Garden Catch-Up

I’ve been neglecting these blogs again. Though my excuse this time is that I’ve been unwell for the past 6 weeks with a chest infection from hell, two courses of anti-biotics, a course of steroids, and almost 6 weeks of continual paracetamol use to try and keep my temperature down. I lost nearly a stone in weight, which I can ill-afford to lose. It was a rough period to say the least. I’m happy to say though that I am definitely over the worst, and the last week has seen my temperature drop to normal, and better ability to breathe. I have COPD, so these chest infections can be quite serious. But I’m good now, and still alive and kicking.

I’ve also been neglecting the garden for much the same reason, and my partner just hasn’t had much time to spend on it either. So, the runner beans have gone to seed and are really stringy, quite unpleasant to eat. But they’re not going to waste, I have been de-poding the beans, for use in soups and stews, I haven’t bothered drying any as yet, just using them as needed. One thing I’ve learnt is that like red kidney beans, runner bean beans need to be boiled fairly fiercely for 10-20 minutes to breakdown potential toxins in the beans. Not sure if these runners are that toxic, but I’m not going to take the risk.

One great success has been the compact carrot variety we grew. They are truly scrumptious, and good sized, lovely washed, topped and tailed and stewed, firm yet soft and really tasty, sweet and earthy.

Potatoes were OK, a couple of kilos in total, and lovely when really fresh from the ground, skins could be gently rubbed off and straight into the pot. Really good.

Now Tomatoes. We planted far too many, and some were planted far to close together, so some suffered from too high humidity, mostly the greenhouse plants, and there was a bit of a rot/blight problem. But careful pruning and thinning out and we are well into a tomato glut. 1 kilo used to make tomato soup, 1.5 kilos to make tomato passata, frozen in ice cube trays to make stock cubes. 1 Kilo to make tomato chutney, turned out really good and tasty. 1 kilo sliced in half, salted, garliced, sprinkled with thyme and roasted gently in an oven for 3-4 hours at 90 C , then turned into a kilner jar and covered in olive oil. There’s several more kilos of tomatoes to find uses for…. we’ll have turned orange by the end of summer!

Big Bertha, ex-tropical storm, has been getting everything very wet for the past 12 hours. Slightly brighter now, and no significant rain for the past 3 hours. A huge clap of thunder this morning, I could feel the floor shake, quite exciting really.

Well, time to wrap up.

 

Veg Garden Growing well … so far

This is the first year in many moons that we have grown any veg. We have the space, whereas before our move our smallish terraced house back garden, although quite capable of growing some veg, was mostly used as a flower garden, and though I say it myself, very nice it was too.

So this year we have plenty of space and much growing on.

Broccoli bed

I have a liking for purple sprouting broccoli. I hadn’t had any since leaving the family home back in the mid 70s. My mum used to grow purple sprouting and even back then it was gradually being ousted in the public mind by the big green calabrese broccoli. So it was with quite surprise that last year the local shop on Chelsea Road, Easton, began selling spears of (fairly) fresh purple sprouting broccoli. I was in broccoli heaven. So purple sprouting broccoli is in the ground and growing on. It’s an early variety so hopefully by november we should have a crop.

Raised beds, growing on.

The veg in raised beds are beginning to show good signs of growth. We bought these beds as a temporary measure, so that we could start the veg garden off. Although there is plenty of space here, we don’t know what we have growing in the garden. It seems to be mostly shrubs and perennials, and several apple and pear trees. But until we let it grow out, we won’t know just what is growing here. So, we are waiting a year before making too many radical changes.

There is a sectioned off area which appeared to be just a garden waste tip, several tonne bags with rotten apples, pruning and grass clippings that were slowly rotting down, and a general overgrown tip area. But as we were clearing it, we found early signs of rhubarb growing (this was back in february), it was almost trodden under foot. So we’re yet to see what else might be planted and as yet hasn’t shown itself.

Ah… hmm… that’s the problem with drafts, I forget about them… So 2 weeks later and the garden has come on even further. Last weekend was a bit of a hurdle though, strong winds, and quite chilly, so a few plants look less comfortable than they did. The salad leaf patch is, however, growing very well, but I can’t say the same about the dwarf french beans… dwarf seems to be the operative word. The courgettes look a bit wind burnt too, I think on reflection we put them out just a little too soon, though saying that, there are signs of several baby courgettes on the way, quite a few flowers so more to come.

As I turn my head to look out the window I see we have a full moon tonight… time for a bit of howling…

I must take some more pics, and that will make more sense of this update.. so tomorrow…