Growing away nicely

After all the frantic activity during April and early May, we have reached that time of year when most (though not all) of the sowing and planting has been done. All my raised beds are full, and the rest of the garden is crammed with pots and containers of potatoes, tomatoes, chillis etc. Now is the time to step back and let the veggies do their own thing. I like this time, because it means there is little work to be done - just the odd bit of weeding, watering and tying-in - and I can dream about all the bumper harvests to come.


The Runner and French beans are settling in nicely, and beginning to reach out for their supporting canes:

Runner Bean "Streamline"

 The Broad Beans are covered in flowers now. If all those set I will certainly get a good crop. I have seen several Bumble Bees coasting from one flower to the next, so let's hope they have done their job well.

Broad Bean "Robin Hood"

These are my Spring Onions. Not big by any stretch of the imagination, but growing away nicely.

The apple tree and pear tree have a fair few fruitlets on them. They blossomed after the last frost (assuming we have HAD the last frost...), so I'm hopeful that at least a few of them will have been pollinated.

Fruitlets on pear "Concorde"

My "Winter Banana" apple tree is new to me, having arrived in January, and I don't really expect any fruit off it this year, but you never know... It has several clusters of fruitlets, but the June Drop will no doubt account for many of them.

Apple "Winter Banana"

There are loads of little fruits forming on the Blueberries and Strawberries, and I'm already planning how to protect them from the birds as they ripen. I never seem to have enough nets!

Talking of ripening, I now have a few chillis that are almost ripe. They are on the plant I call "Turkey, Small, Red",  Although I thought I had hardened it off all right after spending Winter indoors, this plant shed almost all of its leaves soon after being brought outside (it must still have been too cold), but significantly it didn't abort the fruits:

This is the plant's natural reaction to a traumatic event. In catastrophic circumstances like these (or if severely under- or over-watered) the plant will put all its effort into propagation. Even if the plant dies, maybe some ripe seed will produce a successor?


Most of the plants affected by the Fairy Liquid Episode also lost most of their leaves, but they have adopted a different strategy. With no fruits to bring to maturity, they have concentrated on producing another set of leaves. Hopefully they will make a full recovery and go on to produce their fruits in due course. This next one is an "Aji Limon", saved from 2104, so it is already pretty "senior".

New growth on "Aji Limon"

The chillis I am growing from seeds sown in February are doing OK, despite the constant depredations of the aphids.

 I have tried lots of different ways to get rid of the aphids - including the "Eradicate" product I am trialling on behalf of Herbwise Organic Solutions - but none of them have been very effective. The best way of keeping the blessed things in check seems to be to brush them off with a small soft paintbrush, but this is exceedingly time-consuming, so I'm also frequently spraying the plants with a very dilute solution of the "Original" type of Fairy Liquid, alternating with "Eradicate". I also had some casualties on account of a different pest last week. Two of my chillis were killed by slugs, which is very unusual. With so many other plants in the garden, the slugs normally go for easier targets. One plant was eaten right down to ground level, and the other had its stem eaten completely through! It's a good job I have plenty more.


My salads are looking good too. The biggest Lettuces are just about ready for harvesting. Note to self: harvest the first ones soon, because if you don't, by the time you get round to eating the later ones they will be over-mature and possibly bitter.

What I really want now is some lovely sunny weather, so that I can sit out on my patio (wine-glass in hand) and watch my plants grow!

Harvest Monday - 23 May 2016

Well, the Hungry Gap seems to have closed now, and I have some produce to write about!


Star of the show this past week was the Rhubarb, about which I have written separately:

Of course there have been more Radishes. This batch represents several.

We have been eating Radishes almost every day. As well as eating them in our usual way (as a pre-dinner nibble), Jane used some in a salad she made to accompany a Middle Eastern pilaf.

Lettuce, Radish, Mint. Walnuts, Feta

Twice during the week I took another cut off the Baby Leaf Salad patch.

 As previously noted, very few of the Lettuces came up, so it's mostly oriental brassicas - Mizuna, Pak Choi, Komatsuna, Red Mustard etc, with a little bit of Rocket.

Four days after cutting that first batch, this is what the patch looked liked:

As you can see, it was certainly ready for cutting again, so I harvested another big batch:

I say a "big batch", but in terms of weight it is still tiny. However, it's at least as much as you would get in one of those bags of Florette salads you see in the supermarket, possibly two, and each of those is priced at about £1.50. I reckon you can easily get four or five pickings from a salad patch like mine, so in terms of Value for Space Rating (VSR) I think it scores highly. And remember, that little mini-bed is only 18 inches square, so if someone says "I don't have room to grow my own salad", tell them about this!


Incidentally, Radishes are also a good crop to grow if you have limited space. Mine just keep on coming! Here we have "Scarlet Globe" (left), "French Breakfast" (centre) and "Lada" (right). The latter are from seeds sent to me by Dominka in the Czech Republic. Thanks, Dominika, they are lovely!

I'm linking this post to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres, where I'm sure you will be able to read about lots of other beautiful and tasty harvests.

Planting Kale

Kale is not the OH's favourite vegetable when cooked conventionally as "greens", but when made into Kale Chips it meets with approval, and I like it in most forms (kale smoothies somehow don't appeal though), so this year I'm giving it a go.

I have grown four plants of the variety "Winterbor". It is a curly-leaved variety, growing to about two feet tall. Since it is very hardy, it is normally sown in early Summer, for cropping in late Autumn through to early Spring, but I decided to grow it earlier, because I couldn't fit it into my Winter veg plans. With a bit of luck I'll have leaves available for use by about the end of June.


This week I judged my Kale plants to be the right size for planting out, which was convenient because some space had just been freed-up by the end of harvesting of my first sowing of Radishes. I have put the four plants at the corners of the bed which holds the Broad Beans. In due course, when the beans have finished, this bed will play host to my PSB - but that's a long way off yet!

I could show you all four corners of this bed, each with its new Kale plant, but I won't - they all look exactly the same!

As you can see, the Kale plants are currently about the size of the diminutive "Robin Hood" Broad Beans. If the beans were really big ones I might have hesitated about planting the Kale here, but as it is I think they will be all right and get enough light.


I am amazed how clean and unblemished my brassicas (including the Kale) are this year. They are all just about perfect: no slug damage; no caterpillar damage; no Cabbage Root Fly damage. It's scary. I've never had this happen before. I can't think what I have done that might have made the difference. Normally I lose a few seedlings before they reach "adulthood", but this year none of my spares have been deployed. I wish it was always like this! Just a couple of days ago I dutifully applied the usual dose of nematodes, but half of me thinks it wasn't necessary...


This year I'm not growing any Cavolo Nero, which I do usually grow. We have "gone off it" at least temporarily. And in any case, since I have started taking more of an interest in Leeks, I probably won't have the space available. Growing over the Winter this time I aim to have Cabbage, Leeks, Brussels Sprouts and PSB - and of course Parsnips if they last that long.


Changing the subject slightly, my Peas are now growing rapidly. They love the damp, mild conditions.

The first few flowers are visible now:

Along each side of the raised bed I currently have a piece of chicken wire, which is there to deter the badgers from digging up the Beetroot plants alongside the rows of Peas. I think I will have to remove the wire soon, because the peas are beginning to reach out for it, and I don't want to leave it there permanently, otherwise harvesting the peas will be very tricky. Hopefully the Beetroot is now big enough to survive despite the nocturnal furtling-around.

Planting Tomatoes

I have now moved my tomato plants to their final homes. They couldn't have remained much longer in their little 6" pots without getting root-bound and starved of nutrients.

Tomato plants awaiting potting-up - mostly in 6" pots

The big cordon-type ones are now in 40cm containers - those ones with a water reservoir in the base. For those of you who don't know this, a cordon-grown tomato plant is one that is grown tall and thin, which is achieved by training the plant up a cane or string and by pinching-out its sideshoots. I have provided mine with 5-foot canes.

I decided that since I had 12 of those nice big 40cm pots I would grow 12 cordon tomatoes. All the surplus ones (there are not many this year) will be given away to friends.


This is my list of 12: Larisa, Dynnye, Cherokee Purple, Stupice, Black from Tula, De Colgar, Tigerella, Primabella, Costoluto Fiorentino, Caspian Pink and Ferline x2.


Ferline is a blight-resistant variety, and a heavy cropper, so I grow this one every year now. It has big red, tasty fruits. I like it so much that I'm growing two plants of this type.

"Ferline"

It's interesting to see how different the plants look. This is "Larisa", (seeds from Eddy, in Belgium)currently a rather delicate-looking plant, with deeply-indented leaves. In due course I hope it will deliver some big pinkish-red fruits. This is now also a favourite, but one that I have found hard to grow successfully.

"Larisa"

This is "Stupice" (seeds from Dominika in the Czech Republic), which is a potato-leafed variety with medium-sized red fruits. It is allegedly very early maturing, which is attractive to me, because it might deliver its crop before any blight comes along.

"Stupice"

By rights I should have some pretty good tomatoes this year, because the growing medium in those pots is a very rich mixture. It includes some of the "Sylvagrow" peat-free compost, some of the Norfolk loam (yes, that 1000-kg bag I bought earlier this year is still going), and tons of really rich home-made compost. In each pot I also put a big handful of pelleted chicken manure and one of Growmore general-purpose fertiliser.


Since the home-made compost has lots of worms in it, I'm anticipating that the local badgers will take an interest in my plantings, so I have erected a barrier to dissuade them from any opportunistic snuffling:

This barrier is made of some of the ubiquitous wire shelves from the plastic mini-greenhouses, held in place with bricks. What useful things those shelves are! Whether this barrier will be effective remains to be seen...

In addition to the cordon varieties, I have four plants of bush varieties. They are Grushkova (seeds from Alex in Scotland), Montello (seeds provided by Marshalls), and Maskotka x 2. Again, Maskotka is one of my old stalwarts and I like it so much that I think it deserves more than one plant.

These four have gone into big containers too, though ones which are not quite as good as the ones seen above. For a start, they are not of the self-watering type. The bush varieties don't grow so tall, so I have only provided these ones with short canes, and I will not be pinching-out their sideshoots.

"Grushkova"

After planting these 16 tomato plants, I was still left with six more, which were intended as spares. However, I decided to make a late addition to my line-up. I added "Supersweet 100", grown from seeds kindly given to me by Elza in Holland. This is a cordon variety, but the best I could do for it was to provide a container like the one for the bush varieties, except with a 5-foot cane. It is seen at the left in the photo above.


For the time being, the bush tomatoes are sitting alongside the bed in which I have carrots (covered in Enviromesh, you'll note).

Later on they will be shifted elsewhere (probably up against the house), because I will need that spot for more chillis.


Planting-up the tomatoes is one of the biggest jobs of the gardening year for me, and quite hard work, so I'm glad it's done. However, if things go according to plan, it will have been one of the most rewarding tasks too. There are few things more appealing to a vegetable gardener than a basket of ripe home-grown tomatoes!

Harvesting Rhubarb - and a recipe

Last year I transplanted my Rhubarb crowns to a new location, and I didn't pick any, so that it would have time to settle in and build up its strength. This year though, I feel able to pick some.

A couple of days ago I picked the eight stems you see pictured here. As is very evident from the photos, I have two Rhubarb plants and they are of different varieties. I think they are "Timperley Early" and "Victoria", but I wouldn't stake my life on it. Which one is which, I really don't know!

As I'm sure all experienced gardeners know, when you pick Rhubarb it is supposed to be best to remove the whole stem by giving it a sharp tug, not by cutting it. Don't ask me why!

This is the way I like to eat Rhubarb: remove and discard the leaves (they are poisonous). Wash the stalks and cut them into pieces about an inch long. Place them in a large, non-metallic dish, and add a few pieces of peeled fresh ginger, a tablespoonful of sugar (or sugar-substitute for the diabetics), and the juice of one large orange. After squeezing the orange, I bung the pieces of skin into the dish too - they all add flavour and are easily removed after cooking.

Cover the dish with foil and cook in the oven at 130C for about an hour, testing occasionally to see if the Rhubarb is cooked. Fresh Rhubarb cooks at varying rates, and you don't want it to go too mushy. It's cooked when the tip of a pointed knife slides in easily.

When cooked, allow the Rhubarb to cool, remove the pieces of ginger and the orange skins and then decant it into another (preferably lidded) receptacle of some sort and put it in the fridge. It will keep for several days if you allow it to. Actually it is best very soon after cooking, when it is just warm. Serve spooned over a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream, or with a spoonful of Cornish clotted cream.

Sowing PSB

Most of my seeds get sown in March and April, but there are one or two veggies that don't need to be started that early. Purple Sprouting Broccoli is one of these. PSB has a very long growing cycle - approximately 9 to 10 months - and it is ready for harvest in the Spring, which means it needs to be sown between late April and late May. I sowed mine this week (on 17th May).

I'm planning to grow only three PSB plants. They do get pretty big, so I can't really manage to fit in any more than that. Well, to be honest, I always used to grow six in the space where I now put three, but they typically produced more broccoli than we needed, and they were often smaller plants. I think sometimes the "Less is More" principle is relevant in a garden like mine. I would rather have three really good plants than six mediocre ones. There is only one problem with this though: if one of three plants dies or does not flourish, this is a major issue, but if one of six doesn't, it's not so serious.


This year I have sowed 24 PSB seeds, 3 in each of eight pots. If all three seeds germinate, I will pinch out two and keep just one. That would leave me with eight plants to choose from. I will plant three and keep the others as long as possible in their pots, so that any casualties in the early stages can be replaced.


In my usual OCD fashion, I have sowed my PSB in colour-coded pots. Guess which colour pots the "Red Spear" ones went into...

That's 2 of "Red Spear", 2 of "Rudolph" and 4 of "Early Purple Sprouting" (2 each of seeds from Marshalls and Mr.Fothergills).


Something to remember when sowing PSB seeds is that at this time of year the temperature in even a little plastic greenhouse like the ones I have can get very high, so it's best to find somewhere sheltered for them that doesn't get direct sunlight - at least until the seedlings are a few inches tall. Otherwise the seeds may not germinate at all, or if they do they could easily get scorched.


Having now got my PSB under way, the only other crop that I still want to start is Radicchio. This is something that never does well in my garden during the Summer, so I will delay a while and sow it at a time that will produce an Autumn crop, so probably late July or some time in August. Meanwhile, I will continue with successional sowing of Lettuces and other salad crops, in the hope of maintaining a constant supply for the next few months. I sowed a tray of Lettuce on the same day as I sowed the PSB. I put probably 100 seeds into it, of five different varieties. Probably only about ten of them will ever make it to maturity; the others will be used as Baby Leaf Salad.


My next batch of Radishes is swelling nicely now. In fact I think some of these are ready for harvesting.

Isn't it odd how one or two of the Radishes just refuse to bulk-up like the others? There is one in the next photo which is never going to be useful...

Lamb patties with "Cleopatra" salad

Some of my current food heroes hail from the Middle East - Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Sabrina Ghayour etc - and their work (particularly Sabrina's recent books "Persiana" and "Sirocco") often inspire me to cook in their style. I seldom use a recipe exactly as per one of the books, but I take inspiration from a recipe and adapt it. This is one of those.

In her book "Persiana", Sabrina Ghayour gives a recipe for Lamb and Pistachio Patties - Fistikli Kebap - (page 127), and my patties are loosely based on this.


Ingredients.
500g minced Lamb
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
25g Pine-nuts, toasted and chopped
1 tsp Cumin seeds, toasted
1/4 tsp Cinnamon powder
Leaves from a dozen stalks of fresh Mint, chopped
Approx 50g breadcrumbs
1 egg
Several grinds of black pepper


Toasting the Pine-nuts and Cumin seeds is really worth the little extra effort, because it brings out the flavour a lot. All it needs is a minute or so in a hot dry frying-pan, being very careful not to allow the seeds / nuts to burn. With the Cumin seeds you know when they are ready when the begin to crackle and jump in the pan (and of course there will be a lovely strong aroma!).


Following Sabrina's advice I put all the ingredients in a large bowl and "massaged" them very thoroughly, with my hands. This not only makes sure that the ingredients are properly mixed, but it also breaks down the fibres of the meat to give it a finer texture. Once massaged, the Lamb mixture was formed into patties (or burgers?) and left in the fridge for a few hours to marinate and firm-up.


The 500g pack of meat was too much for us to eat in one meal, so I made it into eight patties, cooked them all but put four aside to freeze for a later occasion. I fried the patties in vegetable oil, over low- to medium heat. Time taken for each batch was about 25 minutes, flipping the patties over a couple of times to ensure they were fully cooked through and nicely browned.

To go with the patties I made what I have named "Cleopatra" salad. It's a take on Caesar salad, of course, made with crunchy Cos (Romaine) lettuce. I don't eat seafood, so the traditional Caesar dressing made with anchovies is not for me. Instead I used inspiration from Yotam Ottolenghi to make a salad with a dressing based on tahini (sesame paste). In Ottolenghi's book "Jerusalem" (co-written with Sami Tamimi) you will find a recipe for a tahini dressing on page 36. Again, I didn't use the recipe exactly, but made my own variation of it. Specifically, I left out the garlic, and added-in some za'atar. I also fried some cubes of bread in olive oil flavoured with Oregano to make croutons. This is how it looked when finished:

My "Cleopatra" salad

To complete my meal, I made up some bulgur, using chicken stock, and then when it was cooked I stirred in a big handful of chopped Parsley and about 25g of currants, giving the dish a bit more interest and hopefully adding a bit to the Middle Eastern theme.

 The Mint for the patties and the Parsley for in the bulgur were both home-grown, which is satisfying.

Jane and I both loved this meal. It's tasty, well-balanced, and full of different flavours and textures. I particularly liked the additional crunch delivered by the Pine-nuts in the patties, and the silky savoury tahini dressing on the salad. The bonus is that we now have four more patties in the freezer that only need briefly warming up in order to form the basis of another meal!