A Lot Is Happening In The Garden

Lots going on in the garden this week and our kitchen is a veritable hive of activity, preparing, freezing, bottling and pickling our produce.

We have now harvested the potato pods containing the varieties Lady Chrisi and Red Magic, both of which were delicious.  The Lady Chrisi is not unlike the Charlotte, a beautiful firm texture that makes wonderful potato salad whilst the Red Magic is quite floury  and is gorgeous roasted.

The potato pods that we emptied have been re-planted with Christmas varieties of Maris Peer and Charlotte and hopefully we will be eating home grown potatoes until the end of the year.

The Onions, Sturon, have now been lifted and are basking in the sunshine until they have completely dried off. By the way, I would thoroughly recommend the onion bags available from www.nutleyskitchengardens.co.uk. I feel lucky to have discovered these as they really are very inexpensive but the quality is superb.

We have lifted the red onions and shallots which are also drying off and will be stored in the onion bags in the garage.  I feel confident that we will have sufficient to keep us going until next season, in spite of the very slow start we had.

Our freezer is now getting well stocked with runner beans, french beans, swiss chard, spinach and rhubarb and we will enjoy eating these during the winter months.

Beautiful little baby beetroots have been preserved in vinegar and the only difficulty there is resisting the temptation to keep dipping into them.

We still have an absolute mountain of cucumbers from a solitary plant in the greenhouse.  I have been assured that they will last for over two weeks if wrapped tightly in clingfilm before storing in the fridge.  I haven't put this theory to the test yet but fully intend to try it out.  Tomatoes from the greenhouse are picked on a daily basis and are superb.

I have also been assured that courgettes pickle very successfully.  I must say it sounds a little odd to me and I would love to hear from anybody that has tried this.

Yet Another Cold Week In The Garden

It remains cold but at least this week it has remained dry enabling my husband Peter to start cutting the grass.  With the blade up high he has taken the top layer off and raked out some moss and it certainly looks considerably better for some loving attention.

We actually have an ideal partnership.  Peter can't tell a weed from a welly so I get to choose what to grow and where to put it while he does all the donkey work such as keeping the lawn looking nice and carrying out any digging or heavy work.  That suits us both and we are perfectly happy each doing our own thing.

A week or two ago I planted a few radishes in the vegetable garden but, as yet,  they are showing no inclination to appear. However I am ever hopeful that if it warms up just a little they may make the effort.

This week I have planted some "Early Nantes" carrot seeds in containers.  I have found from experience that,  if you only have a small garden,  this is an ideal way of growing them as I pull beautiful straight and attractive carrots rather than the mis-shapen, somewhat ugly specimens grown in the open ground.

I have also sown pots of leeks in the greenhouse and some "Red Baron" onion sets outside.

One final task this week was to plant "five" seedlings of "Tumbling Tom" tomatoes in a hanging basket and this will remain in the greenhouse until all danger of frost has passed.

Last year I planted about "twelve" seedlings in the hanging basket but this was a BIG mistake.  Yes, they grew well and the foliage was massive but it produced hundreds of tiny tomatoes no bigger that a pea.  We did bravely eat a lot of them but I am very much hoping that giving them more room to spread their roots will yield better results.  We shall see.