Sunday 28 December 2014

Frozen veg

We had the first winter frost last night and the veg were looking lovely this morning.

Wintry spring cabbage
Wintry spring cabbage
Overwintering broad bean Aguadulce
Overwintering broad bean Aguadulce
The last remaining red cabbage
The last remaining red cabbage
Pretty secondary cabbage growth
Pretty secondary cabbage growth
So now it will be time for a taste test to see whether kale, parsnip and Brussels sprouts are really sweeter after being frosted.

Frosted kale
Frosted kale
Yesterday the neighbouring farm held a classic tractor ploughing competition and I was tempted to ask some of them to come and do our bottom paddock afterwards. Hope our soil will be like this:
Nicely ploughed
Nicely ploughed
Tomorrow the first of the many black plastic sheets should come off and preparation of a new soft fruit area will begin, using the failed tent boat garage structure as the basis for a fruit cage. There's a use for everything.

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2015 be a bountiful year!



Saturday 6 December 2014

December sunshine

We finished our last onion on 1 December and had to buy some at the supermarket this week. It felt wrong. The remainder of the carrots went into the freezer so we're now down to kale (en masse), spring cabbage, sprouts, leeks, neeps, parsnips, celeriac and Swiss chard. Not bad. From some angles the veg garden still looks really busy:

The busy third of the veg garden.
The busy third of the veg garden
 To my delight, I discovered another Romanesco in the brassica overspill section:

Hidden Romanesco
 Hidden Romanesco
All the tender perennials are tucked up in the conservatory where they are doing very well, especially the Vietnamese coriander.

Vietnamese coriander
Big Vietnamese coriander and small lemon verbena
Thyme grown from seed
Thyme grown from seed
What's not doing so well is my Meyer lemon tree. I think I seriously overwatered it. It has four ripening fruits but only two leaves. I've now moved it into the warm kitchen, on to a sunny windowsill, to dry it out and see if it recovers. Maybe Scottish lemons is pushing it a bit, but you've got to try these things.

Please survive, little lemon tree!
Please survive, little lemon tree!
I've had a greenhouse clear-out. The tomato plants are all on the compost heap, and we had the last little green tomatoes yesterday. Now it's all salad in the greenhouse, with a few sweet peas and some perpetual strawberries (will we have a few strawberries for Christmas?). I've potted up a whole lot of quick-growing tatsoi so hopefully we'll get some winter salad leaves or at least early spring ones.

The winter salad project
The winter salad project
Inside, the wine keeps maturing, though we've already drunk three bottles of carrot wine (out of five) so there might be supply issues at some stage.

Rosehip, parsnip and carrot & ginger wines on the go
 Rosehip, parsnip and carrot & ginger wines on the go
The felines are still providing excellent rodent control, which is sorely needed. I found one celeriac totally chomped and even saw the blasted vole running off (no feline in sight unfortunately).

Compost cat
Compost cat
Of course, the weather has turned since I took these photos, but it's nice to remember that we had beautiful sunshine at the beginning of December and that it was warm enough to sit out! So I leave you with a picture of the magnificent Russell enjoying the rays.

Sun-loving chickens
Sun-loving chickens

Wednesday 12 November 2014

End of season

It's the end of the line for a lot of the produce now. The courgettes finished at the end of October - there were still new flowers, but all the tiny courgettelets were rotting in the damp weather. This week I pulled the remaining carrots. The carrots had been at their best about six weeks ago, with no need for peeling, so next time I shall harvest earlier.

Last of the carrots and tomatoes
Last of the carrots and tomatoes
In the veg garden, it's pretty much down to the brassica family now, plus leeks and Swiss chard. I sowed Aquadulce broad beans today - let's see how they cope with the winter.

The Christmas Brussels
The Christmas Brussels
Spring cabbage
Spring cabbage
As much kale as any heart could desire
As much kale as any heart could desire
Enormous Swede Marians
Enormous Swede Marians
Swiss chard and the garlic's already coming up
Swiss chard and the garlic's already coming up
It's definitely time for a bit of a tidy-up, but we're already delighted that we can put the fork in almost anywhere without hitting stones or gigantic weed roots. Talking about weeding, I invested in a Cape Cod weeder - what a marvellous hand tool that is. Superfast weeding and great for removing docks.

Chopped down artichoke
Chopped down artichoke
I cut down the globe artichoke plants for the winter. Now I just need to gather a whole lot of bracken for their winter cover. Can't wait to have a full artichoke harvest!
The beds are starting to empty out
The beds are starting to empty out
Still some autumn raspberries
Still some autumn raspberries
The raspberries are the last of our fruit and are holding out surprisingly well. Soon the canes will all have to be cut down as well.

Two things that are just coming into season are fish boxes and sea weed. The stormy weather has deposited a lot of both on our beach. The sea weed will go into our compost, after a rinse, and be mulch for our blueberries. Maybe we'll also make some liquid fertiliser in one of the rain barrels. As for the fish boxes, there is no end of their use in the garden.

Sea weed for the garden
Sea weed for the garden
First bottle of carrot wine to be opened tonight!







Monday 27 October 2014

Into the oven

The Rayburn is back on again and I've had to change my mode of cooking from stove top pressure cooker to everything in the oven. We're now having soups or stews casseroled in the oven every day, slow cooking from breakfast onwards. I'm alternating between carrot, leek and potato, mixed veg (potato, kale, kohlrabi, celeriac, parsnip and carrot) and parsnip, with an occasional butternut squash soup. The easiest dish is baked whole pumpkins, served with butter, salt and pepper. At this rate the pumpkins are going to run out before the New Year.

Kinda cute celeriac
Kinda cute celeriac
It's very windy again and we've had a fair bit of rain so the veg garden is looking a bit forlorn these days. Soon it will be time to dig beds over and tidy up. All the pumpkin plants joined the compost heap last week and Jim turned over all the compost; there is some lovely stuff to enrich the beds.

The fruit and veg wines are merrily fermenting away and we bottled the bramble wine the other day. Luckily there were two glasses left over to sample and very fine it was already.

Larbrax Bramble '14
 Larbrax Bramble '14
Quite an absorbing hobby, this wine making.

Sunday 12 October 2014

Monster from the deep

We harvested the first parsnip this week. It took us 20 minutes to get it out; the monster weighed in at 2.2kg.

Monster parsnip next to normal-sized parsnip and carrots
Monster parsnip next to normal-sized parsnip and carrots
This is how it scrubbed up
This is how it scrubbed up
It's not going to win any beauty contests, that's for sure. Since most parsnip wine recipes call for 2kg of parsnips, the fate of the monster seems preordained.

The weather's turned chilly, the wellie season has begun and it's only a matter of days until the Rayburn gets fired up for the winter.

Autumn weather
Autumn weather
Our autumn raspberries (Autumn Bliss, Fall Gold and All Gold) are cropping well in their first year already and we have delicious raspberry porridge every morning.

I harvested most of the pumpkins and squashes and transplanted some herbs and salads into pots to keep them going in the greenhouse. The courgettes are still going strong. I wonder how long they'll keep going.

Metro gourds and Jack be littles
Metro gourds and Jack be littles
We didn't have much damage from our first two autumn gales, but the rocket got a funky haircut:

Rocket after 60mph
Rocket after 60mph
The garlic is ordered. No skimping this time. I've already planted some supermarket cloves, but have also treated myself to 40 cloves from the Real Garlicky Company.

Heard on Farming Today last week that there is a company growing tea in Scotland and that they are looking for more producers. Now there is a project for next year!

Thursday 2 October 2014

Ready for the storm

The first autumn gale is upon us and a second one scheduled close behind so we spent a busy few days harvesting and clearing up. Most of the onions are now drying in the guest room and some pumpkins are hanging out in the vestibule.

Jack be Little pumpkins
Jack be Little pumpkins
Now this pumpkin variety is called Jack be Little so I was expecting smallish pumpkins, but maybe they should rename it Jack be Tiny. At least the second lot is looking a more useful size.

We've just had a lovely gourmet weekend, with lots of garden produce, including artichokes and a watermelon. I couldn't resist and left some flowers on some of the artichoke plants for a small sampler.

Gourmet weekend cornucopia
Gourmet weekend cornucopia
Artichoke starter
Artichoke starter
Scottish watermelon dessert
Scottish watermelon dessert
 I've been experimenting with the dehydrator a fair bit. Drying tea herbs - excellent. Kale crisps - very good, which is just as well as I've gone a bit overboard with the kale, but only make what you want to snack on that day since the crisps don't keep well. Courgette crisps - disgusting, never again. Brambles - looks good, but the taste test will be in the porridge of the coming weeks.

Tabasco a go go
Tabasco a go go
We've also been using 30 of our finest chillies to make our own Tabasco sauce. This has been quite a drawn-out process: three weeks of fermenting in a homemade Pickl-It jar, followed by one week maturing with vinegar. It should be ready for straining and bottling this week.

Doesn't look like we'll run out of cabbage this winter
Doesn't look like we'll run out of cabbage this winter
In the veg garden, the spring cabbages and kale have come on immensely. They are ready to eat already! The leeks have also bulked up nicely.

Leeks Musselburgh, but they also work on the west coast
 Leeks Musselburgh, but they also work on the west coast
A big thank-you to Green Bean who's sent me a gift of Egyptian onion babies, which I just managed to plant in a sheltered corner before the gale hit.

The middle paddock is on its way to becoming an orchard
The middle paddock is on its way to becoming an orchard
Next to the veg garden, the middle paddock is slowly turning into an orchard, with four apple trees, 12 blueberries, six raspberries and two tayberries. We've already got the plastic down for a further six fruit trees this winter. Please note the nicely scythed grass!

The next few days will be spent hunkering down indoors. Might be the perfect opportunity to decide how to spend my first seed voucher...



Wednesday 24 September 2014

Save the cabbages

I finally found out why everyone hates cabbage whites with such a passion. The remaining cabbages were coated with cabbage white caviar and there was nothing for it but to harvest all of them and process immediately. Three red cabbages were cooked up with apple, cloves and red wine and portioned up for the freezer and four white cabbages (Christmas Drumhead) went into the crockpot to make sauerkraut (hopefully no mould this time - we're keeping a close eye on the water level this time). A small red cabbage went into a home-made Pickl-It jar for making red sauerkraut and there was still enough cabbage left for a big batch of coleslaw.

It was definitely a good idea to get the cabbages and other brassica going early so that I'd harvested all the cauliflowers and most of the cabbages before the cabbage whites started laying eggs, but next year I'll net the remainder as soon as I see the little white blighters.

Another pest I encountered last week was gooseberry sawfly caterpillar. They'd already deleafed two red currants before I spotted them on the jostaberry. Now what do you do about that? Not even the chickens wanted to eat those.

Poor jostaberry, chomped by gooseberry sawfly caterpillars
 Poor jostaberry, chomped by gooseberry sawfly caterpillars
The major excitement last week other than the referendum (and the reason that I didn't really get any weeding done) is that we had the conservatory redone. The frame was so rotten and full of ants that we decided to bite the bullet and have it redone from the brick up. And it's marvellous. It should now be usable all year round as it's properly weather-tight.

Loving the shiny new conservatory
Loving the shiny new conservatory
The harvests are still plentiful. The peas Douce Provence are super tasty and the mixed radishes are just fun. And then there are still bumper crops of carrots and courgettes. I'm now trying to cook something with chard one day a week, same with kale and swedes. The chard makes a great curry and kale is much nicer with sesame oil (and bacon). We've invested in a dehydrator which arrived this week. Experimentation with veg crisps, fruit leathers and dried tea herbs is about to begin.

Colourful harvest
Colourful harvest
As usual, we had sunflower casualties - this time due to me lifting up the horizontal sunflower to let Jim scythe underneath. But they make such cheerful cut flowers.

Sunny sunflowers
Sunny sunflowers
Back to weeding tomorrow.

Friday 12 September 2014

Good-bye swallows

The swallows left last week and all signs point towards autumn, but the quince tree doesn't think so and has started to flower beautifully:

Confused quince
Confused quince
Meanwhile, the sunflowers have developed a new survival strategy in our windy garden - growing horizontally.

Sunflower survivor
Sunflower survivor
In the veg garden it's harvest time, big time. Lots of courgettes, carrots, beans and potatoes. We also sampled our first leek and Uchiri Kuri squash this week. This wasn't quite as planned, but something had discovered a taste for the squash. I guess that is the downside of squashes where you can eat the skin.

Who's been nibbling at my squash?
Who's been nibbling at my squash?
I think the guilty party has already been exterminated by our feline night watchman. Domino has taken up nightly residence in the veg garden and can be found in the carrot bed of a morning.

When is the best time to pick winter squashes? Any time after they turn the right colour? They are all quite small at the moment so I'm tempted to leave them growing for a few weeks longer.

Tomorrow's purple kohlrabi
Tomorrow's purple kohlrabi
We took our first foray into making wine this week. One batch of carrot wine and one of bramble are on the go and are smelling delicious. It will be a while before we are self-sufficient in alcohol though!

And, with all the sunny weather, I've finally got around to painting two sheds, the summer house and the fence at the front of the house. Looks like the summer house will now become a vegetable store and not a sauna. Any tips on mouse proofing? Maybe I should consult Domino...

A bit of necessary shed TLC
A bit of necessary shed TLC

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Nice melon

Our visitors have been and gone and, despite me feeding them lots and lots of veg, we still have heaps. We obviously need more visitors, especially ones that like potatoes and courgettes (and kale, carrots and Swiss chard).

Last of the cauliflower and first of the purple  carrots
Last of the cauliflower and first of the purple carrots
Factoid of the week: Purple carrots are orange inside
Factoid of the week: Purple carrots are orange inside
The one thing we don't have so much of is fruit though we're doing OK on brambles. The first melon was ripe and smelling invitingly at tennis ball size. It made a delicious amuse bouche for four:

Mini cantaloupe
Mini cantaloupe
Not everything looks end of season in the plot. The peas Douce Provence that I sowed in July are about to come on stream and the sweet and crunchy purple kohlrabi is just really getting going.

Peas again
Peas again
Our first batch of sauerkraut was a failure. The brine level wasn't high enough so it started to go mouldy. Heart-breaking to dump it all on the compost bin, but at least we have more cabbages to try again. I've just had a slug and snail killing spree around the cabbages. The seaweed does seem to help keep them away, but at this time of year some manual removal is obviously necessary. I've been keeping all the harvested cabbage plants and crossing the stalks and new little spring-type cabbages are emerging. Neat little trick.

Second growth from one of the red cabbage plants
Second growth from one of the red cabbage plants
I like how there are always new crops to look forward to, even if it is sad that some things are coming to an end. The cauliflowers are finished, just one Romanesco and a few little broad beans. One of the next crops we look forward to are Brussels sprouts - and all the squashes, of course, leeks and parsnips.

Brussels sprouts Evesham Special
Brussels sprouts Evesham Special
More homebrewing equipment is on its way. Hopefully next week we'll get to start our first batches of wine: bramble wine, of course, and, since we have a bumper crop, we'll give carrot wine a go, as well. Now that's a nice way of preserving veg.