Spring potager

 It always looks it’s neatest at this time of year, then it gets horrifically overgrown with some parched bits as the weather gets too hot to do so much!

Spring gardening

Rhubarb growing - I thought it was dead!

Blossom on an apple tree

Broad beans starting to bean

Mowed and strimmed ready for weeding!

Planted cabbage, spinach, peas and mangetout

Strawberries planted. Cigaline (non remontant) in the front 2 rows, mariguette (remontant) in the middle 2 rows and some that we had in pots in the back 2 rows.

 

Home grown vegetables

Kale and courgette are the veg I can grow the best. But we do have a few other things for variety.

Sugar snaps (with bbq sausage.

Mange tout with toad in the hole.

There are some cabbage, some carrots (which may well not survive the vole), tomatoes and beans. Also some cucumber and melon tht never do well for me, but I don’t give up!

I have planted kale, but they died in the heatwave.

Planted some more things…

I can never remember when has been successful for planting each thing. In the end when things get planted depends on when there is good weather to get the weeding done. The amount of compost/horse poo that has been applied also varies a lot (depending on the Autumn weather, our energy at the time etc etc), as a consequence, results vary year to year :)

The chickens enjoyed the result of all the weeding

Some beans, peas and cabbage

Courgette

Potatoes planted

Planted the potatoes and weeded somewhat for planting tomatoes and sweetcorn in due course.

We only created these beds last year and I ended up rearranging them somewhat to make them easier to mow around. The area around the bed is mainly nettles, but hopefully frequent mowing will help it turn in to grass.

New raspberries planted

I managed to kill the Willamette raspberries trying to encourage them to grow in a different direction to the one they wanted and possibly by pruning them at the wrong time.

I decided to plant the new ones in a narrower row in the hope that it will make netting them easier, we shall see…

Planted a row of Willamette plus a row each of these. I always get confused about how I am meant to prune the different types. Hopefully can manage to work it out and not murder these ones!

Summer fruits

I kind of messed up the strawberries and one lot of raspberries so we haven’t had loads this year. There have been enough raspberries to make a couple of jars of raspberry jam (made with honey! so exciting!)

The black current crop is best yet though, and Doug did an awesome job picking lots of them. I have made some jam and am in the progress of making jelly too (also with honey!), there are some in the dehydrator too (to have with cereal and yoghurt)

Only a few blueberries ripe as yet, but if we can keep the birds off them, there are quite a few to come…

Growth in the veg garden

It’s very difficult providing veg throughout the year. You keep having to weed and plant and tend.

We have kale and not much else through the winter, some new stuff is just coming in, but not in large quantities.

We had 3 sugar snap peas each in the bibimbap on Sunday. Hopefully there will be more soon! Also flowers from the kale that has heroically seen us through the winter. Like purple sprouting broccoli! Also some pea flowers and shoots that got weeded by mistake!

The broad beans are just coming through. We ate a couple ‘mange toute’, with luck there will be more soob.

We had the one bean each with steak and roast potato and some kale flower

Also planted new kale to see us through next winter. It’s so hard to plan ahead and make sure their will be veg later even when not much now.

Peas not quite there yet

Spinach that overwintered and was just starting to bolt. I need to plant some more...

3 mange tout each (with lamb and roast potato for easter). More coming soon

More potato planted

Rhubarb rising

 

Logs and vegetable beds

 - Can I have that log?

- No

- Can I have that log?

- No

- How about this one?

- Weeeeell ok then

It’s hard to get a log round here, they are all scheduled for planking!

I managed to score a few to go round the new veg beds. 

I’m trying cardboard to suppress the weeds and horse poo on top, I’ll plant the squash and sweetcorn that are going in them through the card. There’s going to be a 3rd one for tomatoes, possibly with a shelter/polytunnel over as they tend to get mildew round here otherwise...

New Vegetable Beds

It may be madness as I can barely keep on top of the veg/fruit garden as it is, but we have decided to put some more beds on a bit Doug just dug out of the brambles. It gets good sun all day and is by a hose outlet, we hope to grow some things the chickens can eat as well as some for us...

After some nightmare weeding of bramble stumps and nettles all over the shop

I’m trying cardboard as a way to suppress the weeds with lots of horse poo on top (that grows it’s own weeks, but at least they are not nettles or brambles...)

Needs many more barrow fulls. The horses give us a barrow load a day, so plenty more where that came from!!

I’m thinking of planting squash and courgette in this bed , potato in one of the other ones and then some comfrey and other things that the chickens will like in the final bed that isn’t started yet...

Tomato seed saving

In Spring, during first lockdown, I planted some seeds from a supermarket cherry tomato.

They grew well initially, then had a bit of a hard life when I allowed them to get smothered in weeds. Once allowed to see the sun and breath again after some weeding they did pretty well, so I have saved some seeds in the hope of creating my own tomato strain that thrives on neglect!

Tea bush. Camillia sinesis

 I was SO excited when I read in the paper the other day that the bush tea is made from will grow fine in the UK, meaning that presumably it would here too. I had always assumed it was a hot climate plant, but apparently they are good down to -10°C

We are starting off with just one until we see how it goes, but would like to get a few more in the fulness of time if it pans out. Not all plants thrive under our care 😳

I’ve cleared a space for it, but the weeds are jostling to come rushing back in.

It arrived looking very healthy

Broad beans and peas

I always mean to plant broad beans and peas in October, but generally don’t get round to it (due to the potager being lost in a jungle if weeds generally) I did once and the deer ate them. The theory is good but there can be issues in the implementation.

This year I am trying again.

There is a lovely lovely view from the potager while I am doing it because Doug has done lots of work behind the house to tidy up all the trees. Many benefits including the clearer view, fewer leaves in the gutters as well as removing the chance of them smuching the house during a wind storm.

Here are the two beds, lovely and weed free for a few moments. Fingers crossed they grow and no deer or sheep eat them when they do.

Salad wot we did grow

 

Blackcurrent Mini Morsels Recipe

For the pastry

130g flour

50g room temp butter

50g caster sugar

1 small egg

For the filling (or use jam as that is what it is!)

130g blackcurrents

130g sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Lakeland mini morsel or similar small baking tray

Make the filling by heating the black currents with the lemon juice until soft and broken apart. Add the sugar and heat gently until you get to a set. You are basically making a very small amount of jam. Allow to cool thoroughly.

To make the pastry, cream together the butter and sugar until pale.

Add the egg and mix a little to break it. Add the flour slowly until the mix is a soft dough. You want it to mould easily, but not be too soft and buttery.

Divide the mix between the 24 holes in the tin and press down to the bottom. Use the poker thingy with the lakeland set to shape the pastry to line the mould, or just use your fingers.

Blind bake at 175°C for about 15 mins until lightly browned. No need for beans or anything.

Fill each shell with the the jam. Really full!

Reheat gently for about 5 mins at 175°C, you don’t want to boil the jam as that will cause it to overflow.