet ball hanging in the garden. Now, we have been trying to get a photo of them for the last few days, but every time we got the camera out they fly off. In the above photo Mr Robin posed nicely for a photo, but in the split second decided to dive for the new vegetable planters. If you click on the photo you'll get better resolution. It made me chuckle when I saw the photo and would like to see if anyone can come up with a fitting caption!

Hubby has River Cottage membership and is taking part in their Seed Project. Today our seeds arrived and they were Blue Ballet Squash, Blauhilde climbing French bean and rhubarb chard. We haven't tried to grow any of these veg before and I'm interested to see them grow, and of course taste them.

Our radishes are nearly ready to harvest. We were a bit late planting them so they are only just ready. I may roast some of them to go with the roast chicken dinner tomorrow. On another positive gardening note the lavender out front has gone crazy, the strawberry plants are flowering and I didn't kill the grapevine after all!

A Kind of Key Lime Pie

It could take me a while to write this entry as I have quite a large Pimms induced headache...Above is a photo of our back garden at 8.30 this morning. It was lovely and cool and peaceful. It may be small, but still great for entertaining and relaxing. Our vegetables in the planter are doing far better than the did last year. I was trying to take a photo of Mr Robin who is forever in our garden, but he was being a bit camera shy. Last night we had the first BBQ of the year and christened our new BBQ. Well I say "new" go bought it at the end of Summer 2006, but due to the weather being so awful last year it never made it out of the box.

We cheated slightly and got chorizo sausages and lamb and mint burgers from the butcher, but I made a rack of Alabama pork ribs with a sweet and spicy glaze that was delicious. It was all served with pitta breads, rocket salad plus potatoes, onions and mushrooms that were cooked on the BBQ.

It was washed down with Pimms, River Cottage Stinger Ale, and Schweppes Summer Punch which is a great non-alcoholic Pimms tasting drink.



The pudding was the hardest thing to decide on. In my eyes a perfect BBQ pudding involves glorious Summer fruit like Eton Mess or Summer Tiramasu, but the PYO farm down the road isn't open yet as it is still a bit early for strawberries and I refuse to spend £2 on a punnet of 8 sorry-looking strawberries from Morrisons. Nigella came to my rescue with a Key Lime pie. It was a perfect, light refreshing end to the BBQ. The one problem I did have, which may be apparent in the photo, is the biscuit base. It just didn't stick together. I was a bit dubious when I read the recipe for the base, to me it couldn't possibly work but took my trust in Nigella. Next time I make it I'll use the base recipe I use in my Baileys Cheesecake. In the recipe below I have included the altered base recipe.

A Kind of Key Lime Pie
Serves 8-12

170g digestive biscuits, crushed
70g butter
Juice and zest of 4 limes
400g can of condensed milk
300ml double cream

1) Melt butter in saucepan then stir in crushed digestive biscuits until thoroughly mixed. Press into 20cm diameter springform tin. Press up the edges a bit to give a crust. Chill for an hour

2) With an electric whisk, beat together the cream, juice, zest and condensed milk until thick and creamy. Pour over base and sprinkle with some of the lime zest. Chill for at least and hour before serving.

April snow

The past few days we have witnessed all the 4 seasons, often within a few hours of each other. On Thursday I was walking around town in a short-sleeved top and this morning awoke to find 2 inches of snow blanketing the ground and to make it even more beautiful there was a bright blue sky. I love this kind of weather, even if it is April!

I'm just hoping the snow hasn't killed off some of the things we planted a few weeks ago, the poor rhubarb is looking very sorry for itself.