Plantpassion

Winter harvests

I hope you had a great Christmas. I had a week in the Sun arriving back on Christmas eve, so my Festive meal had to be organised in advance. We had a neighbour collect the Turkey (thanks Michelle), Ocado left the groceries in the greenhouse ready for our return, and we went for a walk on Christmas morning to collect the brussel sprouts which we'd been growing on the allotment.

We had to paddle through floods to get to our plot, but the brussel sprouts had survived our week away. The netting had kept off our larger invaders, and the slugs hadn't managed to spoil the tender centres of our great crop. - Even better we've got 3 plants left to harvest next week.

 

Our starter was accompanied by a lovely tray of salads picked from the greenhouse.

Clockwise from the top - Coriander, Mibuna, Mizuna, Red mustard, Purple frills mustard, and winter density lettuce leaves. plus a bit of chervil (note to self, - plant in August not September next year!)

it's a tradition that I always have a tray of salad leaves home grown on Christmas day, (you can see my 2010 selection here)- For the last couple of years i've not bought any supermarket salad at all, - and this year i've even managed coriander to harvest all season long. A lot of mine is grown in pots in the greenhouse, but today I did a session at Grace and Flavour (our community garden) and I picked a large trug of outside grown salad leaves. Purslane, Chervil, (see they planted theirs early enough!) Mizuna, Mibuna and Mustard, were all growing happily and needing to be cropped even though we've had huge amounts of rain and frosty conditions in the last few weeks.

At a time of year when fresh vegetable are sometimes not quite as "fresh" as you'd like them to be, - home grown salad leaves are a present that all gardeners need to treat themselves to.

 

Runner beans, - pretty flowers before the food

When I was child, my parents grew fruit and vegetables. Some like the Raspberries and Apples, I was happy to help them with. Some like the Runner beans seemed to come in such abundance, that I remember with a shudder the huge sessions as a teenager of slicing and blanching beans. (to the point where my sister still can't eat them).

I love them fresh and recently picked from the plant, so I just grow a small tepee of them for end of summer Sunday veg. But now I have a dilemma

because instead of the plain red flowers that my father always had. There are now fantastic tasting beans with different colour flowers, that make your tepees pretty as well as productive.

The 2 tone flowers on the left are in the School garden, and are from seeds given to me by Thompson and Morgan for getting the answers right in a competition. They have the name of EXP09 (experimental?) and  they were sown by children age 5-8. Only one pot out of 45 failed to germinate. Luckily lots of them wanted to take their beans home, so it was only gardening club children that planted them out.

i'll let you know the results of the taste test next week. I'm hoping they fail abysmally. Otherwise they are so pretty that next year i'll end up growing 2 tepees of runner beans, and my son will also grow to shudder at the thought of blanching them for the freezer.

Romance doesn't have to cover lots of miles

My Hubby and I have been together 20 years. The love is still there, but the Romance is often hidden under family life. We even forgot our anniversary in January. (until our friends and family reminded us with cards).

But one of the main reasons I don't get flowers on a regualar basis, is because I moan incessantly about the air miles they travel. So when this arrived on Friday I was truly grateful

This is a bunch of UK grown flowers from Wiggly Wigglers.

I Luurve the fact that it has very few greenhouse grown blooms, and is mostly hardy shrub foliage. The best early spring foliage and hardy blooms collected together to make a great bouquet. Eucalyptus. Ferns, Skimmia, Hebe and Hypericum all make for beautiful bunch in very romantic green and reds.

Wiggly Wigglers in Hereford aren't the only ones growing cut flowers for sale in England, I also know of Ben at the Higgledy Garden (Cambridge) , Georgie at Common Farm Flowers (Somerset) and Jane from Snapdragon Garden (Loch Lomand Scotland). I've yet to find anyone in Surrey, although i'll be growing my own supplies this year, at both the Allotment and the School garden for this summer.

Please let me know if you find more UK based cut flower suppliers, - we grow so many wonderful plants for cutting in the UK, I'd love it if I could just encourage one or two more people to think twice before they pick up that bunch of roses that have been flown halfway round the globe.

When Spring is a long time coming

It may be light after five o'clock now, but i've been feeling a bit bereft the last few days. - Not only has it been too frozen and snowy to do much gardening, but my beloved Mac computer gave up the ghost on me last week.

I've got a new one now, and i'm gradually moving everything across. Today i've been going through some of my thousands of photos.

Obviously looking at summer flowers and baskets of colourful fruit and vegetables could have the ability to make me even more blue, - but then I found this photo

This was taken 2 years ago this week, and it shows my Vegetable plot looking very, - well Februaryish

The good thing is that I also found these

taken at the beginning of July 2010

taken the 1st week of April 2010 and

taken the 1st week of July

and they prove that within a couple of months, I will be harvesting new season's salads, and my vegetable patch will be groaning with the weight of growing crops, rather than shivering under a layer of snow and frost.

Roll on Spring

More space to grow in

When we moved to our current house 3 1/2 years ago, one of the reasons was because we wanted a bigger garden. Now, i've filled all the space i'm allowed (apparently my 7 yr old does need to have a climbing frame and some football/ cricket space) i've been looking at other areas to cultivate.

Luckily, I do have client gardens to "play" in, and there's school gardening club, and the grace and flavour community garden, so i'm not short of practise room, but i've had to say no, to requests from hubby for Brussel sprouts, and asparagus, and cabbages, and no to pleas from my son for pumpkin growing, as our back garden raised plots are being kept for salads, and beans and tomatoes and, - well I grow lots, but there isn't room for big things.

 

Earlier in the year Allotments were created right by the Grace and Flavour community garden and we've been watching with admiration and envy as they've gone from a bare piece of land to productive beauty. (the picture above was taken there, there are lots of wonderful plots, but I love these Sunflowers). My parents have also finally got to the top of their local allotment society waiting list, and have taken on a plot with fantastically productive fruit bushes, As we took yet another jar of jam from them last week (Mara de Bois Strawberry), and admired their onions and Kale and Butternut squash. I was mentally trying to search for extra space to grow more.

We had an allotment when we were in our first flat, (ooh about 18 years ago) and for 2 years we fought marestail and couch grass to grow far too many courgettes, plus some other crops that i've forgotton about now in the mists of time. We know how much work an allotment can be, we know they'll be digging to start with and lots of weeding, and probably disappointment as crops fail the minute you turn your back and don't manage to visit, but yes our name has been on the waiting list for the last few months, and hopefully we should hear this week, as more land is being allocated.

Since our last foray with an allotment, i've read lots of books, blogs and tweets about allotment growing, hopefully learned a huge amount about both growing crops, and about managing them so they take the least amount of work. With an eager family to help me dig and plant and water, and a desire to eat vegetables and fruits i've grown without added chemicals, (plus maybe grow a few flowers, ) i'm hoping more space to grow in will be great for us all, - although i'm going to leave the Jam making to my mum.

Harvest, the end or the beginning?

At this time of year when you're struggling to keep up with a glut of fruit and vegetables from the garden, it's easy to think that this is the beginning of the end for this year. Whereas really, in amongst all the batch baking and freezing and juicing and preserving, you need to be planting to ensure that you have crops in the winter and at the beginning of next year.

If your harvest from the garden this year hasn't amounted to as much as you'd like, don't worry, you havn't left it too late, because you still have a month left at least to get in crops you'll be eating in 2011, and several months to spare if you want to fill the hungry gap of March and April next year. You don't need a large space, or much expertise, just a little enthusiasm and some knowledge of which varieties work well.

Excellent places to order your seeds from include

Sarah Raven don't click on this link if you don't have self discipline, - but the range of winter cropping saladings is the best i've found

Seed Parade A budget seed website, - with excellent germination rates (their Broadbean Aquadulce Claudia) beat Mr Fothergills and T&M in my home trial of germination rates)

Thompson and Morgan (T &M) A giant in the Mail order plant industry, - i'm not always enamoured of their plants, but their range of seeds is unrivalled and their postage service for seeds is excellent

and

Wiggly Wigglers  - one of my favourite companies, who i've heard good things about their ready grown veg mixes, (no not me, I grow all mine from seed) and who now do some winter salad seeds in their range

so that you can get a Christmas day platter like this

If that doesn't give you food for thought and inspiration to start sowing, so that the end of your harvest is the beginning of your winter crops, then come along to my Workshop

Friday 16th September 2011 - 9.30am Horsley Surrey and find out more about growing Herbs and Salads all year round, in the company of other gardeners.

Harvest for this w/e 7th August 2011

 
I havn't been telling you about my harvests so far this year. That doesn't mean there havn't been any, - just that i've normally been picking them 2 minutes before they are made into lunch or dinner, and I havn't had time to photograph them.

Yesterday however, thanks to the M25 being more of a nightmare than usual, I was waiting for my sister to come to lunch, so after spending a pleasant morning harvesting, I actually remembered to get the camera out for a reminder.

I've still got a few lettuces, Lollo rosso, and immatture leaves of Merveille de Quatre Saisons, plus Can Can. The rocket was eaten by flea beetles, but luckily the new season spinach is now ready for salads.

The tomatoes were mostly the Red Alert, and although these are not the easiest to grow, they are the tastiest. These havn't grown to as big as last years, I must remember to water more next year.

As well as Marketmore cucumber, which I find the easiest possible to grow, i've tried the lemon cucumber for the first time this year. The seeds were donated to the school gardening club by Seed Parade, but the ones we planted there were eaten by slugs. Luckily the couple of plants I kept for myself are doing very well in the greenhouse, and I think the fruit is delicious (my son dissagrees with me on this) although the skin needs to be removed.

The french beans have been very successful this year, - I planted 3 types, Speedy, an unnamed French variety, and Purple teepee. These look great, but disappointingly loose all their dark colour when steamed, so my plan to serve up 2 colours of beans failed.

We've also harvested, tons of apples, lots of raspberries, and the first fig this week.

Harvest for Christmas 2010

I've had an extended holiday the last few weeks. Lots of snow and ice have meant that I couldn't garden, - Catching a very rare cold from being inside too much didn't help, and my son was poorly too, so all in all, by the time it got to Christmas, i'd already had time off, and was ready to relax and eat too much.

Luckily my hard work earlier in the year had paid off, and although i've ignored my greenhouse for most of this month I still had a wonderful harvest of salad leaves on Christmas day

From the bottom (clockwise) - Red mustard, Mizuna, red veined sorrel, Coriander confetti, Chervil, Rocket.

I had hoped to add russian Kale leaves to the collection, but they were a bit covered up.

Likewise the spinach, cavelo nero and chard, and the Pigeons didn't like the idea of us having home grown calabrese for christmas dinner

But I did make the stuffing from homegrown Sage, and used Rosemary and thyme in the trivet for cooking the Turkey (a la Jamie Oliver's instructions).

Must try for Brussel sprouts next year....

 

Frozen Fruit and Vegetables

I'm feeling fairly pleased with myself this year, as all of my vegetable beds are full of overwintering crops, that will feed me between now and April.

Trouble is, when the weather's like this, and the temperature hasn't reached above zero, - they're all frozen.

good job I don't have to be self sufficient and there are fruit and veg in the fridge and freezer for dinner.

 

Raspberries in November

if you read my earlier Harvest post, and thought I was joking about the raspberries, - you'd be wrong, - look.

Ok i should have put a copy of the Sunday Times next to them to authenticate them, but honest, - I picked and photographed (and ate) these Raspberries this afternoon 7th November 2010, and there are actually a few more on the plants that aren't quite ripe yet.

The harvest from my Autumn bliss canes this year has been incredible, - starting at the beginning of August, and including winning me (along with my blueberries) the West Horsley Horticultural Society Fruit Cup. I've been picking a bowl of raspberries a week at least. for the last few weeks, it has been down to a teacup size bowl, but heh, - this is into November.

The Secret is, - well i'm not quite sure... They are in a sunny spot in my garden, (but they are only 5 metres from a very tall conifer hedge) There are 2 rows of about 2 metres each, planted about 1.5 metres from a fence. I started with about 15 canes, (and there were about 7 canes of summer fruiting as well) but now there are more than that. -They did get watered a couple of times, from my water butt, but not on a regular basis. They've been planted for 2 full years now, so this is their 3rd season. They were mulched with homemade compost last winter, and have been fed once this season with Worm leachate.

I do however pick them very regularly. I also don't let any fruits that go over stay on the plant.

I'm pretty sure this is the latest i've ever got raspberries, but even if I don't get any more from my plants this season (go on sun, shine this week to ripen the rest) i've got about 3 punnets worth in the freezer. So i'm hoping for a couple more raspberry smoothies at least this year, and very much looking forward to even more next year.