NomeGrown

Pea Tip

2012-03-20T10:31:00.000Z

Sowing peas is always a silly game here - the mice come and dig them up overnight and I have to resow. Sometimes it's a wonder I manage to grow any at all!

But this spring I remembered that mice are supposed to hate the smell of mint, and since I hadn't cut back the dead stems of last year's mint yet I did so, and scattered the cut-up stems and dried leaves over the soil after I'd sown my peas.

The peas are all up now, with not a single gap in the rows. Hurrah!

There's a tip I'll remember in future!

The Foragers

2012-03-16T12:07:00.001Z

You may have noticed there was no Wild Food Night post in February - the evening was unfortunately cancelled due to the illness of the chef. So it seemed the perfect opportunity to check out a more local 'wild food' restaurant which has popped up right here in St Albans - The Foragers @ The Verulam Arms. Unlike the Country Bumpkin's once-a-month set-menu event, The Foragers serves a full menu featuring wild foods every day.

The Verulam Arms is a familiar pub to us - we were quite fond of it a couple of years ago when we used to live just around the corner. It first opened in 1853, so it's been part of St Albans for a long time! But it's outside the centre of town, in a quiet area, and increasing competition and changing culture have caused it to struggle time and time again over the last few years. During the five years we lived nearby it closed down and opened again more than a couple of times! And it had just closed down again when 'the Foragers', George and Gerald, met the landlord and told him they were looking for a place to set up a wild food business... The Verulam Arms is still a pub (now with their own beer on tap, and occasional homemade wines and flavoured spirits) but offers a restaurant-style foodservice as well. And I can't believe it's taken me this long to get round to trying it!

Eddie and I started with home-smoked whiskey-cured trout with nettle salsa verde and crispy lardons of homemade chorizo, garnished with crispy fried fish skin and beautiful trout eggs (how's that for making the most of a catch?), and a sprig of goosegrass!

This was a wonderful combination, very rich and flavourful - in fact I would have liked a little more of the lovely nettle salsa verde to temper the richness.

Dave had this pig’s head and rabbit white pudding terrine with tomato chutney, pickled baby carrots and toasted sourdough. He said it was really good, and he particularly enjoyed the pickled carrots!

For Eddie's main course, he chose braised ox cheek with a stilton, wild garlic, roasted shallot and mushroom ragout, and toasted spaetzle pasta. The slow-cooked ox cheek was amazingly soft and tender, and really tasty.

Dave chose battered skate wing with pea purée, goose grass, parmentier potatoes and crispy capers. It looked lovely!

I read once that goosegrass should be cooked to get rid of the hairiness, but actually, served raw like this, the hairiness doesn't really matter, and of course it disappears as soon as you chew anyway. Goosegrass tastes pretty good, and I have added it to my 'to forage' list...

I had venison wellington (the last piece - sorry guys!) - venison wrapped in mushroom duxelle and flaky puff pastry, served with nettle sauce, pommes dauphine and home-grown blackcurrant game jus.

Wow.

Again, this was wonderfully rich and full of flavour. The blackcurrants complemented the rich wellington really well, the mushroom duxelle was delicious, and the meat was just perfect. I'm always a bit nervous about rare meat, as it can be chewy and I'm not a fan of that, but this was incredibly tender and lovely.

For dessert, we picked chocolate fondants with a white chocolate and hazelnut sauce. There's not a lot you can say about a chocolate fondant, is there...? (Except maybe 'more please'!) But yes, it was just right, and the hazelnuts were a very nice complement.

All in all, a really great meal and a great evening. You can see how much love and care goes into both the sourcing of the ingredients and the preparation of the dishes, and flavours are brought together perfectly on every plate. The atmosphere was pretty busy (and I'm so glad they're busy!) but service was quick and very friendly, and the barman even recognised my name and answered in person a question I had asked on facebook - how's that for service?! Unfortunately it's a bit pricey for us to go regularly, so it won't be replacing wild food night, but I do hope we can go again. And while at our regular wild food nights there's a sense of 'this is what's available this month', seeing the full menu at the Foragers brings home what a huge variety of wild and local seasonal foods (including, of course, stored and preserved foods) are, in fact, available at any time of the year!

Thank you, Foragers!

Winter Heather to Feed the Bees

2012-03-14T18:14:00.001Z

I've been feeling a bit bad for the bees in our garden - they've been out and about for a while now due to the mild winter but, except for the odd primrose and a few short-lived crocuses, there are hardly any flowers round here for them. And we've just cut down several years' worth of overgrown honeysuckle, which they'll miss. And I can't expect them to pollinate my tomato plants all summer long if I don't look after them in the winter, can I?!

Reading up on the subject tells me all the usual spring flowers are good for bees - crocuses, primroses, daffodils, rosemary, dead-nettles, forget-me-nots and fruit blossom - but when bees come out super-early like they did this year (I saw several in January) these may not have bloomed yet. Early in the spring, pussy willow and hazel catkins can provide nectar, and winter-flowering plants are a great help too - heather, hebe and lungwort are particularly recommended (though I don't see our lungwort flowering yet...)

So when I spotted these little winter heather plants for sale yesterday, I had to get a couple - it's well known that bees love heather, and winter varieties flower extremely early and for a long time. I picked plants with lots of buds, so I knew they still had plenty of flowering-time left in them.

I planted them out today, forking some compost into our heavy soil first, planting them level with the surface, and treading them in lightly. It may be too little too late this year really, but they'll be much bigger and much earlier next year, to feed our precious pollinators.

Charity for the Facebook Generation

2012-03-09T12:57:00.000Z

In this age of information, I am regularly appalled by the amount of misinformation out there, and the number of people who repeat what they've heard without verifying their facts. Sharing links is one thing - you're just pointing people to an author's opinion. Taking on that opinion yourself and spreading it without even a cursory look at the evidence is inexcusable, and foolish.

You probably already know that a campaign video made by charity Invisible Children has taken the world by storm. The campaign's aim is to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, the leader of a guerrilla army in central Africa responsible for the abductions of up to 66,000 children and the deaths and displacement of many thousands more, and to put pressure on governments (who apparently think the matter is irrelevant) to do something about it. If you haven't seen the video, you can find it here. You'll need half an hour, and tissues.

Not long after the video started trending on the internet, the backlash began - a couple of bloggers pointed out what they felt were flaws in Invisible Children's methods, and an apparent lack of transparency surrounding their finances. You can read all that here, here and here, if you want. Accusations have spread about as fast as the video itself did, and include spending too much on awareness and media and not enough on actually helping people, oversimplifying a complex issue, exaggeration and manipulation of facts, foolish tactics, funding Ugandan militia who are known for their own humanitarian crimes, perpetuating the 'white man's burden' and saviour complex, promoting 'slacktivism' (the belief you might be able to change things by sharing stuff on the internet), over-sentimentality, propagandism, and being 'a scam' - an accusation made without any indication how so. Invisible Children posted this this morning to rebut all the claims made about them - a must-read for anyone who is not sure what to think. (This brief interview with the man behind the film is worth a read too.) For the record, they absolutely deny that they fund the Ugandan military, and their financial records are online for all to see.

But I'm afraid the damage has already been done. Most people see too much in black and white, and will have dismissed the campaign. It makes me furious how some cynics will condemn something when they find it isn't perfect, without recognising the value it has even in its flawed state.

Sure, if you don't want Invisible Children to have your money, don't donate. But don't dismiss the campaign to make people more aware, or to pressurise governments to act. Those are the key things here and they're entirely valid.

So called 'slacktivism' is better than ignorance. Simplification is unavoidable in a short campaign video, and in any focused campaign. No-one's claiming this guy is the only evil in the world or that getting rid of him will solve all of the region's problems - again, he's just the focus of one little campaign, and it's a step in the right direction. The white saviour thing is something we should think about but not a valid criticism. Anyone accusing the filmmakers of making an uncomfortably moving and provocative piece of propaganda has failed to realise that's just the way the world rolls these days. And on some rare occasions, sadly, military intervention is a necessary evil.

Invisible Children, as well as building schools and managing welfare and economic projects, puts more importance on producing media and spreading awareness than most charities. So what? Who says there's only one way to run a charity? I give monthly to a major global charity, but I don't keep up with what campaigns they're working on or where my money's going. Isn't that wrong? Aren't I just giving to satisfy myself, sitting comfortably at my computer, rather than because I see an injustice or feel a burden for someone? If the charity I support, or any other, made moving and rousing films about everything they got up to, less money would go to their causes - but I might be prompted to give more, and more might be prompted to give. It's different, but it's not wrong. Kony 2012 is charity for the facebook generation - it's visible, it's colourful, it's focused, it's exciting, it's dramatic. It's waking whole generations of kids up to the fact that Justin Bieber/being thin/Twilight/Louis Vuitton is not the only thing that matters. I never saw Christian Aid, Oxfam, Greenpeace or Cancer Research do that.

Awareness is so important. I know how it is - everyone's so busy worrying about money and school and work and chores and family that there's no time to think about stuff that doesn't affect them. And there's so much stuff going on in the world we'd never catch up with all of it, anyway. But it's dangerous to assume that foreign issues will never affect us. There's a hell of a lot going on out there - I've been blown away by some of the things that have shown up on my radar since I've had enough spare time and energy to start paying attention. My whole world view has changed (it's amazing how narrow the lens of the mainstream media is, when you look outside it). We must always strive to be more aware of what is happening in the world.

This guy has to be stopped. However much research you do into the situation in central Africa, however complex things are over there, you won't find a reason to justify what he's doing nor to allow it. And if we don't act, that's exactly what we're doing - permitting it. Yes, you and I are extremely limited in what we can do, but I'm not letting the government who represents me - who can do something - turn a blind eye just because it doesn't affect our country. If enough of us put the pressure on, maybe we can change things. Maybe we can't. But shouldn't we try?

You can find more info on Kony 2012 and what you can do here, and a UK e-petition here. There are also many, many more charities supporting human rights, peace and development in Africa.

Overwintered Peppers

2012-03-07T12:03:00.002Z

As temperatures dropped last autumn, I brought my favourite pepper plant and my only chilli plant indoors to see how they'd last. A friend of mine kept peppers all winter in a south-facing attic under a velux window and they did great - I only have an ordinary south-eastish-facing windowsill, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

The chilli did fine for about six weeks and produced a new flush of flowers, then suffered some ailment and dropped lots of its leaves as Christmas approached - but it has pulled through, put on some new growth, and given me occasional fruits throughout the winter, which has been really nice. (I had to hand-pollinate the flowers, of course - as easy as dusting the centres with a soft paintbrush.) As you can see, it's looking a bit spindly (and one-sided) from less-than-ideal light levels and the dropping of its leaves, but it's doing fine now and producing more and more flowers. If you look closely, you'll see three little chillies on its branches. Let's see how long I can keep it going...

The pepper, however - the 'Dedo de Mocha' sweet Aji type which was wonderful when it finally fruited early autumn - has not enjoyed being indoors one bit. The fruits remaining on it ripened to red in the warmth of the house, which was nice as they'd showed no sign of it outdoors, but when the days got shorter, the plant got taller and taller, reaching for light that I just couldn't provide, and the thing ended up crawling over my curtain rail, producing long spindly branches which it couldn't support, and finally getting very unhappy indeed.

Ah well; you win some, you lose some. If I had a heated greenhouse or conservatory I'm sure I'd have got much better results. I think it's certainly worth overwintering more chillies in future. But the pepper plant has gone in the compost bin now, to make way for this year's new subjects!

Rapeseed Oil is GOOD for you!

2012-02-29T15:46:00.000Z

For as long as I've been cooking, olive oil has been the oil to use. It's heart-healthy, stable, natural, comes with or without its fruity flavour, and most of all it's trendy - it's what the food-loving Italians swear by, after all, and what TV chefs told us we had to use for years.

But it's from Italy, Spain or Greece, and in my efforts to buy less from overseas and reduce my food miles, it just wouldn't do. Heck, I'm far from perfect in that endeavour; I still buy Spanish tomatoes in the winter when I feel the need, asparagus from Peru when I crave it, oranges from goodness-knows-where, and the occasional avocado, but I try to keep these things to a minimum, and cooking oil is something I use every single day. So about a year ago I gave up olive oil completely, in favour of cold-pressed British rapeseed oil - a truly British product grown here for centuries, with an impressive nutritional profile, a pleasant floral flavour well-suited to cooking or raw use, and a high smoke point making it suitable for all types of cooking.

Photograph by David Castor, via Wikimedia Commons

So imagine my surprise and horror when an online acquaintance told me rapeseed oil was terribly bad for me and should be avoided by the health-conscious individual at all costs!

A few minutes of internet research showed that she wasn't alone - it appears a great many people believe rapeseed oil (or Canola oil across the pond) is dangerous stuff. But I quickly noticed virtually all the information cited on the subject of its dangers was from just two articles; one derived from a book by a certain John Thomas and the other a viral email that did the rounds years ago, which borrows heavily from John Thomas' theories. These articles have been reproduced over and over again on blogs and websites - a Google search suggests some 6000 times - despite being packed with misinformation, misquotation, innuendo and lies, and widely discredited (see here, here or here)! So I want to set the record straight here. And unlike the anti-rapeseed articles, I will make all my sources available via links, so you can check it out for yourself and make up your own mind.

The Myths About Rapeseed Oil

So for what reasons do some people think rapeseed oil is bad news?

Canola is not the name of a natural plant.
No, but it is a natural plant. Canola was a trade name derived from the words CANadian Oil, Low Acid. Rapeseed oil was originally grown for industrial purposes and was not very palatable because of its high levels of bitter erucic acid and glucosinolates, but in the 70s, agricultural scientists in Canada developed a low acid, disease- and drought- resistant cultivar which made an excellent and cheap cooking oil. In Canada, much of the Canola grown is genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides. Here in the UK, it has been bred naturally to achieve the same low-acid properties, just as we have cultivated and domesticated pretty much every other food crop we grow to reach its maximum commercial potential. Canola is now a generic name given to rapeseed oils up and down America. Here, we just call it rapeseed oil.

Rape is part of the mustard family. It's the most toxic of all food-oil plants. Insects will not eat it; it is deadly poisonous.
Rape is indeed in the mustard family (usually called brassicas), along with such nutritious and common edibles as, well, mustard, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, swedes, brussels sprouts, kale, radishes, horseradish, pak choi, rocket and cress. Although eating the wrong parts of a few species of wild mustards might upset your stomach, it does not follow that rape is toxic. Rape stems and leaves have long been used as a food in parts of Asia. Insects do eat rapeseed plants; flea beetles and cabbage moths are a particular problem, as with most brassicas.

Rapeseed oil is used in insecticides.
Any gardener who knows his stuff will know that many oils can be, and are, used as insecticides. A spray of oil easily blocks the spiracles (air holes) which allow insects to breathe, and they suffocate.

Rapeseed oil is an industrial oil, used as lubricant, fuel, soap and even in making plastics.
The author had obviously forgotten that olive oil was used as lamp oil for millenia and makes excellent soap, and that flax oil has long been used in paint, sealants and linoleum. They obviously didn't realise that sunflower, palm and castor oil have all been used widely as lubricants, and had never heard that Rudolf Diesel designed his first engines to run on peanut oil, nor that Henry Ford's first automobiles were actually made from hemp and soybean, two more highly nutritious food oils which also make excellent plastics.

Rape oil is strongly related to symptoms of emphysema, respiratory distress, anemia, constipation, irritability and blindness in animals and humans. Also increased risk of heart disease, low birth weight, disruption of the nervous system and cancer. It inhibits proper metabolism of foods, prohibits normal enzyme function and suppresses the immune system. In the blood, it causes red blood cells to stick together in clumps and congests blood flow.
No sources are given, and no evidence is available. Most of these claims appear to come from the book 'Young Again: How to Reverse the Aging Process' by John Thomas, in which the author makes many unusual claims which are completely unsupported. He uses no citations or scientific references, and in fact eschews science, calling the scientific mind 'muddled'. Some anti-rapeseed articles cite the Encyclopedia Britannica as saying rape is toxic. The online version does not make this claim, but clearly notes that it is a popular food crop.

It contains unhealthy trans fatty acids.
Fats become trans fats when they are processed with hydrogen to make them solid, stable and increase their shelf life. It is true that a refined and processed canola oil may contain small amounts of trans fats - as any refined and processed oil may. Trans fats are legally limited to just 2% in Canada and banned in an increasing number of cities and countries. No cold-pressed oil contains trans fats. Some anti-rapeseed articles claim that the oil must be heavily processed to get rid of its strong odour, colour and flavour. Any fan of British cold-pressed oil, with its rich golden colour and peppery floral flavour, will disagree.

Feeding rapeseed oil to livestock caused mad cow disease.
There is no evidence for this and no sources are given. It was rapeseed meal with the oil pressed out, not the oil itself, which was used as animal feed. Here in the UK, rapeseed meal is still used as nutritious animal feed and fish food, but there is no longer any CJD problem.

Rapeseed oil was the source of the chemical warfare agent 'mustard gas'.
This is just plain falsehood. Mustard gas is made from chemicals in a laboratory; commonly by treating sulfur dichloride (chlorinated sulfur) with ethylene. (Ethylene serves as a plant hormone in all plants, but has no special connection to mustard or its relatives.) The name simply came from its yellow colour and pungent mustard-like smell.

When rapeseed oil was fed to rats, they developed fatty degeneration of heart, kidney, adrenals, and thyroid gland. The fatty deposits disappeared when the oil was withdrawn from their diets but scarring remained.
The natural diet of a rat is grains and other plant matter. Is it any wonder that feeding them high levels of fats caused health problems commonly associated with consuming high levels of fats?

Rapeseed oil contains VLCFAs which can cause a rare fatal degenerative disease called adrenoleukodystrophy.
Adrenoleukodystrophy is an inherited disease which causes a disastrous build-up of fatty acids in the blood; not because sufferers consume too many VLCFAs (very long chain fatty acids) but because they simply cannot process those they do consume. The VLCFA present in rapeseed oil is erucic acid - the very acid that was bred out of rape cultivars (down to a maximum 2%, usually less) in order to make the product palatable. The source cited for this little claim (Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, by Udo Erasmus) is severely misquoted; in fact the author actually goes on to describe how erucic acid has been used to normalise fatty acid levels and treat this very disease.

Rapeseed oil is a penetrating oil which leaves a stain on fabric that won't wash out.
Maybe I'm doing my laundry wrong, but I've never been able to get olive oil or sunflower oil spots out of clothes either... This does not make it toxic!

Rapeseed oil causes lung cancer.
Any oil heated past its smoke releases carcinogenic free radicals. No cooking oil should be heated above its smoke point, nor reheated so many times that its smoke point is significantly lowered through deterioration.

The Truth About Rapeseed Oil

Cold-pressed rapeseed oil is a healthy, natural, low impact food with an erucic acid level of around 1%. It contains only 6% saturated fat - that's half as much as olive oil - and has up to 11 times more essential omega 3 fatty acid and much less omega 6 than olive oil, giving it an essential fatty acid balance better suited to human consumption than any other oil (not enough omega 3 or too much omega 6, which is common, make us prone to inflammatory conditions and blood problems). Rapeseed oil provides lots of antioxidant vitamin E (though sunflower oil trumps it), is stable for up to a year, and has one of the highest smokepoints of any cooking oil, making it suitable for all kinds of cooking. (Source, source)

In short, rapeseed is the most heart-healthy oil, suitable for all culinary uses and with a far lower environmental impact than foreign oils.

Let me make a couple of disclaimers. First, processed oil is a different creature from cold-pressed, and the sterilising, deodorising, degumming, bleaching and chemical treatment of any processed oil will increase its bad fats and decrease its micro-nutrient content. I do not recommend processed or refined oils, or generic vegetable oil which is usually full of low-grade and refined oils. Second, Canadian/US Canola is (largely, though not exclusively) genetically modified and I do not support this. Time is showing that GM/GE crops give lower yields and pose other risks, and multinational GMO agribusiness Monsanto is very scary indeed, threatening farmers and crops all across America and Canada - watch this video or read this or browse here. We need to fight back against GM foods and I do not recommend GM Canola oil. Thankfully, GM crops are not grown in the UK.

As long as it's cold-pressed and British, rapeseed is the oil for me.

Photograph by Prazak, via Wikimedia Commons

A Quick Lesson in Fats (more here)

Cholesterol is a substance made in the body (and consumed in animal products) and essential to cell structure, hormones and vitamin D production. Cholesterol also moves fat around the body. There are two main types of cholesterol, with which we are concerned here:

Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDL cholesterol) are manufactured by the liver to carry cholesterol to the body’s cells and tissues. When there are too many, LDLs form deposits on the walls of arteries and elsewhere, and increase your risk of heart disease.

High-Density Lipoproteins (HDL cholesterol) pick up and carry excess cholesterol from artery walls and bring it back to the liver for processing and removal. HDLs decrease your risk of heart disease.

All fat has the same number of calories per gram (9) and will make you fat if you eat too much, but fat is an essential nutrient for our brains and nervous systems, not to mention joints, skin and hair. We must all eat fat, but the type of fat we choose can make a big difference to our health. Dietary fat is made up of fatty acids, which are grouped into three main types:

Saturated fats increase bad (LDL) cholesterol. They are usually solid at room temperature. Examples are butter, cheese, animal fat, coconut and palm oil.

Monounsaturated fats decrease bad (LDL) cholesterol but maintain your good (HDL) cholesterol. They are liquid at room temperature. Foods high in monounsaturated fats are olives, avocadoes and many nuts.

Polyunsaturated fats decrease your good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol. They are liquid or soft at room temperature. Sources include corn oil, soybean products, many seeds, and oily fish.

Trans fats are man-made; they are unsaturated fats which have undergone processing (hydrogenation) to make them more solid (as in many margarines), or just to increase their shelf life and make them more stable (this is partial hydrogenation). They not only increase bad (LDL) cholesterol, but they reduce the good stuff (HDL) and have been reported to cause a number of side effects too. They occur almost exclusively in processed foods (small amounts also occur naturally in some animal products) and are the unhealthiest fats of all - in fact many countries are moving towards banning them. Unsaturated cooking oils (such as rapeseed) can break down and turn to trans fats when heated in cooking, but in a domestic environment under normal conditions this risk is negligible, unless your oil is already oxidised by age, air/light/heat exposure, repeated use or overheating past its burn/smoke point.

Thank you to Hill Farm Oils and Yellow Fields Oil for providing information for this article.

Kale and pepper update

2012-02-28T11:19:00.000Z

Remember my perennial kale, that drooped in the snowy weather? Despite lots of care, it didn't get better - the leaves went dry and crispy and I thought it had died. I was pretty miffed - it cost £5 plus £5 postage and it really should have withstood the cold weather better. Today, however, I spotted these new shoots coming from the base of the stem, so it looks like all is not lost after all! Hooray!

Sowing begins today - I'm planning a trough of mangetout, a tray of peas for shoots, two pots of parsley, a few early Swiss chard seeds in the greenhouse as an experiment, short rows of carrots, radishes, spinach and lettuce, and tomatoes and celery in the heated propagator. Really must get my broad bean seeds in at the plot soon too...

And to make space in the heated propagator, I've potted-on all my early chillies, peppers and aubergines. They're doing great and many are on their third pairs of leaves. I'm making a few extra sowings though, as one variety gave me zero germination (from seeds bought just last year!) and the ancho/poblano chillies, which I was really looking forward to, have only given me one seedling from ten seeds. Rubbish!

I'll leave these pots on the windowsill for now, to get used to not being heated from underneath, but as soon as we get some decent March sunshine I'll get them out into the greenhouse during the days and bring them in at night.

Spring is in the air...

2012-02-25T18:15:00.000Z

There's no doubt about it - spring is definitely in the air. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, flowers are popping up all over the place and everything is starting to grow again.

It's nice to see the sorrel and chives sprouting fresh new growth.

I know some people are harvesting purple sprouting broccoli by now, but mine still isn't showing any signs. Maybe it didn't get big enough before the winter. I wait with bated breath...

The lamb's lettuce is big enough to eat now, at last. This definitely needs an earlier start next year - and more of it too!

The radishes in the greenhouse haven't done anything worthwhile and are starting to look a bit sickly, but the spring onions have put on excellent growth over winter and are about ready to eat.

The claytonia has been going steady all winter long - I've picked handfuls from time to time, but I could (should) have eaten much more of it! In fact, I think I'd better thin this lot before the kale gets swamped!

The perpetual spinach, too, has kept producing slowly all winter, and I've picked the odd handful to add to veg dishes. The normal spinach did not do so well - something killed all but two of the plants! Next winter I'll make sure I have lots more perpetual spinach and chard going, since they stand so well through cold weather.

Like most gardeners, I'm chomping at the bit to start sowing again. I've already started a few potatoes - three 'Foremost' earlies - in a planter in the shelter of the house. I wouldn't plant them in open soil this early, but in dry fresh compost in a well-drained portable container it's another matter. The right temperature for planting spuds is about 8C, and most of our nights are 7 or higher at the moment, so as long as I protect them if we have another cold snap I reckon we're in with a good chance of a few super-earlies!

I bought six of these huge fold-away planters to use this year, thinking it'd be tidier than hoardes and hoardes of pots, the soil would be deeper, and I could plant lots of things closer together, rather than all in individual containers. The huge bags don't half hold a lot of soil! I don't know how I'm going to fill them all! In the first one I have planted my nine (one went mouldy in the greenhouse during the snow) everbearing 'Albion' strawberries, plus three which were too cramped in a pot in the garden. There's another planter ready and waiting in the background for some early carrots, lettuce, radishes and things, which I'll sow soon under a protective layer or two of fleece...

Oh, and my leek seedlings are doing well. They looked a bit frazzled today because I accidentally left them out in the cold last night, which must have come as a bit of a shock, but they'll recover, and I'm glad they got this head-start.

Can't wait to get stuck into some more sowing...

When you next eat a meal...

2012-02-20T21:16:00.000Z

I was challenged today by this tweet from Brigit Strawbridge: "When you next eat a meal ask yourself 'Do I know where this came from? How it grew? How it died? Who picked it?' If you don't know find out."

While I am already well aware of the reasons for knowing where my food comes from and I didn't expect any surprises, I thought it would be an interesting exercise - to check up on how I'm doing, if you like, and see if there's anything I should improve. Of course, it's near impossible to figure out the finer details such as 'who picked it', but I would find out as much as I could.

Tonight's dinner was my favourite sausage and squash casserole - planned since yesterday with all ingredients already bought, so no prep was done with the exercise in mind!

Here we go...

Butter - Sainsbury's Basics. British, like all Sainsbury's milk too, though there's no other info on the pack.

Oil - Cold pressed Borderfields' rapeseed, grown by 'Coastal Grains' in Northumberland.

Sausages - Sainsbury's Butcher's Choice reduced fat sausages - the only ones I ever buy (I stock up every time they're on offer and freeze them). They're British - Sainsbury's sells only British pork sausages - and they bear the Red Tractor 'Assured Food Standards' logo too, which means they comply with the safety, welfare and environmental standards found here. Great stuff. British standards for pig welfare are much higher in the UK than pretty much anywhere else in the EU or US, as outlined here, so this is really important.

Onion - Sainsbury's again. Grown by 'Martin Greenshoots', it says on the bag, in Cambridgeshire. Their website says “Greenshoots' objective is to help our members to collaborate in producing and marketing vegetables in an environmentally sustainable way, whilst exceeding our customers expectations”.

Garlic - Ummm, I don't know where I got this. I think it was from Budgens, who use British suppliers wherever possible (see here), so that's cool.

Sage - I get this from my garden when I can, but my plant is looking a bit weak and weather-beaten at the moment, so I used dried sage, which I got from the market - a local St Albans business called Sycamore Wholefoods which sells every herb and spice you could wish for (and a few others too) in big bags, plus grains, pulses and other bits and pieces. I refill old jars with these great-value bags. The label on the bag says... 'product of Turkey'. Ah.

Squash - This beauty was from Budgens, under a big 'local growers' sign!

Vinegar - Sainsbury's White Wine Vinegar, 'produced in the UK'.

Sugar - Silver Spoon, who grow all their sugar in the UK and claim to be 'the most efficient sugar manufacturer in Europe'.

Black pepper - Schwartz, 'packed in the EU'. (I'm guessing you probably can't grow black pepper in this country.) Schwartz's parent company, McCormick, says here "Over the years... we have created joint ventures in India and Indonesia, developed key strategic alliances in other major spice growing countries and generated a network of over 150 suppliers. Our joint ventures and strategic alliances provide year-round work for more than 1,000 employees, offering fair wages, medical assistance and advancement opportunities."

Chopped tomatoes - Sainsbury's Basics, 'produced in Italy'.

Cannellini beans - Sainsbury's. These say 'produced in the UK', which pleasantly surprises me!

Stock - From a Knorr Chicken Stock Pot. Knorr seem to have most of their factories in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and are owned by Unilever, one of those huge global corporations I automatically don't quite trust. But Unilever's website is pretty encouraging, with details of their three big goals to halve the environmental footprint of their products, 'help more than one billion people take action to improve their health and well-being', and source 100% of their agricultural raw materials sustainably - and it seems they invest billions a year in communities and have strict standards for their suppliers which ban child labour, less-than-minimum wages, poor working conditions and the like.

Potatoes - Charlotte spuds from Sainsburys, grown in Cornwall.

Peas - Birdseye 'Field Fresh' Garden Peas, which means they were grown either in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire or Perthshire, using "sustainable farming methods". Nice.

That's eleven out of fifteen products from the UK (one from Turkey, one from Italy, two don't-knows), Red-Tractor-approved meat, and eight companies clearly striving for welfare, fairness, sustainability and low environmental impact. Not bad at all.

So what should I change?

If I grew more and stored better I could perhaps have been eating my own potatoes, peas, squash, onions, garlic and maybe even beans in the winter - that's an ongoing process and I'm sure I'll keep getting better and better at it. But there's nothing inherently bad about industry or trade - Britain's businesses need our support, of course, and so do food growers and communities abroad. I use a heck of a lot of chopped tomatoes, but I want to preserve some of my own this year, which will hopefully cut down those particular food miles.

I don't really think the black pepper is a massive problem, and it seems like the company's doing right by its suppliers. The sage from Turkey is a surprise - surely we grow sage here in England that would be more economical? I looked for information on where and how Sycamore Wholefoods sources its goods but they don't appear to have a website - maybe I'll chat to them next time I'm there and find out.

Then there's the stock. Nothing really bad going on, and I like the Knorr stock pots - and honestly, I'm not about to start making my own on a regular chuck-it-in-for-a-bit-of-extra-oomph basis. But perhaps there is a better option; Kallo's stock cubes are all organic and natural, made in the UK and Europe only, and the company is commited to sustainability, fair trade, recyclable packaging and all other good things. And they're cheaper. And they have a low-salt option. Right then, decision made.

And what have I learned?

Well, it looks like even the global giants are really pushing for sustainable and fair principles these days - great news - and we're seeing things like hydrogenated fats and monosodium glutamate slip more and more out of use.

I've learned that, though I got lucky this time, I don't always pay enough attention to where vegetables come from when I buy - I didn't know what to expect about most of these items until I went round the kitchen and checked. Buying British is important to me - I just need to remember that more often while I'm actually shopping! And I don't buy much organic stuff, do I?

And I've learned - okay, reaffirmed - that Sainsbury's is pretty awesome! A glance through their policies shows they source produce from the UK absolutely whenever possible (of foodstuffs that can be grown in this country, they say they source over90% from Britain) with 100% of their milk, eggs, fresh chicken and frozen whole chickens, fresh sausages, and own-brand crisps and ice-cream all British, plus 100% of lamb when in season, and all cooked hams. All their bananas, coffee, tea and chocolate are fair trade, all their tuna is pole-and-line caught, and they're working hard towards using only sustainable palm oil. They use regional produce as much as possible, they use MSC certified fish whenever possible and keep a close eye on sustainability when it's not, all their kitchen towel, tissues and toilet roll are FSC certified, they have over 800 organic lines, they don't use hydrogenated fats, and they're committed to reducing waste, improving health and reducing their carbon footprint. As supermarkets go, it rocks.

Interesting. Well I thought so. I might even try it again a few more times.

Anyone else care to take up the challenge and assess your next meal?

Or do you see anything else wrong here that I should fix?

Survival Gardening - Twelve Vital Principles

2012-02-16T15:53:00.001Z

I've had a funny feeling about 2012 ever since the new year hangover wore off. I'm not one to worry about ancient prophecies, and I dunno, maybe I've just got too much time on my hands, but with the next great depression predicted, potentially disruptive solar activity about to peak, and the US/Israel/Iran conflict threatening anything from a fuel crisis to world war three, everything seems to be spiralling deeper and deeper into turmoil, and I've been thinking a little about taking a few extra precautions to make sure we could get through a crisis. It doesn't take much, after all, to stock up on a few extra dried/tinned goods and some bottled water, and think a little about how you might get by without utilities or if you were forced to leave your home. Failing to plan is planning to fail and all that. And I know what you're thinking - nothing bad ever happens here in the UK (except the occasional crippling snowfall, and the odd mindless riot, and devastating floods in some areas...), but our food supply chain is more fragile than we'd like to think, as the petrol crisis in 2000 showed when supermarkets warned they were running out of food, schools were closed, and public transport, the Royal Mail and other services were threatening to shut down - all within just a few days - and if the brown stuff hits the fan on anything more than a local level, do you really think we can rely on the government to provide? When was the last time you securely relied upon the government for anything?

Even if you think I'm being dramatic and all that's a bit unlikely, one thing's certain - I ain't earning too much money right now, so for me at least, taking steps to be more self-reliant makes perfect sense. Being a veg-grower already and having the allotment is a great advantage, but we're not nearly as self-sufficient as I'd like to be. Of course, veg-growing advice for beginners is to focus on luxury crops - those that you really enjoy and save a lot of money on by not buying them at the supermarket, such as tomatoes, runner beans, aubergines, peppers, purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus - and that's a really great start. But you can't live on those things, and with a bit more time, experience and space, the goals get bigger... While I'm hardly about to start growing enough wheat to keep us in bread and pasta all year round, there's plenty more that I can do to improve things - and if we ever did have to grow food to survive then we'd need to follow the very same principles:

1) Grow as much as you can. Yeah, like I needed an excuse. The allotment is fully in use and another one is out of the question, but I'm planning to grow more in the home garden this year, utilising lots of my smaller pots that don't often get used - for individual chard and spinach plants - and some large growbag-style planters. If you think you haven't got room to grow food, remember you can still grow a significant amount on windowsills, indoors and out - explore Vertical Veg for some amazing inspiration and tips! Also think about nurturing edible plants in public places. Get to know your native wild edibles, find out how to use them, and nurture them in your local area. Some people have even grown-their-own in public places by sprinkling seeds out of the way here and there (but remember it's illegal to dig plants up without the landowner's permission).

2) Save seeds from one year to the next, and always keep a good supply. This ensures you always have free seeds to grow, develops micro-varieties adapted to conditions in your growing space, and means you're not relying on seed companies every year. Popular f1 hybrids don't reproduce true-to-type - that is, if you save the seed and sow it next year the results will be unpredictable and not the same as the parent plant - so use only heirloom and open-pollinated seeds. Some seeds are trickier to save than others, so it pays to know exactly what you're doing, and I don't know a better place to learn than Real Seeds - take a look. Seeds need to be kept dry and cool to remain useful - keep them safe.

3) Extend the growing season as much as possible, by starting early under protection, sowing successionally for repeat crops, and making late sowings under protection too. A big greenhouse or polytunnel would be ideal, but a cheap plastic greenhouse and a roll or two of horticultural fleece are a great start.

4) Get the most out of what you grow. This means saving extra seeds to sprout indoors for winter greens too - brassicas are especially good for this - and looking out for opportunities to get second crops from plants. Broccoli, calabrese, cauliflower and even cabbages will give you new shoots if you cut the heads and leave the plants in the ground. Radish seed pods can be added to stir-fries. Lettuces will produce new leaves after cutting. Pea pods can be made into soup (or wine!) Pumpkin leaves are great edible greens! (Don't eat the tomato-like fruit of potato plants though - they're poisonous.) I must get better at doing this kind of stuff!

5) Grow more substantial vegetables. Since grains are pretty much out of the question for me, that means more potatoes (spacing several sowings throughout the growing season), more starchy root veg, and more beans for drying. (Once dry, freeze beans in an airtight container for three days before storing, to kill any bean weevil eggs and avoid results like those below. Ugh.)

6) 'Three sisters' planting is ideal sustenance gardening. This traditional Native American method means growing sweetcorn, beans and squash together. The beans climb the corn and add nitrogen to its soil, and the low-growing squash leaves shade out weeds, slow moisture loss from the soil, and even deter rodents with their prickly stems. All three store well and are excellent nutritional staples, with corn high in starchy carbs, beans full of protein and fibre, and squashes packed with vitamins. Again, I'm not about to grow a meaningful amount of dried maize on my little plots, but this planting method is one I've always wanted to try, and this could be the year.

7) Preserve more. Pickles and jams are the most obvious examples, along with dried beans and peas. But you can dry pretty much any fruit or vegetable with just a little bit of knowhow, and I know I could be making much better use of my freezer too. Most veg can be frozen after blanching, and of course you can freeze sauces, pestos and herbs too. If things go to plan this year, I hope to have a freezer full of chopped tomatoes for cooking next winter, and I'm thinking about getting into dehydrating too...

8) Grow for winter as well. This is something I've always slowly worked towards and this spring, for the first time, I have purple sprouting broccoli, kale and some salad greens which have made it through the winter - hurrah! But now it's time to up the ante and grow more cold-weather crops, earlier, so we can use them all winter long. Great winter crops include many brassicas (swedes, turnips, cabbages, broccoli, Brussels, kale), endives, chicory, celeriac, leeks, parsnips, and lots of leafy greens such as chard and spinach. Some lettuces and salad greens can be grown under cover during the winter too, as well as radishes, carrots and spring onions.

9) Feed the soil and the soil will feed you. I have a terrible confession to make: I've been tossing my kitchen and garden waste in a green wheelie bin for the council to take away for the last two or three years now. Enough! I've reinstated the compost bin at the bottom of the garden and ordered a replacement missing part for my bokashi bin. Buying fertility from the garden centre is expensive and makes no sense! Remember to include a good mix of 'wet' or 'green' waste (raw food scraps, teabags, leafy plant material) and 'dry' or 'brown' waste (cardboard, paper, shredded woody plant material).

10) Include animals in your garden! As well as providing another source of food, they add more fertility to the soil and put even uncompostable scraps to good use. (Vegans and veggies may disagree of course, but then I do wonder how a lot of vegans and veggies might get on if the deluge of exotic grains and fruits imported into this country ever dried up.) I'm not allowed to include animals in my garden... But if things do ever get tough enough to change that - or when I get my own patch - chickens or rabbits are first on my list!

11) A sustainable garden must be an organic garden. Ban chemicals, which harm beneficial insects as well as the pests, and instead nurture your garden's ecosystem by growing plenty of variety, adding nectar-rich flowers to attract pollinating insects, providing insects with places to hibernate over winter, always removing dead matter that may harbour disease, improving your soil's microbiological health by adding lots of healthy organic matter, strengthening crops with seaweed extract or nettle/comfrey tea or similar, and paying your plants plenty of attention to make sure you notice any pest/disease attack before it gets out of hand. No-dig gardening supports better soil health and worm activity - and is something I want to try this year if I can. When you must deal with pests, do so manually wherever possible.

12) Practise, practise, practise. Did you know you can buy (from America) canisters of 'survival seeds' - freeze dried and vacuum packed heirloom varieties certified for up to 25 years - to stash for emergencies? Sounds all very good, but do people that buy these things expect to just sprinkle them over some bare ground and get any measure of success? I'm always learning in the garden and on the allotment, and if my survival ever depends on my ability to grow things, at least I'll know what I'm doing. If you want to feed yourself and your family in the future, there's no time like the present to begin.

Bonus Principle No. 13) In real times of anarchy, it'd be best if your veg garden didn't look too much like a veg garden, since you probably wouldn't be the only one whose cupboards are bare (not saying you shouldn't share, of course, but no-one likes to share with looters and thieves). Three sisters planting would be quite good for this, as the whole thing looks like a bit of a jungle. Avoiding long obvious rows of veg is another strategy - go for a more random look with different vegetables dotted about. Too survivalist for you? Remember four- and six-legged pests will do more damage where lots of the same crop are grown together, and less where plants are intermingled! Fleece might help too. The best strategy of all is to have a back up plan: more seeds to grow, more plants elsewhere, food stored indoors.

So what do you think? How far along the way are you to being able to keep eating if the shops stop opening one day? (I still have plenty of work to do!) Or are you happy enough just to keep saying it'll never, ever happen?

How Hardy is Hardy?

2012-02-11T11:00:00.001Z

So as you may know, I invested in a supposedly super-hardy, super-tasty, super-perennial Daubenton's kale plant for the plot this year, which has been sitting patiently in a pot outside the back door for a few weeks now.

But since the snow, and despite the relative shelter provided by the house, it's started looking really unhappy - it's limp and has lost several lower leaves. What's up with that? I moved it to the greenhouse a few days ago but it hasn't perked up, and I don't really know how else to help it. The soil is moist (when not frozen) and it has no signs of pest attack or disease. Should I bring it indoors or would the warmth be a bit of a shock? Should I wrap it in fleece as well as putting it in the greenhouse? Is it maybe too small and not strong enough for freezing temperatures? It's supposed to live outdoors all year round - I don't get it. Any advice on how to help the poor thing?

Snow!

2012-02-08T11:08:00.000Z

So winter came after all!

Just in time for the arrival of ten new bare-root strawberry plants. There's nowhere for them to go - all the soil is frozen. I can't even pot them up! They've been sitting wrapped in wet newspaper for a week now - I hope they're happy...

My pepper and chilli seedlings are doing all right in the heated propagator - they're a tad leggy but not too bad at all. Hopefully this early start will get me some peppers before September this year!

There's not a lot else going on in the garden, as I'm sure you can imagine. So I've been watching the birds (and squirrels) instead, and with the fields covered in snow we've had four fat redwing visitors to the garden, stripping the berries from the cotoneasters. They were really tricky to photograph - they move so fast and kept sitting behind things - but here's one:

Wild Food Night - January

2012-01-28T12:03:00.001Z

Wild Food Night on Wednesday was really excellent - one of the best yet (I think I've said that three times now). I have to admit I arrived a little apprehensive - as well as pheasant being on the menu, which I hadn't really enjoyed previously, we'd been promised squirrel - not the most popular of wild meats - and haggis!

Canapes were a rich game liver pate, horseradish houmous - which obviously used traditional houmous as a base, with an added hit of horseradish which complemented it surprisingly well - and shredded confit squirrel... which was really tasty, with strong similarities to my other favourite; rabbit. More please!

The starter was wild haggis on a little bed of clapshot ('neeps and tatties') - perfect for Burns' night! - and a venison kofta roll. Haggis is traditionally sheep's heart, liver and lungs, minced with oats, onion, suet and spices and cooked in a casing - traditionally the sheep's stomach. I didn't ask what animal or animals) this was from but it came 'uncased' (can't say I wasn't a little relieved!), like a little mound of stuffing, and it was delicious. The venison kofta roll, with greens and sour cream, was a winner too - venison certainly lends itself well to spice.

Next, we had pheasant and mushroom pie with wild chive potatoes and buttered savoy cabbage. As I said, I haven't got on very well with pheasant in the past, but in this rich creamy pie filling it was lovely, and the potatoes and cabbage were really good too.

I don't think any of us really needed dessert after all that, but we could hardly resist tangy sloe gin ice-cream and chocolate truffles!

A fabulous menu!

Saffron

2012-01-24T12:08:00.001Z

My saffron arrived from Victoriana Nursery at the weekend - not single bulbs as I'd expected but little clumps in full growth! I planted them in a trough at home so I can keep a close eye on them.

Saffron goes dormant during the summer - so these leaves will die down when everything else is springing up - and flowers in the autumn. The bulbs don't like to be wet when they're dormant so I'll have to remember not to over-water them in summer when I'm drenching everything else. (When these go to sleep, I might also mix some sand in with the soil to improve drainage and top up the depth, but I was in a hurry to just get them in safely!) I expect they'll need some protection from mice too.

Saffron is the world's most expensive spice; worth more than its weight in gold, I'm told, because it's so labour intensive to harvest. It is the stigmas of the crocus sativus flower (some crocuses are poisonous so don't try picking any old crocus stigmas for your kitchen!), and each flower yields just three strands which must be hand-picked on the day the flower opens. I have never actually cooked with it, simply because I could never bring myself to buy it, but having a permanent supply in my garden is definitely something I can go for! Over the years, my ten bulbs will multiply over and over, for bigger and bigger harvests.

The bulbs must be planted by August (and ideally during the summer months, when they're dormant), 4-6 inches apart and 4-6 inches deep, in good soil and a sunny position. Despite being most popular in Mediterranean and Asian cuisines, saffron copes very well with our British climate, as long as the bulbs get a decent amount of heat and dryness in summer (maybe I'll pop them under a plastic cover to keep them dry and increase heat), and some say it actually has a better flavour grown here - mellower and richer. It is said to have significant medicinal properties too, with antioxidant, antidepressant and anticarcinogenic properties, and is said to be a huge mood-improver - I even found a recipe for 'psychoactive saffron hot chocolate'!

Now my only problem is what else to grow in the trough? Is there any good companion plant for bulbs that must be kept dry all summer? Or am I doomed to keep this container empty all summer long?

Winter Pesto!

2012-01-20T11:26:00.000Z

When my basil was all eaten by snails last summer, I went out and bought one of those supermarket pots. (I don't have a very good track record with those things, but I needed it for a recipe.) To my profound amazement, it's still going strong on my kitchen windowsill - but I haven't used much lately and it's been getting a bit tall and straggly.

So I thought it was time for a good cut-back, and what else could I do with all that lovely fresh basil but pick off all the lovely fresh leaves and make lovely fresh pesto?

Truth be told, I've never made pesto before - not the basil type anyway, just the fat hen type. Then, I used a food processor, but really you're supposed to use a pestle and mortar (the word 'pesto' is apparently derived from the Italian word for 'pounded'). My pestle and mortar are just not big enough for pounding a big bowl of leaves, but I found this lovely recipe on 101 Cookbooks which advocates chopping the ingredients with a sharp knife or mezzaluna instead, claiming it keeps the flavours brighter and more defined - and who am I to argue with an Italian grandmother? The other thing this recipe has going for it is the really small amount of oil used - I cringe when I see recipes that call for a smattering of basil leaves swimming in loads and loads of oil. I only used two or three tablespoons of oil for four people, and it was plenty.

It's a bit of a chore, of course, chopping all this manually, and it takes a while. I started with the garlic and a handful of basil, added more basil and the pine nuts gradually as the pile got smaller, and added the grated parmesan last. I had to stop a couple of times to stretch cramp out of my hand!

Still a way to go...

It would probably have been best to marinate the chopped pesto in oil for a while to let the flavours do their thing, but there was no time for that - I simply stirred the chopped ingredients and a drizzle of oil into just-drained gnocchi, gave it a good stir on a low heat, and served up, on a bed of spinach leaves with a few extra toasted pine nuts and slivers of parmesan. It smelled amazing! Tasted pretty darn good too, and the almost citrussy brightness of the fresh basil was noted around the table. What a delight in the middle of winter!

I cut the plant back pretty severely, but in a new pot, with a little feed and spring on the way, hopefully it will be thriving again soon. Can't wait! Basil is pretty easy to grow from seed all year round on a sunny windowsill - why not give it a go?

The Seed Order, and 'Repurposing' Old Seeds!

2012-01-18T17:35:00.002Z

Yes, it's done at last. I've had a proper clearout of the seed drawer, discarding out-of-date packs and unwanted packs I should have got rid of years ago, had a good look at what was left, and planned this year's growings.

As well as plenty of old favourites and leftovers from last year, this year I'll be adding to my repertoire:
- Gherkins 'Cornichon de Paris'
- Little Gem 'Pearl' (an improved variety I just had to try)
- West Indian Gherkin (not really a gherkin at all, but sounds like fun!)
- Squash 'Uchiki Kuri Kabocha'
- Chilli 'Ancho Grande' (mild, smoky-flavoured variety)
- Celeriac 'Prague Giant'
- Celery 'Full White'
- Kale 'Sutherland' and 'True Siberian' (both very hardy, for picking over winter and through the 'hungry gap')
- Kohlrabi: a mixed bag of green, purple and giant varieties
- Chestnut mushrooms (hopefully - it won't be the first time I've tried...)

I've also decided to transform a neglected corner of the plot into a perennial bed, with globe and Jerusalem artichokes, a perennial kale or two and my everlasting cauliflowers. I bought three different globe artichoke plants from Victoriana Nursery, a Daubenton's perennial kale (pictured) from Pennard Plants, and some popular 'Fuseau' Jerusalem artichoke tubers. I had planned to try sweet potatoes this year, but with the extra expense of these perennials, and space really at a premium, I think I'll have to shelve the idea yet again. Maybe next year...

I finally got hold of some saffron crocus bulbs - I'm umming and ahhing about whether to put them on the sunny side of the asparagus bed or keep them safe in a pot at home, where I'm more likely to notice when it's time to harvest! - and I took advantage of a special offer on everbearing 'Albion' strawberries, to fill in a few gaps in the strawberry bed and a few gaps in production! After our great potato success last year, I thought we should expand a bit and grow some early new potatoes as well as our favourite Kestrel maincrop. We don't have any extra space on the plot but I spotted this kit with two potato planting bags and some seed potatoes, which seemed like a good idea for the home garden.

I wanted to invest a bit more in soil fertility and plant feed this year, and have ordered some seaweed spray - something I've always known I should be using but somehow never quite got round to it - and some rockdust, a soil conditioner which adds loads of trace minerals to the soil and is supposed to increase plant health and yields dramatically. And, as promised, I've ordered some fleece and weedproof fabric at last!

Phew! Next year's allotment resolution: Spend less...

My seed-drawer-clearout left me with quite a lot of seeds to throw away - the various products of overenthusiasm, crop failure, seed giveaways, limited space and huge pack sizes! - but it seems such a waste! I can't offer out-of-date seeds at a seedswap. Chances are quite a lot of them are really still valid, but for one reason or another it's not worth the time, space or effort for me to try to grow them. Yet I just can't bring myself to chuck them in the bin... So I'll be sowing the salad and brassica seeds thickly in a seed tray for micro-greens, I'll try to sprout the beans for stirfries, and I'll scatter the tomato seeds under the asparagus after frosts have passed - asparagus beetles are reputedly repelled by tomato plants. I suppose it doesn't take too much space to sow the old carrot seeds for baby carrots, and the mixed spring onion seeds are worth a gamble too. That just leaves me with peppers and squashes/cucumbers, and various herbs. Okay, so you can eat pumpkin seeds, but I'm not sure I want to eat these pumpkin seeds... If I had rabbits or chickens (sigh), I'm sure I could make them very happy with some lovely fresh greens... If I had more space, I could grow some herb plants to sell... But I don't, so I'm struggling for ideas. Anyone else have any ideas for reusing or recycling old seeds?

A Productive Day

2012-01-15T14:31:00.000Z

We were planning all week to visit the allotment for a bit of a tidying-up session on Saturday. It was a bit of a surprise when the temperatures suddenly dropped, after all this mild weather we've had, and we woke up to a fairly hard frost. It was pretty though.

Young Lamb's Lettuce

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

It didn't put us off - I dug my thermals out and we spent a lovely day at the plot, pruning, weeding and tidying.

First job was to sort the compost out. After failing to spread any last year, we had two bins three-quarters full of decent compost with a layer of newish material on top, and a couple of random heaps elsewhere just because we had nowhere to put them. We forked the uncomposted stuff out of one bin and removed six barrowfuls of lovely compost, then started again with the plot's winter waste and tree prunings at the bottom, the other random heaps, and then the layer of uncomposted stuff from the other bin, leaving us a huge heap of the black stuff very nearly ready to use in the other bin too!

I pruned our two 'spur' fruit trees, confident for the first time that I knew what I was doing, having picked up a little book about pruning over Christmas! I always feel mean cutting them back though - they're so spindly!

The apple tree, on the left, is leaning rather badly after a heavy harvest and strong winds during the summer. I'm not really sure how I should try to straighten it - or whether I shouldn't. Any ideas?

Finally, we decided that since the pond was frozen virtually solid (but the soil was perfectly workable), it would be a good time to dig out our huuuuge clump of horseradish from right beside it. Planting it here was a big mistake and, although I know we will have left roots behind and it'll be back, I'm going to try to get rid of it altogether.

It was hard work, but we got the whole crown out along with several thick roots from beneath. We brought home 5.6 kilos of horseradish! That's a lot of roast beef dinners! I'll have to read up on other uses of the stuff and try to preserve some too.

It was a good day and it felt great to get a head start on the new growing season. I don't think I've ever had such a productive January on the plot before - it has certainly never looked so tidy at this time of year!

Cotoneaster in the garden

Happy New Year!

2012-01-07T16:43:00.004Z

Did everyone have a good festive season? I did! And there were even some gardening- and foraging- related pressies:

A heated propagator....

Some great books...

And a beautiful bay tree!

Not to mention a brewing kit and some nice foodie gifts too - more on them another day!

Now I'm not really one to take new year's resolutions too seriously (does anyone?) - I mean, I want to lose a few pounds most of the time anyway, and if there's a change that needs making in my life it probably needs making right away, so why wait around til new year to do it? But the rhythm of the growing season leaves us a natural pause in which to look back at the year that's passed and think about what we might do differently, so, as well as, you know, weeding more and visiting the plot more and stuff like that which goes without saying, I've got a few specific gardening resolutions for the coming year too...

1) Use more fabric on the plot. You know; weed-proof fabric, fleece - that sort of thing. I've never wanted to spend the money before but I've come to realise it'd be a pretty decent investment to protect crops better from frost and to get our paths and a few other areas grass-free once and for all.

2) Make more of an effort to enter the allotment association's summer show. Not that I'm competitive, but having finally gotten more involved in the association this year, I don't think I'd be doing my bit if I didn't support the event better, and, well, I don't want to embarrass myself, do I?

3) Start sowing earlier - and sow for winter at the correct time! Yes, the eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that I've already sown some seeds in my propagator - I did it today. My peppers took soooooo long to come to maturity and start producing last year, it can't possibly hurt to try some super-early ones this time round, and the propagator will help them along too. I've also sown my leek seeds, since I can never seem to get them to a decent size before planting out.

What do you plan to do differently in the garden this year?

Wild Food Night - Christmas!

2011-12-28T12:11:00.000Z

Winter may be a hard time for foragers, with few plants producing fresh growth, but there's still plenty to enjoy, and a few days before Christmas we were treated to a Wild Food Night Christmas special, with a clear emphasis on meats and dried fruits. Oh, and a few local-grown veg ; )

Our canapes were a coarse game and cranberry pate, wild goose mousse, and duck confit - all very tasty, and I do especially love duck.

The starter was cream of pheasant soup, and a loin of hare chop with crabapple jelly. I was quite surprised at the size of the chop!

For the main event, we enjoyed duck breast, chestnut stuffing, 'game pigs' in blankets, goose-fat roasted potatoes plus some seasonal veggies. Delicious!

And dessert, too, was quite traditional, with homemade mince pies and Christmas pudding ice cream, filled with fruit. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of dried fruit and these traditional festive puds, but I'm told they were lovely!

Finally, because it's Christmas, we were served an extra course of British cheeses and crackers, and some really good sloe and damson chocolate-covered fondants, similar to those we had in November. I ate them so quick I didn't get a picture, sorry!

We took the family along on this occasion as well and, well, I think they all enjoyed themselves... Some of them might even be back in future...

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Storing Parsnips

2011-12-16T10:22:00.000Z

I love parsnips - they're one of those few veg I can virtually ignore from the day I sow the seeds to the day I dig them up, and still get a reliable crop every time. We grow 'white gem', sprinkling a few seeds every six inches or so in April, then as long as I remember to thin them to one plant per station at seedling stage, they get along just fine by themselves for the next eight to ten months. A few low-maintenance back-ups like this somehow help make up for the failures and the fussier, tricksier crops I struggle with sometimes!

We usually leave our parsnips in the ground over winter, where they keep just fine, but of course we can't get to them when the ground's frozen hard or covered in several inches of snow, so we usually don't get to eat them until the spring, when we have to catch them before they put on too much new growth and start getting woody. This year I thought it was time to try storing them at home.

Here they are - all six kilos! A variety of sizes but all useful and all healthy. It's important to leave them in the ground until the first few frosts, as it's the cold that makes them take on their sweetness.

Parsnips need humidity and cold to store well - ideally temperatures 0C-4C. I've read that you should be able to store them in the bottom of the fridge for up to six months, but this has never worked for me, and I don't like the idea of blanching and freezing them. So the only other thing to do is store them in soil (or sand, or coir, of leafmould) in a cold place, just as if they were still in the ground. I've packed ours into a box of soil, covered them over and put them in the shed to keep them from freezing - and I must remember to check the mice haven't got in every once in a while!

Here's looking forward to lots of parsnip bread, parsnip soup, and roasted parsnips on Christmas day! And I'll be sending a photo of some choice specimens for Matron's Christmas veggie blog post too.

Two Lovely Chestnut Recipes

2011-12-14T10:00:00.000Z

I promised I'd cook more with our native chestnuts this year while they're in season, and in the last week I've made not just one, but two spectacular chestnut dishes.

First up, we enjoyed this beef and chestnut stew as a welcome-home dinner for my parents last week when they returned from their narrowboat for the winter, with roast potatoes, parsnips and sprouts. I confess I read a few chestnut/meat stew recipes and decided it was fair play just to use my signature beef-stew-and-dumplings recipe, which always goes down a storm, and simply throw in chestnuts too - they're a lovely seasonal addition that add rich, earthy nuttiness and succulence. It's great hearty winter food, and a nice alternative to a Sunday roast. The dumplings use oil instead of the traditional suet and are really tasty!

Beef, Guinness and Chestnut Stew with Dumplings
(serves 6)

Dice 600g or so beef and sear in hot oil in small batches in an ovenproof pan until sealed and browning on all sides. (I usually use quite a high quality lean steak, but you can use cheaper stewing beef and simmer it for longer if you prefer.)
Remove beef from the pan and throw in 6-8 rashers chopped bacon and a handful of whole, peeled shallots. When the bacon's cooked, add the beef back in and stir in 3 tbsps plain flour.
Add a bottle and a half of Original Guinness or other stout. That's... let's see... 750ml. You can sip the rest ; )
Add a generous sprinkle of mixed herbs, half a teaspoon of mustard powder, a beef stock cube and some white pepper. Stir and simmer a few minutes.
Add two or three large carrots and a small swede, diced. Add around 200g roasted chestnuts (optional).
Now cover and let that simmer gently for half an hour or so - no need to be precise - while you prep veggies and make the dumplings...
In a bowl, mix 250g plain flour, 1 tsp salt and 2 tsps baking powder. (You can also add a pinch of dried thyme or other herb if you like.)
Gradually add 150ml milk and 2 tbsps olive or rapeseed oil, bringing the dough together with a fork. You might not quite need all of the milk - stop when the dough comes together (if you add too much your dough will be too sticky to manage and you'll end up with crazy-shaped dumplings like mine above - whoops!) Knead briefly, roll into walnut-sized balls, and arrange on top of your stew.
Put the lid back on the stew and place in an oven at 180C for 35-40 minutes. Remove the lid for the last ten minutes of cooking, to let the tops of the dumplings turn golden-brown.
Serve with your choice of winter veggies. Yum!

Chestnut Cookies

These are a delicious and wonderfully Christmassy treat, dusted with icing sugar on the outside, moist and buttery in the middle, with a hint of spice. They're perfect with tea - or a tot of something stronger - and certain to please at parties, I reckon.

I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe here so I won't reproduce it, but I will heartily recommend it! The cookies needed a slighter cooler temperature in my oven - I had better results at 200C for 14 minutes. I also experimented (can't help myself) by taking half the dough and adding 2 tbsps cocoa powder and 2 tbsps brandy, and they were really good too (probably even better with rum - and best served cold, while the plain ones are awesome served warm), but you know, I don't think this recipe can really be improved upon - the flavour of the chestnuts shines through and really doesn't need any more help than the touch of cinnamon and nutmeg provided. Delicious.

Winter Growings

2011-12-12T09:30:00.000Z

Well, the temperatures are dropping at last, and I'm glad to say our garlic, onions and shallots have put on some decent growth despite a late start.

I had some pepper plants still going on the patio, hoping the little green fruits would get larger, but now one or two have started to show frost damage so I've finished off all those remaining.

Meanwhile, the chilli plant we brought indoors has decided to make up for its pathetic summer crop by flowering again. We will have Christmas chillies!

The plant seems to have a problem though, with several leaves turning yellow and dropping off, and traces of cobweb around the leaves. Looks like spidermite, methinks. (If anyone knows better, do tell...)

I'm reluctant to spray the plant while it's fruiting, but misting daily with water is supposed to help so I must get myself a new spray bottle (my old one doesn't work anymore) and start this a.s.a.p!

Half of the summer's chilli harvest...

The outdoor sowings I made in early autumn have had mixed results - the spinach has all died, the perpetual spinach has mildew and is being eaten by snails, the Nero di Toscana has been munched, the winter gem lettuce never came up... But the spring onions, radishes and claytonia are doing marvellously, and I've tucked them up in the plastic greenhouse for winter. In fact, the claytonia has self-seeded prolifically and is coming up everywhere...

I'm not sure exactly what happens from here; will my salad crops keep growing slowly and steadily throughout winter, or do they stop completely and give me an early crop in the spring? I'll soon find out, I suppose... It would have been ideal to start them a month or two earlier so I could pick some during the winter - must try harder next year!

The purple sprouting brocolli and kale are still battling on and, barring any disasters over winter, should be ready to give me a great crop as soon as the weather warms up for spring. Not every plant has put on satisfactory pre-winter growth, but as long as I get them through the winter I'm sure they'll catch up.

Next task, now we've had a few decent frosts, is to get back to the plot and dig the parsnips up to store in a box of soil in a sheltered spot at home, safe from frozen ground, snails and flooding!

My Dream Garden

2011-12-10T12:00:00.000Z

This is an impromptu post inspired by WellyWoman's challenge to blog about our dream gardens. Those who know me know I tend to dream big - in fact I think I'm going to feel a bit extravagant putting this into words - but extravagance is what dreams are for, right? And if you don't aspire, you don't get.

My dream garden has, of course, a strong emphasis on edibles, from the conservatory packed with hot-climate fruits and exotic spices to the native greens I'd hope to encourage in wilder areas. It uses a few permaculture principles and would aim to support all kinds of wildlife. Social aspects are important too - I love being outside and I love entertaining, and am really into the idea of outdoor living areas - I want indoors to blend into outdoors via an outside kitchen, a seating area around a brazier for chilling out with friends (I'm seeing a big curved strawbale bench, decorated around and about with herbs and alpines), a vine-draped pergola over an outdoor dining table, Italian style, and maybe even a hammock in a shady spot for lazy summer afternoons. A natural swimming pool would be amaaazing, and shelter frogs, dragonflies and more in its borders.

Like WellyWoman, I love the idea of a walled garden, but out of sight is out of mind for me and I know it'd be far more sensible to have the veg garden as close to - and visible from - the kitchen door as possible. Maybe the house could form one wall, so I can have it both ways, but that puts paid to the sprawling countryside views I'd like to enjoy from my garden. Sometimes we have to compromise even in our dreams... I envisage neat square vegetable beds with immaculate paths between them - a far cry from my messy allotment! A permanent herb bed near the kitchen is a must, as is a decent-sized asparagus bed, a large polytunnel (don't mind if I can't see that from the kitchen window), and a soft fruit patch not too far away. I'd like some architectural features too - I'm not sure exactly what - to divide the space, to give height and structure, to lead to new areas. Maybe living willow structures, maybe tactically planted bamboo, maybe rocks or rockeries, maybe arbours and fences draped with climbing plants.

Beyond that, there are plenty more things on the wishlist. An area of forest garden, with nuts and tree-fruits above (a good Victoria plum tree is essential), wild and cultivated greens below, and mushrooms wherever I can get them to grow. Some free-range chickens and ducks scratching around for grubs and leaving fertiliser wherever they go. Space for a few pigs (which I'd move onto the veg patch in autumn to clear plant debris and manure the soil) and maybe some rabbits. A beehive or two in a far corner. A choice of nice places to sit. An open space; no neatly-trimmed lawn but a wilder meadow, and an area - perhaps with pond - left completely untouched for insects and animals to make their homes.

Picture by Graham Burnett, from Wikimedia Commons.

I'm not completely against ornamentals, but I can't bear the thought of a formal flower garden with its high-maintenance borders and constantly changing bedding plants. Bulbs and self-seeders are more my style, not together in beds, but grouped here and there wherever they look good. Common self-sowing companion plants such as marigolds and nasturtiums, borage and limnanthes can grow wherever they please as far as I'm concerned, as can natives like foxgloves, wild pansies, forget-me-nots and primroses, and flowering herbs such as thyme, marjoram, lavender and hyssop. Where I fancy a bit more colour I might choose a few tulips, daffodils or gladioli, or a butterfly-attracting shrub. I'd like to aim for colour all year round, and Mum's low-maintenance garden has taught me how great shrubs can be for this; bright yellow kerria in the spring, brilliant orange and red cotinus in the autumn, Japanese maples and golden brians, and the red winter berries of holly and cotoneaster. I saw a wintry picture once of flame-orange dogwoods underplanted with purple kale and snowdrops - a striking scene worth replicating. And I love the huge blooms of magnolia in early spring, and the different coloured cherry blossoms I see in others' gardens around here.

Incredible 'cotinus coggyria' leaves in Mum's garden.

There's one more special thing; the icing on the cake... I'd like a moonlight garden area, filled with white flowers and pale-leaved shrubs to pick up the light, as well as night-blooming flowers and those that give off their scent after dark. A moondial perhaps (does such a thing exist? It does in my dream) and a very gently trickling water feature, and of course a bench, to take in the peace and enjoy a hot summer night.

Too much? Well, it's fun to dream... What's your dream garden like?

Wild Food Night - November

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000Z

A bit late again, but I can't miss it out - here's what we enjoyed at Wild Food Night a couple of weeks back.

Canapes were a mixed bag; a sloe shot - far too dry for my taste! - a spicy venison kofta bite with black pepper mayo, and a chocolate-dipped 'bramble candy' - a really lovely confection, soft inside like an after-dinner mint, but berry-flavoured of course.

The starter was wild mushroom soup, made with oyster, field and dried penny bun mushrooms, and pheasant and port pate - both delicious, and I could eat that soup again and again. (I've been eyeing the mushrooms popping up all over my lawn all autumn - I think they're edible blewitts but I just can't quite be sure... I'd love to get into mushroom identification but it seems such a tricky business. Maybe one day...)

The main was a venison pie, made with local fallow deer and red wine, topped with shortcrust pastry and served with locally-grown veg; sweet potato, cauliflower puree and buttered cabbage. Tasty and very filling! Venison is such a lovely meat and seems to suit pies, stews and curries really well - we should all use more of it!

Dessert was a triumph. I was a bit apprehensive when I read 'crab apple cheesecake' on the menu, but of course the crab apples were sweetened to a rich syrup and it was a delight, served with more of that lovely wild plum ice cream we've had before. Delicious!

A great meal and a great night!

Flooding

2011-12-06T13:26:00.000Z

Our allotment site is rather prone to flooding - it's on very low ground, in a dip, so whenever the water table gets very high (especially at the end of winter) we're the first to know - and it's on the old course of the local river, the Ver, which occasionally bursts its banks and tries to revert to its old ways. This winter, however, it isn't the water table or the river that's causing a problem. It's a 15" water main three metres below the site, which has burst. Oh dear.

This is just two plots away from ours, but luckily for us our plot is much higher, and not affected.

I have to say I've been most impressed by the rest of the committee and how quickly and effectively they investigated the situation and had the problem traced. Ten heads are certainly better than one - I first thought there would be nothing we could do but warn plot-holders to take precautions against flood damage. It took someone else to point out that the water table can't possibly be this high, another to report that the watercress beds nearby had been positively droughted until a few days ago but the water level had suddenly shot up, another to spot a letter in the local paper wondering why the level of the river had also risen suddenly, another to call in the council, and another to be available to meet with Environment Agency and water board officals... A real team effort! How long it will now take for the water company to fix it (and how much damage is done in the process) remains to be seen...

Meanwhile, there's not a lot else we can do but feel sorry for those affected. But, as newsletter editor, and since this certainly won't be the last time we're affected by flooding, I've been trying to put together a list of pointers to help plot-holders and gardeners deal with flooding, minimise flood damage, and recover from it, in future. Here goes:

All year round:

Build up your soil's organic-matter content to promote aeration and drainage.
Promote healthy microbiological activity in your soil with plenty of good compost, and consider using a seaweed extract to strengthen your plants and your soil. A healthy soil will stand up better to any problems.
Keep your site tidy, keep chemicals sealed and to a minimum, and always remove diseased plant matter.
Make the sure the bottoms of sheds, in particular, are waterproofed and protected against rot.
Plant trees and shrubs on raised ground where possible.

When flooding threatens:

Remove tools and equipment from sheds and greenhouses - or at the very least, raise them off the floor.
It may be possible to protect your shed or greenhouse with sandbags.
Ensure all chemicals and treatments are out of reach of floodwaters, to prevent contamination of the water.
Remove rubbish and loose items from the site, or secure them so they can't float away.
Raise pots and tubs up on bricks, or remove them from the site.
Harvest everything you can and store it at home.
If you know you're going to lose certain crops but it's not too late to resow, do it right away, so you'll be ready to plant out again as soon as your plot has recovered.
Remember that floodwater can sometimes carry dangerous contaminants. Avoid contact with it where possible - wear waterproof gloves and footwear if needed, and shower and wash your clothes after contact. Protect cuts and grazes. If you fall ill after coming into contact with floodwater, see a doctor.

When the water goes down:

Carefully check sheds, greenhouses and other structures for any structural damage before using.
Try to avoid walking on waterlogged soil until it has dried out. If you need to get across it, lay planks down to spread your weight on the ground.
Don't sow/plant in waterlogged soil - wait for it to dry out.
Speed drying by aerating the soil with a fork or similar.
Remove debris and dead or decayed plant matter as soon as possible. Empty any containers that have collected floodwater.
Most plants will recover if they have been flooded for less than a week, but consider taking cuttings of valued perennials, so that you have back-ups in case they don't.
Check for any exposed roots, and cover them with soil. Check for plants that may need staking for extra support while they recover.
Clean any silt or mud off recovering pants, and feed them. Seaweed extract may help to build disease resistance and promote new root growth.
Prune struggling plants right back, to give them an easier time while they recover.
Waterlogging can affect the pH of your soil and drain it of nutrients - consider checking the pH and dressing with manure or fertiliser before replanting.
Consider growing a green manure before you plant crops, to help to rebuild soil structure and add nutrients. This may also help by indicating if you have any more serious soil problems such as contamination or an unhealthy pH.
Once it's dry, check your soil for signs of life, forking through it gently. Worms are very sensitive to contaminants and are a great indicator of the health of your soil.
Whether or not it's safe to eat vegetables which have been in floodwater is a controversial matter; health guidelines say don't do it, but if the source of the water is known and localised, if it looks and smells clean, if there is no industrial activity near your site and no chance of the water having come into contact with sewage, and if plotholders have taken steps to avoid local contamination of the water, you may prefer to make up your own mind. Wash all vegetables carefully and cook before eating. But if in doubt, throw it out.
Don't be discouraged! Get growing again as soon as you can, even if it means growing in pots or growbags temporarily. Sow some fast-maturing crops such as salads for quick results. Ask for help if you need it.

And if you're unaffected, consider how you might be able to help your fellow gardeners:

Keep your plot tidy and free of debris and contaminants too.
Lend tools where they are needed - perhaps you even have surplus you could give away.
Propogate plants for others to help them get going again.
Share surplus crops and compost from your plot.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000Z

I am enduring day eleven of intense sore throat, swollen glands, stiff neck and upper body, exhaustion and misery. Apparently antibiotics won't help me, and nothing else is either - rest, plenty of fluids, vitamins, garlic, throat sprays and gargles, high-antioxidant tea... I've been eyeing the fancier immune-sytem-boosting supplements in the health shop too - Manuka honey, bee pollen, elderberry extract, echinacea, special probiotics, beta-glucan, colloidal silver... One person swears by one and another swears by another, and it all seems rather a gamble when each is so expensive (I've been disappointed by echinacea once before - do I really want to spend £15 trying it again, however many people say it works?)

But healthful foods are, happily, easily available to us all here, and there's one flu-busting food which is supposed to boost health and healing more than any other. Chicken noodle soup.

Huh? Which chicken noodle soup? Made by what recipe, with what ingredients? Surely the instant packet stuff can't be that great for you? Are the noodles essential? Can't I just eat chicken? I have long been suspicious of this claim, but in fact, studies have shown that eating chicken noodle soup can cut the duration of flu or similar illness by half, and another study even compared commercial brands to show that Knorr's instant chicken noodle soup was the most healing! So, well, seeing as I've had plenty of time on my hands, I've been thinking and reading about this a lot, and actually it really does make a lot of sense.

The base for most (if not all) chicken noodle soups is, of course, chicken stock, plus onions, garlic, carrots and celery. Onions and, particularly, garlic both contain anti-viral and anti-bacterial compounds, and strengthen the blood and the lungs. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene which assists production of infection-fighting cells in the body. Celery is packed with vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fibre and, unusually, stands up well to cooking, keeping most of its goodness when other green vegetables would lose it. Add chicken to the mix for a rich source of protein, which promotes healing, as well as zinc, which supports the immune system by helping the body to make better use of vitamin C, and cysteine, which stimulates the immune system. Noodles serve to fortify the dish, adding extra energy when it's most needed, and egg noodles provide even more protein. Add some chilli - the capsaicin which makes chillies hot is a powerful decongestant which loosens and liquefies mucus - and you have a cocktail of great nutrition ideal for someone fighting illness. Furthermore, making this into a soup means that it's easy to eat and digest, especially for the sick and those with agonising sore throats, and the (largely) liquid delivery makes the nutrients super-accessible, meaning they're fast-tracked into the system. Genius!

Of course, it doesn't stop there, either. It's easy to add extra vegetables, such as tomatoes perhaps for their many antioxidants, red peppers which contain many of the same health-boosting compounds as garlic and chilli, or chopped leafy greens for iron. Many people extol the medicinal properties of certain herbs when fighting colds, and you can, of course add herbs to your heart's content too.

Does an exhausted sick person want to stand in the kitchen cooking up soup for ages? No, of course not. But thankfully this is quite quick to make (about half an hour), and when I sat comfortably at the table to do all the chopping I actually found it quite therapeutic. And luckily a large batch keeps well in the fridge for a good few days, and would freeze well too ;)

Nome's Chicken Noodle Soup (not just for sick people!)
(makes five big bowls, or eight little ones)

Bring 1.5 litres chicken stock to the boil. (Beware the high salt level in some stocks - choose low-sodium if possible, dilute with water to lower the salt, or use home-made.)
Add one large onion, two large carrots and four or five sticks of celery, all chopped, plus 2 teaspoons mixed herbs and a generous grinding of black pepper.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes, until soft.
Blend with a stick blender (use your judgement and make it as chunky or smooth as you like).
Add a red pepper and a chilli (or less, or more, depending on your taste), finely chopped.
Break up two nests of dried egg noodles (to make the noodles shorter and easier to manage) and boil in a separate pan according to the instructions on the pack - usually about 4 minutes. (It's important that they're cooked before you add them to the soup, as they absorb so much liquid.)
Add two chicken breasts, chopped up small, to the soup, along with 2-4 chopped cloves of garlic (adding it near the end like this means it is less cooked and its health properties will be stronger, but the taste will be stronger too so watch out!)
When the chicken is cooked (only 3-4 minutes if you've chopped it really small), check seasoning, drain the noodles and stir them in, and serve.

I opt sometimes to sprinkle mine with nori - a widely available seaweed - for extra iron-rich goodness too.

Well, I've been eating chicken noodle soup for lunch for several days now, and no, I'm not better. I am improving slightly and slowly, I think. But well, it's delicious, I do feel good eating it, and I know I'm doing the right thing by my body by nourishing it with loads and loads of goodness - it's got to be helping at least a little! Forget the expensive supplements - these basic building blocks of health are accessible to us all and are the very first thing we should turn to when illness looms.

Cutworms

2011-11-10T12:21:00.000Z

I was dismayed last week, when I popped out to check on things in the garden, to find this:

The stem has been chewed through, right at the base, and just under the soil I found a little maggoty grub curled up where it had been. (Sorry, no photo; I was in too much of a hurry to squish the little bugger.)

This is the work of a cutworm - a brutally destructive pest I had not come up against until now. Cutworms are the larvae of several species of moth. They lay their eggs in the soil, and when the grub hatches it wraps itself around the first plant matter it comes across - usually a stem of a young plant - and tucks in. Seems a remarkably inefficient way to feed, killing off the whole plant in one bite, but these things are sent to try us... From the look of the grub I found, and the fact this is a brassica plant, I'm guessing the turnip moth is a pretty likely culprit - it's also one of the most prevalent types of cutworm.

Where cutworms are a problem, young plants can be protected with collars around their stems at soil level and sticking just below the soil. A few layers of newspaper can be used, or paper cups or toilet rolls, foil pie trays, 1" diameter plastic pipe, or short pieces of drinking straw, slit lengthways so that the stem can expand and the collar be removed later. (Once the stems are about the thickness of a pencil, cutworms are no longer a danger.) I've seen cornmeal around the base of the plant recommended too - apparently the larvae gladly eat it but cannot digest it, and die - and another method is to stick toothpicks or cocktail sticks in the soil round the plant, in the hope the grubs will wrap round those instead (though it seems to me you'd have to check them for grubs regularly, or they'll just move on to the next stem...) Winter soil cultivation can also help, by exposing overwintering larvae.

Chestnut Ravioli

2011-11-08T14:54:00.000Z

For years I've been a bit put off by chestnuts - when I was a kid and Dad roasted them in the fire at Christmas time, I always thought they smelled weirdly of methylated spirits. (Maybe Dad just wasn't telling us something about how he got the fire going...) But yet, Mum makes a wicked chestnut stuffing every Christmas, while my mother-in-law serves them roasted with sprouts and shallots - lovely. And they add a gorgeous richness to cakes and desserts too - the chestnut chocolate torte we sampled last Wild Food Night was awesome. Chestnuts are a huge British winter tradition, and quite rightly so - they're indigenous, freely and widely available, tasty, and their high starch content (twice that of potatoes!) makes them massively versatile - in fact, (though they taste great in themselves) they'll happily soak up other flavours and you can use them in many ways you'd use potatoes; adding them to stews and soups, using them as a flour, as a puree, as a side dish... They're low fat and high fibre, and full of complex carbs and high quality proteins, with as much vitamin C as lemons by weight, and lots of vitamins E and B6, thiamin, potassium, folate and magnesium. So I've made it my aim - nay, my duty - this year, to use them in my own cooking...

Sadly, my attempts at foraging for chestnuts have so far all failed - it turns out they drop around here much earlier than all the books say - so all the chestnuts you'll be seeing here are bought from markets or supermarkets (probably ready-roasted and vacuum-packed). But it's not going to stop me making the best of this great British ingredient.

The first thing that sprang to mind, especially when I was given a large patty-pan-type squash last week and asked to do something fun with it, was Monica Shaw's mouthwatering picture of chestnut pasta ravioli which I'd seen on Twitter a few weeks back, and she kindly linked me to the chestnut pasta recipe here and the pumpkin ravioli recipe here. Granted, I've never tried my hand at any kind of pasta before, but I'm not one to be put off by mere cluelessness...

Actually, I've made this twice in the last few days. The first attempt, while perfectly edible, was not really what I aspired to...

...but I learnt a lot of lessons from the process:

Lesson No. 1: Chestnut flour (required for the pasta dough) is not widely available. I've checked all my local supermarkets and health food shops and there's none of this stuff in the whole city. But a couple of websites said I could make my own by milling roasted chestnuts, so that's what I did. It's moister than flour should be (though it could - and probably should - be dried out in a low oven or dehydrator) and gives a more wholemealy look and texture. (Lesson No. 1a: Use less egg in the dough to make up for this extra moisture!)

Lesson No. 2: Lock the cat out when chestnuts are around. From the moment I opened the packet he was miaowing round my feet and trying to get on the table. I couldn't understand it - you'd have thought we were making some kind of sushi-meets-catnip treat! Then he dived in the bin, dragged the chestnut packet out and started licking the crumbs out like a mad thing! Bad kitty! He doesn't normally go for non-meat/dairy foods - I wonder what on earth it is about chestnuts he likes so much! Does anyone else's cat go crazy for them?

Lesson No. 3: Rest the dough half an hour before rolling out. I realised we'd forgotten to do this the first time, and when I did it the second time it made the whole process much easier.

Lesson No. 4: The pasta must be THIN. Reeeeally thin. Like, nearly-see-through thin. Resting helps this, as the dough is much more willing to stretch, but it's a rather sticky dough and too often it stuck to the table or fell apart as I tried to roll it out as thin as I possibly could! It paid off in the end; my first batch of ravioli were way too thick, tricky to fill well, took ages to cook, and the pasta/filling ratio was all wrong. The second batch were much more delicate and allowed for more filling. Of course, none of this would have been an issue if I had a pasta machine...

Lesson No. 5: Patty-pan squash isn't the ideal squash for a recipe like this. Its flavour is very mild and sadly just got a bit lost. Pumpkin, butternut or onion squash are more robust flavourwise and far more suitable. (The other half of that patty-pan will go great in a stew or a curry later this week.)

I experimented a bit with fillings too on the first attempt, and made spiced squash (good, but could have done without the cream which diluted the flavour), squash with rosemary, cheese and tomato (good, but could have done with more cheese), squash with chopped chestnuts (good, but ground or pureed chestnuts would have been better), squash with truffle oil (good, but it's punchy stuff and I made it a touch too strong!) and mushroom, with shallot, fresh parsley and a splash of brandy (delicious! must make again!). The second time I kept it simple and used just roasted pumpkin with a knob of butter, seasoning and a touch of sage and nutmeg.

Here's my second attempt at ravioli:

Not too bad, huh? I suspect the pasta could still be thinner, but I'm pretty pleased. The chestnut adds a rich new dimension to the pasta, the pumpkin is fragrant and delicious, and the crispy shallot and sage butter topping (from the recipe above) is the perfect accompaniment (I replaced the pine nut garnish in the recipe with toasted almonds to keep in the spirit of all things local and homegrown).

I think, though, that my next chestnut recipe will have to be something a bit more simple. Ravioli takes aaaages!

EDIT: See Carl Legge's lovely chestnut pasta post and recipe here too!

Using Up Potatoes: Giant Rostis!

2011-11-05T09:00:00.000Z

Every potato harvest inevitably comes with a few specimens damaged by sunlight, slugs, the fork that dug them up, or even by couchgrass roots, which burrowed a few holes through mine!

These should be separated from the undamaged potatoes and used first, as they're bound to go off sooner.

In an effort to use up our damaged spuds, of which we had really quite a few (and getting a little bored with mash) I thought I'd try to recreate a dish Eddie sampled in the fabulous veggie restaurant Terre a Terre recently:

(Disclaimer: My rosti may not be the same as/as good as Terre a Terre's, and certainly didn't look as good (theirs is pictured)... But it's still delish!) I altered it a bit to use up some watercress I had left over from something else, and it packs in even more flavour. Actually it's a really good dish to use up large amounts of spinach, watercress or any other similar leaf, as well as potatoes. You'll want at least 100g leaves per person and you could use much more if you wanted, so it's a good one for those bags/bunches of leaves the supermarkets and market stalls reduce at the end of the day too... It's a great, simple dish for one (though a bit of a juggling act if you're feeding a whole family) and a really tasty supper.

Giant Rostis with Watercress Sauce

Finely chop an onion and fry gently until really soft and golden, but not browned.
Grate around 200g potato per person, put it in a sieve or a clean tea towel and squeeze as much water out as you can.
Throw a couple of chopped garlic cloves in with the onion to soften.
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Put the grated potato into a large bowl and season well. Add the chopped onion and garlic and gently combine (try not to break up or mash the potato too much!).
Divide the potato mixture into bowls - one per person. The shape of the bowls will shape the rostis.
Heat some oil in a non-stick frying pan, tip the first rosti in, and fry on a medium-high heat.
Once it is golden brown underneath, flip it over and do the other side. When that side is golden-brown too, put it on a large baking tray and do the next rosti...
When all your rostis are nicely browned, pop them in the oven to finish cooking in the middle while you make the sauce. (Maybe a more skilled or patient chef than I could cook them entirely in the frying pan, but because they're so big it seems to me they'd need this extra oven-time to cook right through.)
Meanwhile, wilt your leaves (100g-200g per person) down in a large saucepan with a knob of butter, salt and pepper, a splash of lemon juice and a little nutmeg. I used 2/3 watercress, 1/3 spinach, but you could use spinach only, or any combination really. I'm willing to bet chard, young kale, beetroot leaves, sorrel and any other similar leaf would work too (although sorrel really loses its colour when cooked so you might prefer to add it raw when pureeing).
When the leaves are cooked down, keep a couple of spoonsful aside for the garnish, and puree the rest (a wand-type blender is good for this). Add a spoonful or two of cream cheese (or a splash of cream and a little parmesan) and taste. Add more seasoning, cream/cheese or lemon juice if you so desire.
Poach (or soft-boil) your eggs.
When the rostis are done in the middle (ooh, about 15-25 minutes, depending how long you fried them for!), spread the sauce on each plate, top with a rosti, then a spoonful of wilted leaves, then a poached egg, and finally a generous handful of grated cheese!

To me this is great just as it is, but hardcore carnivores could be appeased with a sprinkling of crispy bacon bits or chopped ham. A nice piece of fish - especially smoked fish - would complement it very well too.

Winter Seedings and Buried Treasure!

2011-11-03T09:30:00.000Z

I feel all springy - what a strange time of year to be bringing seedlings into the world. The seeds I've been sowing last week and the week before are all popping up into the autumn sunshine.

Nero di Toscana kale:

Claytonia:

And radishes:

The turnips on the allotment are all coming up fast too, and will need thinning soon. I just hope I wasn't too late and these all put some good growth on before the temperatures drop too low.

Yesterday we planted out our autumn onions (Radar), shallots (Yellow Moon) and garlic (Provence Wight) too. I bought this collection from Marshalls and was very pleased - they came quickly and seem to be very healthy and high quality (and they were one of the few places that hadn't already sold out - phew!) After years of weak and tiny onions, I finally also bought some special onion feed to try to boost their growth. We simply scattered it on the soil and raked it in before planting. Fingers crossed we'll get a bigger harvest and it'll strengthen them somewhat against the white rot and snails that always kill a few!

And look what we dug up while we were preparing the soil for our alliums. I wonder what it was for... I can't believe after nearly six years on this plot we're still finding buried treasure!

Pickling

2011-11-01T09:30:00.000Z

I've had another tentative go at pickling this year; first, sliced beetroots from the allotment, and then some of the more diminutive specimens from my onion and shallot harvests.

Pickling beetroot is really easy - just cook the beets in their skins, peel, and cover with vinegar. It's important not to cut or pierce the beets in any way before cooking - cut the stalks to a couple of centimetres and wash them gently, then boil or roast until just soft. (I boiled mine, but I think I'll roast them next time as a lot of colour and aroma seemed to escape into the water even with their skins intact.) Allow them to cool enough to handle comfortably, then rub the soft skins away. Have plenty of paper towel at hand - this is a messy job! Slice the beetroots (or you could leave them whole if they're small) and pack into sterilised jars. Bring the vinegar to the boil with a few spoonfuls of sugar and some pickling spices (mustard seeds, allspice berries, peppercorns, mace, coriander, cloves, etc. to taste) and then pour into the jars, to cover the beets, and seal. I won't share my recipe here because I'm not quite happy with it - less spice, more sugar next time, for me. But I'm enjoying my beetroots all the same, usually in sandwiches with ham, mayo and lettuce. Yum!

Pickling onions and shallots takes a bit longer - they must be marinated in a handful or three of sea salt (or a strong salt solution) overnight first. They'll smell just like pickled onions after marinating! Then they are packed into sterilised jars and covered with vinegar in just the same way. Again, these are a bit punchy for my taste, and I'll use more sugar next time, but Dad loves them so they're still going to good use!

I'm rather sad I didn't get to pickle some courgettes too - I really enjoyed these last year - but the courgettes haven't been up to much this year and the usual glut never happened. Ah well, maybe I can get some more beetroot chutney made with the winter crop soon...

Drying Seeds

2011-10-30T09:30:00.000Z

After the awesome success of my Angelle tomatoes this year, I've started taking the whole seed-saving thing a bit more seriously. Sure, it's okay to casually dry seeds on a windowsill and use them next year, but if you want your seeds to last longer and get a really good germination rate - and I do - air-dry is not enough. I've been taking the advice of Real Seeds' seedsaving guide (here and here) and drying my saved tomato seeds the proper way.

It's very simple really - just bake dry rice in the oven for 45 minutes or so then put it in a jar (the jar should be about half full, and there should be at least twice as much rice as seed) and put the lid on while it cools. This makes the rice - and the air in the jar, really, really dry. When it's cold, you put your seeds in a breathable pouch made of muslin or old tights, secure it with a rubber band or piece of string, and pop them in the jar on top of the rice for a couple of weeks. The super-dry rice draws all the moisture out of the seeds, and you're left with super-dry seeds that can be sealed in an airtight packet without the risk of suffocating, rotting, or trying to germinate too soon. Super.

Wild Food Night - October

2011-10-28T09:30:00.000+01:00

Numbers have been dwindling for Wild Food Night over the past few months - a real shame if you ask me. If you know anyone foraging- or homegrowing-minded in the Hertfordshire area, let them know what they're missing! We were still there on Wednesday night to see what October had to offer...

Canapes were all things we'd had before, but new and improved! First was a wild garlic crispbread, made with the bulbs rather than the more commonly picked leaves. I didn't know that the bulbs could be harvested too - they're quite small, sort of similar to the white shafts of spring onions, and they take up to three years to develop; internet sources say they're only worth harvesting when the patch needs thinning out (and remember, kids, it's illegal to uproot any plant without the permission of the landowner). Next, a pigeon mousse with a red onion and truffle oil vinaigrette - delicious. And finally a haw berry shot, which tasted nice and syrupy, but I still couldn't tell you what haws taste like. I'm quite curious about these as I'm seeing loads in our area at the moment - I'll have to look them up and see what can be done with them.

The starter was a lovely rich wild duck and "not-so-wild" orange pate, served with crispbreads, and a peppery nettle soup. I love nettle soup - I must make it more often! Apparently new growth nettles in autumn have a deeper, richer flavour. The nettles I pass on my walks seem to be dying off slowly now or even still showing their flowers or seeds, with no signs of new shoots, but I've noticed a few new ones popping up on the allotment so that's where I'll go...

The main was named 'Peasant Pheasant'; pheasant breast cooked with garlic, onion, lemon juice and rosemary, served with creamy mash, buttery carrot puree and some tasty green beans. Sadly I'm not so keen on the taste of pheasant - it has a livery flavour much like the pigeon we sampled some months ago - but everyone else at the table enjoyed it, and the vegetable accompaniments were lovely.

For dessert, this fabulously rich chestnut chocolate torte and very creamy wild berry ice cream (made with bramble, haw and damson syrups) were incredible! More please!

I was very glad there were chestnuts on October's menu, especially since my own chestnut-gathering attempts were frustrated last week when I found I'd missed them all already! 'Food for Free' clearly says they start to ripen around the end of October, but by mid-October every single one had gone from the trees near me! And I was even more shocked to see them going for £4 per small bag in the supermarket yesterday (twice the price of the prepared chestnuts sold by Merchant Gourmet all year round - it's amazing how much Christmas packaging can cost...) I haven't really cooked with chestnuts before but I do like them. Foraged or not, I am determined to use them more this winter...

Winter Sowing

2011-10-26T18:28:00.002+01:00

Okay, I really should have done this at least a month ago, but I was behind as usual and the weather's still so nice... It can't be too late yet, can it? Not if the volunteer salad plants I keep finding all over the garden are anything to go by. I've got claytonia in the seed-grown rosemary I gave up on and forgot about...

...and I've got rocket (or is it mizuna?) in my broccoli.

In fact, there are a lot of leafy greens that will grow over winter with a bit of shelter, and with night temperatures still not dropping below 8 or 9 here (with just one exception last week), a new cover on my plastic greenhouse, a quick study of Charles Dowding's great book 'Salad Leaves for All Seasons', and a sowing-spree in the sunshine on Monday, I have high hopes for at least a few overwinter greens this year. I've sown two types of spring onions, 'Winter Gem' lettuces, claytonia (love the stuff!), lamb's lettuce/corn salad, 'Bright Lights' radishes and some 'Nero di Toscana' kale (similar to the popular narrow-leaved 'Cavolo Nero'). They're outside hopefully being warmed by the sunshine for now, but if and when it turns cold they'll go straight in the greenhouse. Oh, and I've got some spinach and perpetual spinach going too, which I started some weeks ago, and of course the leeks and parsnips on the allotment, and some purple-sprouting broccoli and curly kale in tubs. With a bit of luck and care, this could just be my most productive winter yet...

Today we finally got round to sowing some winter turnips on the plot as well, and scattered the ex-potato beds with some out-of-date Phacelia seeds (fingers crossed...) to protect the soil over winter and provide some extra organic matter to dig into the soil in the spring. My mail-order onions, shallots and garlic haven't come yet, but I'm ready for them when they do.

And as a testament to how mild the weather still is, here's a very late-flowering feverfew I spotted poking up through my patio yesterday! Good job there are still flowers about - there are certainly still plenty of bees and butterflies enjoying them!

Community Orchard

2011-10-22T09:45:00.000+01:00

On our allotment trip the other day we brought home a bag of lovely apples, not from our tree (they're all long gone now) but from the community orchard.

What fab colours! I'd love to know what the purple variety are...

I'm not exactly sure of the history of the place, but a couple of years ago the allotment association took over this plot at the back of our site, which already had several exisiting fruit trees, and turned it into a communal area cared for by volunteers and with fruit available for all association members. Although there are only apples remaining at this time of year, the orchard now contains pears, plums, and a few things I don't recognise too. This is the first time we've really made use of it, and we're glad we have - they're delicious! I'm glad Eddie's so tall, too - he managed to pick a lot of the fruit no-one else could reach at the top!

...Hello Winter

2011-10-20T09:30:00.000+01:00

Better late than never, I have been tending to some new crops for over winter and, hopefully, if they make it that far, next spring. I have a late-summer sowing of perpetual spinach doing well in a container in the garden, and a newer sowing of traditional spinach (Medania) popping up too. These will have to go under cover in our plastic greenhouse, I think, when it gets really cold.

I bought some purple-sprouting broccoli, kale and spring cabbage seedlings from Homebase in the sale a few weeks back, and I've now planted some of these out in tubs in the garden. I was hoping to put the rest on the plot but it's getting a little late now... They've been under constant attack from snails and caterpillars, but I'm just about keeping up. Pesky blighters, those caterpillars. They're too good at hiding...

Though I don't know how they think poses like this help...

Some of the psb is doing really well:

But I'm not sure others are going to make it...

I've put two kale plants into the box that grew beans all summer. Hopefully the nitrogen fixed into the soil by the beans will help to encourage lots of leafy growth. It certainly looks like it's working so far!

The chard, parsnips and leeks on the plot are all doing okay. The chard is a bit munched around the edges and needs a good weeding, which I'll do next week. The leeks are a bit bedraggled and small, but in my experience always perk up and come into their own early in the spring. The parsnips are a great size - I should probably dig them up and put them in a box of compost at home so I can get at them when the ground's frozen, but in reality I don't have anywhere to keep them... I've got some onions and garlic on order for the allotment too - I've never overwintered them before but it's got to be worth a try. I just hope I can get them in the ground in time!

Next job, though, is to sow some winter lettuces and claytonia for salads. It'd be good to sow some turnip seeds on the plot too if I clear enough soil. Is it too late? I don't have a clue. But there's only one way to find out...

Goodbye Summer...

2011-10-18T12:14:00.000+01:00

With temperatures set to drop close to freezing later this week, and squash plants turning brown and straggly on the plot, we've had to bring in the last of our summer crops.

I am very disappointed with our pumpkin/squash harvest, which totals a measly 5.5kg. Most years we bring home whole pumpkins weighing that much! Here it is: two Baby Bear pumpkins, one stunted and underripe Atlantic 'Giant' (ha!), one miniature Sweet Dumpling, two smaller-than-usual Thelma Sanders and one very tiny and very unripe Butternut. Sigh.

I'm most disappointed with the Thelma Sanders - in all previous years they've reliably produced several big fruits per plant - this year just one small one each. What went wrong? Slugs were certainly a major problem this year, destroying two whole Crown Prince plants and eating the other Atlantic Giant pumpkin, which was looking really good early in the season. Perhaps they thrived in the cool and damp summer. Perhaps I should just be spending more money on pest control... I planted the seedlings out a bit late too, which meant they were a little pot-bound and took longer than usual to settle in. And the weed jungle which came up while we were on holiday couldn't have been timed much worse and gave the young plants a lot of competition. Hmmm. Must do better next year...

These will sit in the sun by our back door for a while now to finish ripening (hopefully) and for the skins to cure for storage (not that it'll take long to eat this little lot).

Still, it's not all bad news - we have dug up another 13kg potatoes, bringing our total to something around 30-35kg, and we even found a late handful of strawberries and raspberries!

In the garden, the tomatoes are still going - they've given us fruit since the beginning of July, sixteen weeks ago! Despite blight finally hitting the plants about a month ago, very few fruits have been affected and they're actually still producing! The plants look a total mess though... Today I will pick the rest of the ripe fruit, but I think I'll leave the green ones where they are just to see if they can continue to surprise me...

The courgettes and cucumbers have just about finished now, so I've picked the last fruits to keep in the fridge until I'm ready to use them, so that just leaves the peppers, and there are so many! I'm wondering whether to just haul the plants indoors on cold nights, rather than picking them all at once and trying to eat them all really fast! I think I'll overwinter a couple of plants anyway, but they're not small so it'll be interesting...

October Strawberries!

2011-10-17T18:06:00.001+01:00

It seems that hot spell last month really confused a lot of our plants - a lot of plants in the garden are flowering for a second time and I know I'm not the only one whose strawberries have started producing a second crop! Crazy!

It was my pleasure to write a guest post for Tom, the 'Hapless Gardener' for his blog 'Growing Up' on Friday - please go read it here if you haven't already!

Peppers - At Last!

2011-10-13T15:44:00.002+01:00

October, and my peppers are finally reaching a decent size. Well, some of them. All right, I've eaten a few small ones earlier in the summer, but they were pretty few-and-far-between. Now, at last, I'm counting up to twenty peppers on my 'Doux Tres Long Des Landes' plants, the 'Aji' and 'Kaibi' are a semi-respectable size, and one of my 'King of the North' has even ripened to red - a first! It's the only one, mind, and it's snail damaged and going soft. Doh.

All these pepper plants were sown in late Feb - they really are very slow and steady growers! I might start them even earlier next year...

The King of the North were by far the earliest - I think we ate our first back in July - but we don't tend to get many per plant, and they're extremely irregular in shape and size..

The 'Dedo de Mocha' sweet Aji peppers - smoky flavoured but heat-free, and apparently rather rare - are DELICIOUS and I shall certainly be making sure to grow them again. Might even have to try saving some seeds next year to ensure I can continue to have them. I'm not sure if they're supposed to turn red... but they taste great anyway so I don't care.

The 'Kaibi no 2' sweet red peppers are... still green. And quite small. And there are only two or three per plant. But I'm looking forward to tasting them one of these days...

The 'Doux Tres Long Des Landes' (what a mouthful!) long peppers have been very productive, with around twenty fruits per plant, up to six inches long. We've enjoyed a couple already in salads and a chilli during August and September, but like the others, they're only really coming into their own now. They're supposed to be eaten red or green - but I don't think I'm going to be seeing any red ones this year.

Our chillis have been rather less successful - they only flowered in late August and it looks like this might be the sum total of our harvest!

Doh! I'm considering trying to overwinter this plant indoors to see if it'll give me an early start on some chillis next year.

Until then, I'd better find some recipes to use this little pepper glut well before the frosts get 'em!

Aji, left, and Doux Tres Long des Landes, right. Highly recommended!

What a Whopper!

2011-10-05T10:20:00.001+01:00

I'm making slow progress on my 'things to do' list from last week, but we did manage to dig up some more potatoes the other day, albeit in sweltering heat. Check out the size of some of them!

This beast weights 750g! And it's not alone - there are loads of big ones, which makes me so happy after last year's pathetic harvest of golfball-sized spuds.

We brought home 13kg the other day, we've had 4-5kg already and there's at least the same again still to dig - and I suspect we've missed a few deep ones too so we'll give the whole lot another once-over before the weather gets too cold.

And in the meantime... lots of jacket spuds for us!

Wild Food Night - September

2011-10-03T12:26:00.001+01:00

Last Wednesday was September's Wild Food Night, and I struggled out despite still not really being well, and with my tastebuds certainly not on top form! I even indulged in my first glass of wine for weeks... though I regretted it by bedtime, when I'd developed a splitting headache. Doh.

I can't help but feeling there's a bit of a lack of variety in the foods offered at the moment, and there's still a real lack of wild greens which is a shame. Perhaps it's just not a good year for greens - I know mine have struggled. Or perhaps I'm just feeling the inertia between seasons - that time when summer's kind of over but autumn hasn't really begun yet.

Our canapes were all crayfish; crayfish caviar on a blini, a whole crayfish (bit messy and fiddly for a canape if you ask me!), and crayfish tempura with chilli jam - delicious!

The starter was a real treat - two filo parcels filled with shredded rabbit - one with fennel and other warming spices, and one with tomato, garlic and herbs. I do love rabbit, and these were fab.

The main course was a curry; a pathia, with tomato, fennel and coriander, and very slow-cooked venison that really melted in the mouth. Delicious, and just the thing for a cold! I'm not convinced that naan was homemade though...!

Dessert was an elderberry panna cotta, with hazelnut biscuits. I didn't really think much of the panna cotta - just personal taste I think. Despite the lurid purple colour, the flavour seemed a bit lost, to me. (My elderberry ice cream was way better!) The biscuits were lovely though!

I'm really looking forward to seeing what autumn and winter bring...

Things To Do

2011-09-23T15:51:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the silence - I've been fighting a horrendous cold, which has kept me out of the garden, uninspired in the kitchen, and generally unable to do very much at all. (I always seem to get these things ten times worse than anyone else - especially since a spot of bronchitis a few years back scarred my lungs.) I'm getting waaay behind in the garden and allotment now as winter approaches, and the list of things to do is getting longer and longer!

Plant out broccoli, kale and spring cabbage plants - I picked some young plants up in Homebase.
Buy, and plant, overwinter onions and garlic - I've never manage to autumn-plant before and I'd really like to try this year.
Sow spinach and winter salad greens.
Sow overwinter carrots and onions - it's probably too late for this now, I'm not sure...
Pull last beetroots and make chutney.
Dig the rest of the potatoes!
Tidy and cut back the strawberries.
Clear old bean plants - the French beans have kept producing all summer, despite a rough patch in the middle - I'm so pleased! - but they're just about finished now.
Weed EVERYTHING!
Sow green manures, if it's not too late - I have a big pack of Phacelia seeds I bought last year and didn't use.

What else can I still sow for the winter, when I get back out there? I've been very good at clearing old crops this year, so I have lots of bare soil to fill!

In the meantime, and because I hate to write a post without a picture, I have really been enjoying this bunch of sunflowers we brought home from the plot three weeks ago! They were still closed when we cut them, but they were self-sown and in the way, and had to be sacrificed. They've done really well on our windowsill and look amazing when the sun shines through them in the morning.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

2011-09-08T09:19:00.000+01:00

For the first time since we planted it in 2008, our 'Gold Spur' apple tree has borne fruit... And it's pears!

I'm sure this is somehow my fault; I must have got them mixed up when planting. I always thought it was the pear tree that I planted near the path and someone kindly strimmed to the ground while it was still pencil-thin, but apparently not.

They're too hard to eat right now - like apples, you know they're ready to pick when they twist off easily with the stalk intact, but unlike apples you have to let them ripen for a few more days off the tree.

Only a couple of the apples are ready so far. They look amazing - they're soooo red!

Summer Show 2011

2011-09-06T14:30:00.001+01:00

Sunday was our allotment association's summer produce show. I haven't been to one before, but now I'm on the committee I felt it was time to get involved. I even entered some raspberries and potatoes, albeit a bit half-heartedly considering the scab on the potatoes and the varying colours of the raspberries!

It's hardly Chelsea, but it's a good bit of fun and events like this really increase the community spirit on the plots. And I got dozens of lovely comments about my first association newlsetter, which went to print a couple of weeks ago! It's nice to know it's appreciated :-)

The event started at 10am in the 'Sub Aqua Club' house next to the allotment site. People turned up with baskets and barrowloads of produce, registered their entries and laid them out on the tables, category by category.

As well as single veg categories, there were some for displays of veg or flowers...

...and some for the kids!

The entries were examined and scored by an accredited RHS judge. I was given the task of walking round with him to write down the scores, so I got a little extra insight on what he looks for! Then we enjoyed a barbecue and bring-a-dish lunch, a few pints at the bar, a raffle and of course the prize-giving. No, I didn't score a single point, but I'm really glad I went (and glad Eddie enjoyed himself too!), and maybe next year, diminutive onions and curly runner beans notwithstanding, I'll try to show a few more entries...

Do you have a show at your allotment site or town? Do you enter?

Tomato Burger Relish

2011-09-01T09:00:00.006+01:00

We hosted not one but two barbecues over the bank holiday weekend, and I was glad of the chance to use up some of the tomato glut in a fab burger relish from Thane Prince's book Jams and Chutneys.

It's only lightly cooked, with just a little sugar and vinegar, so the tomatoes stay nice and chunky and remain the dominant flavour. We used mustard seeds instead of the recommended fennel seeds, and it was lovely. It's dead simple - red onion, seeds and garlic fried until soft; diced tomatoes, seasoning, brown sugar and a splash of vinegar added; and simmered for a few minutes. The recipe had just a touch too much vinegar I think, but we neutralised it by adding the tiniest pinch of bicarbonate of soda - it works a treat! (Careful - too much and you'll be left with a soda-y taste!)

Now all I have to do is find a way to use up the other half of the jar!

When the barbecue had cooled, the food had gone down and we were all lazing around wondering what to do with the rest of the day, a sudden urge for scones and jam hit, and a friend convinced me to have a go at baking some.

We used this basic recipe (although I have aspirations to try this richer one next time) and it was barely half an hour from scales-out-of-the-cupboard to scones-out-of-the-oven! We ate them warm with fresh, sugar-sprinkled strawberries and clotted cream. Bliss, even without any bank holiday sunshine! And they're so quick to make, I'm sure this won't be the last time...

Wild Food Night - a guest post!

2011-08-30T13:54:00.000+01:00

It was August's Wild Food Night last Wednesday, but Eddie and I were busy, errr, walking llamas!

But that's another story...

My friend and cooking buddy Dave - the one who introduced me to wild food nights in the first place and lets me drag him round woodlands picking berries and stuff - has stepped in to let you know what we missed! Here he is:

With Nome and Eddie indisposed for Wild Food Night this month, I have stepped in as a guest writer (and photographer) for the sake of the blog. So with parents in tow, celebrating a birthday, we sat down to a surprise meal, as the chef had not had time to write the menu!

For canapes we had elderberry 'hot shot' (which helped inspire our elderberry picking the next day! - Nome), crabapple and plum sorbet and a cube of hawberry jelly. The warm elderberry was lovely - similar to a mulled wine but with a lighter, sweeter taste. The very pleasant smooth sorbet was almost mousse in texture. The hawberry jelly, as the chef put it, 'didn't quite work', and we agreed it was lacking in flavour.

Following this came a warm pigeon salad with crispy onions and a elberberry jus which was lovely. All good size pieces and worked well together, just leave coriander out of salads please!

Spicy venison meatballs on spaghetti was the main course; not my mother's favourite as I now discover she doesn't like the texture of pasta, but we all agreed the spicy tomato sauce was a good strength - not too chilli hot, but just warm spices.

To finish, the bramble tartlet was good on my part but vanished in seconds with my parents so I think they must have enjoyed it.

All in all a good birthday dinner and we all left happy and well fed. Nome will be back next time and I will return to my blog at Dating World of Dave to continue ranting.

Thank you Dave! I'd have really liked to try the pigeon salad and the meatballs - ah well. Can't wait for next time!

Elderberry Ice Cream!

2011-08-28T13:48:00.003+01:00

When I was a small kid, elderberry season meant accompanying my dad through a local woodland, collecting buckets of the purple berries for him to turn into wine. Of course, I never got to taste any... I haven't yet ventured into winemaking, and I don't have the kit to try now, but being in 'wild food' mode this year, and with the local elder trees heavy with berries now, I had to do something with them... And when I found this elderberry ice cream recipe online I knew it was the one!

Elderberries (click for pictures) are somewhat comparable to grapes in nutrition, but contain much more vitamin A, B and C and twice the protein, and have been used as a miracle cure for flu! However, the pips, stems and unripe berries contain a cyanide-producing chemical and should be avoided in any quantity.

We started by collecting about half a carrier bag full of bunches of berries. They're ripe when they turn purple and the bunches hang upside down. We tried not to take too many from any one tree, but took a few bunches from a lot of trees - a good guidleline is to never take more than 10% of what you find in any one place.

Washing and de-stalking the berries was a pretty tedious task. I must have found a dozen earwigs hiding in them, not to mention several spiders. A fork or clean wide-toothed comb is good for popping the berries off their bunches, but it was hard to get rid of every single bit of stalk. We decided that this didn't matter since we were going to be putting the whole lot through a seive later, but considering the cyanide thing it's probably not a good idea to cook too many into the mixture!

We simmered the berries with a little water, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a tablespoon of sugar for 45 minutes until they softened and broke down, then seived them well to get the dark, syrupy juice.

You see those marks where I've got the juice on the worktop? Yeah, they're still there, though much fainter. This stuff STAINS, people!

I tasted the syrup and added three more tablespoons of sugar until I was happy with the sweetness (although it's quite hard to make this judgement about the unfinished product, and I later wished I'd added more) and then folded it together with whipped cream and whisked egg whites. Another warning here: I had a really hard time mixing the syrup, cream and egg whites together - so much so that by the time I was done, I was sure all the air had been knocked out of the egg whites, and the resulting ice cream is much harder than it should be. I reckon it'd be a lot easier to mix the syrup and cream together first, then fold in the egg whites.

The recipe says to just chuck it in the freezer, but with my egg whites deflated that didn't sound like a good idea. I did my best to stir it vigorously every half hour (I didn't always remember...) during the first few hours of freezing to break up the ice crystals.

What a fabulous colour! The ice cream is quite tart - and quite solid - but it's pretty good for a first attempt and went down well at a barbecue last night (and we all had a good laugh at each others' purple tongues and teeth!) The flavour's somewhere between grapes and blackberries, with an unusual dark-chocolatey note that makes me want to pair it with a rich chocolate cake... Next time I'll be sure to add more sugar, and even perhaps a few drops of vanilla to combat the tartness.

Loving my Lovage!

2011-08-26T09:30:00.001+01:00

I often cite lovage as one of my favourite herbs - though I'm ashamed to admit I only use it in a very small handful of recipes, I adore the smell and it's such a pleasure to grow. But it seems to have a rather short season - before you know it it's flowering and the leaves are getting tough and stringy (probably something I could delay with some pruning, but we all know I'm not the best at keeping up with these things...)

However, as I was cutting the 8ft flower stalks down earlier this week, and lamenting the passing of the lovage until next spring, I was struck by how deliciously fragrant even the dried-out stems were, and noticed what an abundance of seeds I was just discarding into the compost...

Home they came, and now they're spread out to dry a bit more before going into a jar and onto the spice rack. A bit of internet research shows they can be used much like celery seeds (apparently, celery salt is actually made with lovage seeds, not celery!) and go well with bacon, game, pork, lamb, smoked fish and chicken, with egg dishes, cheese dishes, lentils and a whole range of veggies.

I crushed some seeds and added them to (homegrown) onion and red wine gravy last night, which we had with sausages, (homegrown) mash and (homegrown) runner beans with (homegrown!) garlic, and it was lovely!

I'm gonna have to find me some more lovage recipes...

Summer Harvests

2011-08-24T09:15:00.004+01:00

We've harvested our onions recently, and they're spread out to dry at home. A disappointing result, as usual, despite the fact I bought a 'giant' variety this year! There's definitely something lacking in our soil, despite the generous dressing of manure we gave it in the spring; next year I'll have to invest in some onion fertiliser.

I was also surprised that several onions suffered white rot as usual, despite the Armillatox fiasco... (On which note, I'm pleased to report that there is indeed no trace of the Armillatox in the soil now, and no smell or taste of it in the onions! However, I won't be bothering again since it doesn't stop the problem...) Perhaps I'm wrong and it's not white rot but just a few weak plants going bad, but they do seem to have all the right signs; yellowed leaves, white mould underneath, and weak or rotten roots.

Our shallots (on the right above) and garlic are harvested now too - it's a pretty good garlic crop, and there are more to come, although a few bulbs seem to have disappeared!

We've dug up our first few potatoes, and boy, was I surprised! I was pretty concerned about them because when we returned from our holiday the foliage had all died down and I hadn't seen a single flower! I guess I just wasn't paying attention...

These are Kestrel - a 'second early' variety that's particularly good for roasting, baking and mashing. They've got some pretty bad scab in places, but it's only cosmetic. We scattered some potato fertiliser from the Organic Garden Catalogue over the bed before planting and it looks like it did its job! These babies weigh up to 360g each!

Fat hen swallowed our French bean bed while we were away, but as we weeded we found a great crop of beans hiding in the jungle. We also found a surprise late handful of broad beans when we cleared the plants - I thought they were finished ages ago! I pureed them with some lemon juice and a spoonful of fat hen pesto, spread them on toast and topped them with cheese for lunch one day. Mmmmmmm.

And we're now harvesting our runner beans. The beans are setting well in this damp weather and there are hundreds of them! But somehow I don't think we'll be winning any shows with these crazy shapes...

Courgette Loaf

2011-08-22T09:46:00.001+01:00

Courgette Loaf
(makes one large loaf, or two small ones)

Grate 400g courgettes, unpeeled, and place on a clean towel to drain a little. You can use courgettes that are slightly past it - just don't include any overdeveloped seeds!
Whisk 200ml vegetable oil with 3 eggs until smooth and custardy-looking.
Add 225g sugar and 2 tsps good vanilla extract and beat.
Mix in the courgette.
In a separate bowl, mix 400g flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp salt. (If you wish, add up to 100g mixed chopped nuts and/or dried fruit too.)
Combine the wet and dry ingredients and fold together thoroughly.
Pour into a greased 1kg loaf tin and bake for 95 minutes (or until a skewer or knife comes out dry) at 160C, covering the top with foil after an hour if it looks like it might get too brown. (Alternatively, divide between two smaller loaf tins and bake 60 minutes.)

A tasty, mildly spiced teatime treat which looks rather curious flecked with green! This freezes very well - a good way perhaps to store some of the courgette glut until a time of year when courgettes are long forgotten!

How not to grow mangetout

2011-08-19T09:20:00.000+01:00

The mangetout has served us well but has just about finished now and the plants are drying out and yellowing. We grew two varieties: Golden Sweet and giant Bijou, both from Real Seeds.

Though the Bijou were impressive, and beautifully sweet, they were not nearly so productive as the vigorous Golden Sweet, which also tasted great.

I allocated them a large tub to share, erected a tall, narrow wire fence held up with canes for them to climb, and sowed one variety each side. It all started well...

But as they got taller the plants on each side of the support really started competing for the light - even in full sun. They all wanted to be growing on the same side of the fence, and despite attempts to rotate them regularly, retrain them and tie them back onto their own sides, the whole thing ended up leaning over so far I had to tie it to the summer house to keep it all from falling over!

What a mess! Next time I use a narrow support like this, I will grow mangetout on the sunward side and lettuces or something on the other!

Eight Reasons I Love My Angelle Tomatoes

2011-08-16T08:05:00.021+01:00

1. The seeds were free, saved from supermarket tomatoes last year. Saving tomato seeds is easy - give it a try!

2. They're the number one absolute tastiest tomatoes I've ever, ever eaten.

3. They're SO productive. Check out the size of these incredible multi-branched trusses!

4. They don't mind that I'm growing them six-to-a-growbag instead of the recommended three.

5. Despite having spent two months right next to a tomato plant struggling with blight, they're staunchly resisting the disease.

6. Five metres from plant to plate. Yeah, baby.

7. Eating produce within a short time after picking means more nutritional content, and packed with vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium and the powerful antioxidant lycopene, tomatoes are great for my bones, kidneys, skin, hair, eyes, immune system, and can help defend against cancer, high cholesterol and heart disease.

8. These go for £1.99 for 250g in the shops!!

In other tomato news, I've had the first fruit from my Sub-Arctic Plenty plant. Like last year, the plant doesn't look happy at all, with curled, bluish leaves, but the fruit is fabulous and there are plenty more where it came from.

There is one small problem I'm having with the Angelle - a few are starting to split.

This is my fault - caused by irregular watering. I have to remember that I need to water them even when it pours with rain, since the rain can't get into the growbags! This is an issue with the cucumbers too, which can get bitter with uneven watering. I was heartbroken when I tasted the first two weeks ago and couldn't eat it for bitterness, but with a bit more care the bitterness is fading and I can now enjoy them!

Fat Hen Pesto

2011-08-11T13:13:00.000+01:00

After sampling fat hen pesto at a wild food night recently, and having seen my beans and squashes completely swamped by fat hen while I was away on holiday, I thought it was time to give this a try.

Fat hen (aka goosefoot and a dozen other things) is cultivated as a crop in many countries, and is a common ingredient in a lot of Indian dishes. I think they've got the right idea - it grows fast and vigorously, is rarely bothered by pests or drought, and self-sows prolifically. It can be picked for food at any stage of its life, and the whole plant is edible. The raw leaves are slightly coarser eating than our modern tastes are used to but pleasant and mildly flavoured, and contain more iron and protein than domesticated spinach or cabbage, and more vitamin B1 and calcium than raw cabbage. Like spinach-family leaf crops and sorrel, it contains oxalic acid which shouldn't be eaten too much, but this is destroyed by cooking. If you let the seeds ripen you can get a substantial grain crop from it too - in fact fat hen is very closely related to quinoa. The fatty seeds are high in protein, vitamin A, calcium, phosphorus and potassium, apparently taste similar to buckwheat, and can be eaten whole or ground into flour.

Really makes you think about the benefits of eating natural, native foods versus the carefully bred cultivars and hybrids we buy each year and put so much blood, sweat and tears into caring for, dunnit?

Anyway... Here's the recipe. I looked at several pesto recipes then kinda made it up as I went along, and as far as I could I used good old British ingredients, instead of foreign pine nuts and olive oil, but you can easily make substitutions as you see fit. I brought home a bunch of whole fat hen plants and picked off the leaves and shoots - it doesn't hurt to use some stalk and some seeds in this, as long as the majority is leaves. It also pays to pick plants which already appear clean, as the slightly hairy leaf surface isn't very easy to wash!

Fat Hen Pesto
(approx eight servings)

Place into a food processor:
- 2 packed cups (70g) fat hen leaves
- 1/4 cup (30g) almonds
- 1/3 cup (25g) freshly grated parmesan cheese or equivalent
- 150ml rapeseed oil
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp sea salt.
Blend until desired consistency is reached.
Taste, and add more garlic, cheese, oil or seasoning as desired.

It's delicious - a really fresh green flavour that's as versatile as traditional basil pesto - perhaps even more so.

Store leftovers in the fridge for up to a week, with a little extra oil on the top to prevent oxidisation. If you wish to store it longer, freeze it in single portions - use an ice cube tray or dollop spoonfuls onto greaseproof paper.

We used the first of the pesto stirred into some gnocchi (use a generous tablespoon per person), with a sprinkling of chopped bacon and some extra parmesan to finish it off. What a colourful dish! And it tasted amazing.

And today for lunch I made this pesto potato salad with French beans and tomatoes - all Nome-grown! I just cooked the diced potato and chopped beans, then stirred in the pesto, halved tomatoes and a squeeze of lemon juice while the potatoes were still hot. And topped with a little parmesan and black pepper, of course. Summery (unlike the weather), healthy and delicious.

Wild Food Night - July

2011-08-10T10:08:00.002+01:00

Late again! July's Wild Food Night was... well, back in July - two weeks ago now. But it's time to catch up.

Canape thingies: Blackberry cordial, light and crunchy crayfish tempura with a syrupy chilli jam, and sweet and creamy fat hen pesto. Interesting... Fat hen is THE most troublesome weed on our allotment. I feel our relationship could be about to change...

Starter: Hare pate - rich and delicious - and crayfish cocktail. With some freshly picked summer leaves, of course.

Main course: Pigeon en-croute (wrapped in pastry), with horseradish potatoes, cauliflower puree and a 'ratatouille' made with yellow courgettes. I gotta say, I wasn't too keen on the pigeon, although I did like the 'woodpigeon mousse' canape a month back. It was rather tough and had an unusual flavour - my friends informed me it had some similarities to liver, which I remember hating as a child and haven't touched since. However, the vegetable sides with this dish were lovely! The horseradish potatoes were creamy with good horseradish flavour and not too much heat, and the ratatouille was bursting with the flavours of summer!

Dessert: Wild plum crumble, and matching ice cream! I'm afraid I'm not a big crumble fan - sorry, Mr Bumpkin - but I did enjoy the yogurty plum ice cream. I don't think I knew there were edible wild plums - I'll have to look them up, and check the local hedgerows!

Sadly I don't think we can attend August's wild food night - I'll have to get someone else to let me know what was on offer. Perhaps a guest post is in order...

Third time lucky!

2011-08-08T14:33:00.001+01:00

After two failed attempts last year and the year before, I have grown my first sweet peas! They are 'Cupani', supposedly the original sweet pea, brought to England in 1699 by Sicilan monk Francisco Cupani. The colours are gorgeous and they smell divine. Most importantly, the bees think so too. It's often I'll go the trouble of growing something I can't eat later, so it's nice to see my efforts have paid off this time!

I can't blog today and not point you to this article in the Guardian about a play showing at the Edinburgh Festival this month called 'Allotment', set and performed... on a real allotment! Take a look.

Weedproof?!

2011-08-06T09:58:00.002+01:00

About a month ago Eddie and I were very happy to get a long-overdue job done: we laid a weedproof membrane over the grassy ground in our sitting area, and covered it with a couple of inches of shredded pine (which is regularly donated by the council to our site). Getting the grass down here should really help to stop it spreading to surrounding beds, and it looked so neat and tidy. And the weedproof membrane was a freebie, which made the feel-good factor even better! Weren't we proud of ourselves...

LOOK AT IT NOW!

Weedproof? WEEDPROOF??

Garden Update

2011-08-04T09:53:00.002+01:00

Okay, okay, here I am. I've been back from our holiday in Whitby a week and a half, but very busy focusing on a writing deadline, so here's a belated update on what's been going on in the garden.

I was delighted when we got home from Whitby to find the cucumbers finally appearing. After a few disastrous cucumber-growing attempts, I sought out some 'Moneta' seeds - my favourite variety, but hard to find (I finally got them from Germany!) - and they're doing me proud. I'm watering hard to try to avoid any bitterness in this hot weather, and will be picking later today...

The tomatoes are doing fabulously well and are sooo delicious. We're getting at least a good handful most days now. The leaves of the 'Hundreds and Thousands' have been yellowing and showing black spots since mid-June now. I've pruned, I've sprayed milk, I've sprayed chamomile, but now the tell-tale black patches are appearing on the stems it's clear they've got blight. I'm just glad it's taken so long to progress!

There's still no sign of damage to the fruits so I'm just gonna keep harvesting for now, hope for the best, and try to prevent it spreading to the 'Angelle' tomatoes which are looking much healthier. Last year I raved about how easy-to-keep the Angelle plants were, because they didn't put out any suckers. Well, turns out they do when they're planted at the proper time in the proper amount of properly-nutritious soil... They're growing like crazy and I can hardly keep on top of pruning! The whole lot fell over the other day, the plants got so heavy, and I had to restake them. However, despite their luxuriance, they haven't minded one bit being planted six-to-a-bag.

I'm also pleased to see the first green peppers swelling. We've got a bit of a pepper experiment going on this year, with a few different varieties, so I can't wait to see how they all do... I think this one is 'King of the North' - the same as we grew last year.

Sadly our French beans, which started off so well, are having some trouble. They're empty!

The pods are just flat and sort of limp - and going purple, which this variety does not usually do. They're still edible, but not nearly so good to eat. I can only imagine the problem is poor pollination, but I don't understand - they're only a few feet from the tomatoes, and they're obviously getting plenty of attention. Our garden is buzzing with bees and hoverflies! So what's gone wrong? Perhaps they're planted too close together and the insects just aren't finding the flowers. I wonder if there's time for a second sowing...

I am on holiday.

2011-07-17T21:05:00.000+01:00

This is the view from my window:

This is the view from the end of the road:

This is 'the gang':

And to keep things growing-related, here's some of the sea kale growing all over the cliffs here:

Hurrah!

White Asparagus

2011-07-13T09:41:00.008+01:00

You may recall I bought some white asparagus a couple of weeks back on our trip to Borough Market. White asparagus is a bit of a delicacy, and a new one to me that I'd wanted to try for ages. It's exactly the same stuff as green asparagus but grown in the dark, which produces a sweeter, milder, nuttier flavour and a rather different texture; crisp to the bite but smooth. It also tends to be thicker, and usually needs peeling to remove the woody outer skin.

White asparagus requires a much longer cooking time than green - some 10-15 minutes - but is prone to absorbing much too much water if overcooked, so you have to be careful! Some chefs recommend boiling it in water with salt and sugar and a splash of lemon juice, to concentrate the sweetness and prevent discolouration.

Some quick internet research showed that it pairs best with salty or nutty flavours. Hams or strong hard cheeses such as parmesan are common accompaniments, as are nuts, mushrooms and truffles. Handy then that I'd just invested in some truffle-infused olive oil too...

White truffles are said to go best with mushrooms, eggs and beans, so after a bit of thought I decided on a carbonara-inspired dish of spaghetti, mushrooms and the asparagus, with a seasoned cream and egg mixture stirred in at the last minute so that it cooks onto the other ingredients. Sadly it's not exactly the best-looking dish in the world, what with white asparagus, white spaghetti, white mushrooms, white parmesan and white bread...

White Asparagus Spaghetti
(serves two)

Cut 6-8 spears white asparagus on the diagonal into 1" lengths and boil with a little salt, a little sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice for 10-13 minutes, until al dente but not soggy.
Boil 150g spaghetti in salted water.
Saute sliced mushrooms and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic in a generous knob of butter.
Break one large egg into a cup or bowl and beat very well. Beat in an equal amount of double cream and a glug of truffle oil (optional). Season.
Stir cooked asparagus pieces, spaghetti and mushrooms together on the heat.
Remove from heat and quickly stir in the egg mixture until it is cooked.
Check seasoning, and serve with crusty bread.

Mmmmmm. An indulgent meal for an indulgent evening. It's rich but the flavours are delicate, and the salty parmesan certainly sets it off well. Of course, this dish would work fine with green asparagus too.

Will I be going out of my way to eat white asparagus again? Well, it's good, it's different, but I love the green stuff and I don't think this is necessarily better. Although I might be tempted to splash out again for a special occasion, at nearly twice the price I certainly won't make it a habit!

Nome Makes Sourdough

2011-07-12T09:02:00.030+01:00

Yep, it had to happen. It's weeks now since I stopped buying supermarket bread in favour of homemade no-knead loaves, and with all this reading about bread and experimentation (and particularly inspired by this programme on BBC4 not long ago) it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at that so-called king of breads, sourdough.

You won't find yeast in a sourdough recipe. Instead it calls for a few tablespoons of 'starter' - a boozy-smelling home-brew of flour and water which breeds wild yeasts present in the air and the flour. This creates a bread with more complex flavour. Caring for a starter is a little like caring for a pet: you have to clean it out and feed it once a day, by transferring half the concoction to a clean bowl or jar (discarding the rest, otherwise it'll just keep getting bigger!) and adding fresh flour and water to feed the yeasty microorganisms and keep it going. Luckily it's more forgiving than most pets; if you forget to feed it once in a while it won't really mind, and you can slow it right down by keeping it in the fridge, where you won't have to feed it very often at all.

You can buy dehydrated starter and wake it up by rehydrating or you can beg some from another sourdough baker, but I decided to make my own from scratch, and followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's instructions here to do so. It's basically a case of whisking flour and water together, leaving it until it begins to ferment, and then feeding it regularly until it builds up its strength.

Here is my starter after the first 24 hours. I used wholemeal flour, which is why it's so dark, and if you look closely you can see lots of little bubbles have risen to the top to show that fermentation has begun. Appetising, huh?

I got into the routine after a few days, but I was a bit worried about my starter. Looking at pictures of other starters online (like this one), most seemed to be a lot bubblier than mine. Mine also kept getting a layer of liquid through the middle, with a frothy layer which sort of dried out and went crusty on top:

Apparently the liquid is called hooch and is perfectly normal - an indicator that the microorganisms have finished their meal, thank you very much - and the crust can just be stirred back in, so I had nothing to worry about. But still, my starter didn't look like others - the bubbles are tiny and few, while others look like swiss cheese right through!

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says that the starter's consistency should be like 'thick paint', but I started to notice that in a lot of the pictures I was looking at, the starters appeared thicker than mine. So I began using a little less water each feed to thicken mine up.

Lo and behold, the bubbles got bigger and the top frothed more...

I kept thickening, just a little each day, until the spoon left a trail when I stirred, and the layers disappeared altogether so there's no hooch, and bubbles throughout. Hurrah!

Now I had much more confidence in my starter, it was time to put this baby to work!

I followed Hugh's recipe as in the link above for my first attempt. He's pretty vague on timings, but that's probably a good thing as my dough was very slow to rise.

First you make a 'sponge', by mixing a portion of the starter with some more flour and water - this basically just makes it bigger and thicker. I left this gloopy mixture overnight to rise.

Then this is mixed with more flour and a little salt, and kneaded for ten minutes until 'silky and elastic'. I don't think I've kneaded anything since home economics lessons in school... It was tricky and I reckon I added far too much extra flour as I went along to try to stop it sticking. If you put it down and leave it in the same place for more than a couple of seconds it sticks! In the end I resorted to kneading it mid-air, without the board - just stretching and folding it between my hands! Not sure it'll catch on but it seemed to work! When it was really stretchy I shaped it into a ball, oiled it all over, and left it in a bowl - covered with clingfilm to stop it drying out - to rise.

Eight hours later...

Well, I wasn't that impressed by its rising-power, but I wanted to get this loaf baked before bedtime so I pressed on.

The next stage is to 'punch down' the dough - squash it and knock it about a bit to knock the air out. Easy enough. Then I shaped the loaf into a round again, floured a bowl, and put the dough in for a second rising period, called proving. What I didn't do, and should have done, was to line the bowl with a floured cloth instead of just putting the dough straight in. Having preheated and floured my baking sheet and put a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven to increase humidity, I then had to wrestle the dough out of its bowl at the last minute. Not good at all for all the precious air bubbles it had been forming all afternoon - you're supposed to be gentle with it once proved!

At this stage, I pretty much thought all was lost. It hadn't doubled in size like the recipe said, it wasn't holding its shape like it should (it pretty much just oozed all over the baking tray as soon as I tipped it out of the bowl), and to make matters worse I'd noticed a bad smell in the rapeseed oil I'd used to oil it... I didn't bother slashing it and I didn't bother taking photos. In fact I was feeling pretty grumpy about it all.

But before my very eyes, it started rising in the oven... It rose and it rose and it rose! And forty minutes later...

Wow. The crust is crunchy but thin, and beautifully golden-brown. The crumb is bubbly and moist and springy. A triumph! There is just one little problem though...

I don't like the taste! I can't quite think whether I've ever eaten sourdough before, so I have little to compare it to, but it has a really vinegary hit right at the back of my mouth which I can't bear. It's not so bad toasted, but cold it's just inedible for me! (Luckily Mum likes it, so she's helping eat it.)

I got straight back online, of course, searched for 'sourdough too sour', and quickly found that it's a common problem for beginners and can be combatted. Phew! This very useful article explains that the sourness comes from a build-up of acid, which can be lowered by (a) feeding the starter more frequently (b) letting the dough rise for a shorter time - this will mean using more starter in the dough to provide more yeast (c) using a flour with a low ash content and (d) thinning the starter.

Doh!

So the adventure continues...

I'm going to feed the starter three times a day for a couple of days and then try Carl Legge's sourdough method here, which involves folding the dough instead of kneading it (sounds much more my cup of tea). I might also try a higher proportion of starter in the sponge (or a higher proportion of sponge to additional flour)... can any seasoned bakers comment on the best way to do that?

In the meantime, I found myself breadless yesterday since I couldn't eat the sourdough loaf, so I had a crack at Mark Bittman's 'speedy no-knead bread' here. It uses six times the yeast but only needs to rise for four hours and prove for one, so we had bread by dinnertime after all. And what a lovely loaf! It has perhaps a little less flavour than ordinary no-knead bread, but it's so delightfully soft and light and moist and lovely that it was a struggle not to munch the whole thing down fresh from the oven.

I'll certainly be calling on this recipe again next time I need bread within an afternoon, rather than within a day.

Folk Festival Fun

2011-07-11T11:22:00.006+01:00

We saw St Albans Festival out last week with a folk night in St Michael's village - one of the oldest parts of town. I'd tell you all about it, but it would just be a rehash of this post from last year, with less sunshine and more rain. Actually this isn't officially part of the festival - it's organised by a different group and has been an annual event since the eighties, apparently!

Let me also share with you these festival pictures taken a couple of weekends back. The Old Town Hall hosted an all-day folk event, with craft stalls and workshop sessions upstairs...

...crime-and-punishment themed folk songs in the old courtroom...

...and even an atmospheric singalong in the cells under the building! I'd never seen down here, so I shunned the singing to go exploring instead...

These cells - and the courtroom - were in use until 1966, and the cells have just recently been cleaned up and repaired and made safe for viewing. The courtroom is sometimes used for lectures and theatre.

There were folk performances on the streets too, and we paid a visit to the clock tower at the end of the high street just in time to watch some of them from above!

This is the view from the top, looking right along the high street to St Peter's Church:

And in the opposite direction, here's St Albans Cathedral:

Look at that view! You wouldn't believe we're just 20 minutes by train from central London, would you?

Anyway, back to gardening, and I'm pleased to report that we're now eating our outdoor tomatoes, and enjoyed the first in this improvised mackerel-on-toast lunch yesterday. I remembered to take a photo just before I scoffed the lot!

I halved the tomatoes and warmed them quickly in a pan with some chopped spring onions, a tiny bit of crushed garlic and plenty of seasoning. Then I piled spinach and watercress onto my toast, added the tomatoes, and topped with the mackerel fillets. Yum!

Taking Foraging to a Whole New Level

2011-07-08T09:11:00.000+01:00

What's this I spied coming up through a hole in the pavement outside our local off-license? Is it...? No, it couldn't be... It is!

It looks like a pumpkin plant. It grows like a pumpkin plant. It even smells like a pumpkin plant.

The only thing not quite right are the flower buds - they look sort of spidery... Perhaps some other sort of squash.

But how... HOW???... did such a tender and nutrient-hungry plant end up growing here of all places? A spot of guerilla gardening perhaps? Someone's being very optimistic if they think it's going to last that long! However, I shall be keeping an eye on it just in case...

Strawberry Milkshake

2011-07-07T10:06:00.008+01:00

Strawberry Milkshake
(serves one)

Strawberries: 100g
Milk: 100ml
Any old vanilla ice-cream: 50g (about two scoops)
Whiz in a blender.

Magic.

It's a really good way to use up any strawberries starting to get a bit past their best (a smoothie with elderflower cordial is great too). You can throw other fruit in there too if you want, of course. And the best news of all? It's one of your five a day!

Catnip

2011-07-06T09:15:00.012+01:00

This year I thought I'd have a go at growing some catmint, a type of catnip. Though other toys lose Samson's interest rather quickly these days (and he's a devil when he's bored...) he'll come back to a catnip-filled one again and again. He loves the stuff.

What I didn't really anticipate was the interest from other local felines. This pestilent moggy ate most of the plants just as they were getting to a decent size! You're not supposed to eat it, moggy! You're just supposed to rub against it!

Apparently if they eat it, it is to bruise the leaves and release the essential oils. Eating it has a sedative effect though, while smelling it has a stimulating effect.

I moved the pot to the bikeshed roof but he found it there too...

So I quickly picked the stems that remained and hung them up to dry in an airy spot out of direct sunlight. (The buds are more potent than the leaves and I'd have liked to wait for them, but if things carry on like this the plants will never get that far!) It only took about a week before they were dry enough to crumble between my fingers.

Samson has not shown any interest in the live plant - in fact when I showed it to him he just looked confused and then bit me. However, dried, crumbled, and tied into an old sock, it's a whole different matter...

I think it's safe to say that Samson agrees homegrown is best!

Of course, catnip has uses for humans as well - being a member of the mint family, it makes a slightly sedative and stomach-calming tea, and it can be used as a culinary herb (though it should be avoided by pregnant women). Some say it has great healing powers and can help when applied to cuts. It's also supposed to be a pretty good deterrent of biting insects and rodents. I must grow more! Just as soon as I figure out how to protect it from unwanted attention...

Nearly...

2011-07-05T10:12:00.002+01:00

It's nearly time to pick our first outdoor tomatoes... Exciting!

There are still lots of discolouring leaves on the plants. Yellow ones, and ones with brown or black spots. It stopped for a bit in the very hot weather, but now it's spreading again. I have no idea what it is - I still don't think it looks like blight - so I can only cross my fingers and hope for the best...

The Hundreds and Thousands tomato plant has soooo many flowers and green fruits on it. I've counted up to eighty on a single branch!

If they all ripen at once I don't know what I'll do!

Beans!

2011-07-04T09:34:00.001+01:00

We picked our first French beans at the weekend! Beans are one of my favourite crops; they're easy to grow, productive, delicious and versatile. I especially like pairing them with tuna, and we enjoyed this lovely lot in an easy pasta dish of tuna, tinned tomates, garlic, basil, a little double cream, a sprinkle of parmesan and lots of black pepper. Lovely!

Foodie Heaven

2011-06-30T22:31:00.002+01:00

It was Eddie's birthday at the weekend, and on Friday we treated ourselves to an afternoon in foodie heaven - errr, I mean Borough Market, next to London Bridge.

Borough Market is one of London's largest food markets and has operated here for hundreds of years - perhaps even since Roman times. It opens in the early hours of every weekday morning for wholesale trade to the restaurant industry, and is open to the public for retail on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only.

Although it is traditionally for fruit and veg - on the website it still calls itself a "wholesale fruit and vegetable market" - these days it is also packed with fine artisan foods and exotic international produce. Traders come here from all over the world! There are German sausages, Italian oils, Spanish olives, Indian teas, French pates and cheeses, Greek olives and cheeses and dips... There's a chilli expert, an ostrich farmer and a smoothie specialist... There are garlic products from the Isle of Wight garlic farm, vast displays of seasonal British fruits and veggies - and not-so-seasonal foreign ones - quality jams from England Preserves, organic beers from Utobeer, Spanish delicacies from Brindisa, a wealth of spices at Spice Mountain... There are breads, cakes, meats and fresh fish, including boil-while-you-wait crab and lobster. There are free tasters of everything - we tried fine darjeeling tea, truffle and herb oils, cheeses and garlic chutneys, including a banana chutney! And you can munch-while-you-browse too - there are falafels and oysters and hot dogs and fish-and-chips and veggie delights, not to mention sangria, Pimms and hot spicy cider... In fact, there's so much stuff, I'm just gonna let the pictures speak for themselves for a bit... Click for close-ups!

Of course, as well as all the stalls offering lunch for hungry shoppers, plenty of restaurants have popped up in the close vicinity too. There's a Fish! kitchen, a Brindisa tapas bar (next on the list for us...), Feng Sushi, the highly acclaimed 'Roast'... This time, we opted for traditional real alehouse The Market Porter, with a gastropub reputation and an impressive range of beers.

Although downstairs and on the forecourt the place was buzzing (err, this picture was taken later), we were amazed how quiet the upstairs restaurant was - apparently that's the way it goes on a hot day with so much on offer outside too - but the food was great. Eddie had the 'Porter Quarter Pounder', I opted for a delicious duck, fig and pistachio pate with bread and salad, to leave plenty of room for market-treats later...

Of course, if you're going for a day out at a market, you have to buy some stuff...

We came home with a chocolate beer, an elderflower and elderberry champagne-yeast beer, a peach beer, some white truffle oil, gooseberry and elderflower jam, white asparagus (a delicacy I'd never had the opportunity to try), dried ancho chillies (smoky, not hot), extremely cheap English cherries (lovely!), ginger beer (better than the big-brand stuff packed with sweeteners!), delicious chocolate brownies, and white-chocolate coated raspberries! I was disappointed I didn't manage to find the awesome garlic cheddar I bought last time I was here, but I think this little lot made up for it. Of course, most of it's gone now. More of that in another post, I suspect...

So. Borough Market. Highly recommended. If you're gonna go, go hungry, go ready to try new things, and go with spare cash!

Signs of Trouble

2011-06-26T10:31:00.000+01:00

I've been spotting a few problems arising in some of the plants in the garden during the last month or so. It always seems to happen as summer hits us - I guess warm, humid weather is the best time for pests and disease to thrive.

The sorrel is full of leaf-miners - you can see three wormy grubs inside the left here on the right. Apparently the parent - a flying insect of some sort - lays its eggs on the edge of the leaf, and the grubs burrow straight inside to feed.

It's not a problem I've had before, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do except pick and destroy the affected leaves (or net the whole plants, but that ain't gonna happen). Any tips, anyone?

The French beans are well on their way now - I'll be picking the first this week - but several plants have discoloured leaves and I really have no idea what it is. Some look like this...

And some look like this...

The plants seem to be in great health otherwise, but it's hard to know whether this is the start of something bad, or nothing to worry about!

Some of the courgette leaves are yellowing badly - another problem I've never seen like this before.

And the 'Hundreds and Thousands' tomato plants have some very yellow leaves in the middle too, and some black spots. We surely haven't had the right conditions for blight yet. I'm thinking maybe it's some kind of leaf-spot...?

Can anyone can help identify any of these problems?

Wild Food Night - June

2011-06-23T09:57:00.001+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will now be familiar with these monthly posts from the Wild Food Night held in The Red Lion in Woolmer Green (and a few other Hertfordshire locations throughout the month) by wild-food caterers The Country Bumpkin. It's fun and fascinating to see what each new month brings - as it says on the menu; "...each season heralds new and exciting culinary opportunities - and we try not to miss a single one!" You never know what you're going to get so it's a great opportunity to try new things - and an opportunity for the chef, too, to experiment with new recipes and try them out on us!

The canapes last night got top marks from me - they're the best we've had yet.

On the left is ramson (wild garlic) toast - crunchy and full of fresh garlicky flavour. In the middle is pigeon mousse, with a sweet, slightly smokey flavour - gamey but mild. And on the right, a nod to the elderflower season with a sparkling elderflower shot. This was better than the elderflower cordial I made recently, and much sweeter - it made me think I should have put a lot more sugar in mine... I wonder if the recipe used is the same one as on the placemats for the event here - perhaps I'll try it next time:

The starter was a wood pigeon consomme - very delicious - served with a sweet red onion roll.

The chef confessed the red onions were not wild, but we didn't mind; the sweetness set off the soup beautifully, and we got a lovely surprise when we broke the rolls open - gooey caramelised onions inside!

Crayfish tagliatelle, with wild rocket, was the main course. Wow!

Good job we brought a seafood-loving friend with us this month - he showed us how to get all the meat out of the shell. A fiddly business, but well-rewarded - the meat was mild but lovely.

These are red signal crayfish - imposters brought over from America in the seventies for the restaurant trade, which have severely endangered our native white-clawed crayfish, as they're more aggressive and spread the 'crayfish plague'. The protected natives are olive-brown, with pale-coloured undersides to the claws, while the signal crayfish are darker in colour, with a white to pale blue-green patch near the claw hinge. (There are a few other non-native species about too, identifiable by spines or long, narrow claws. If you'd like to know more there's a helpful forum thread on the subject here.) I immediately had thoughts of catching crayfish in the river Ver, which runs along the back of our allotment site, but a little research this morning shows I have to have permission both from the Environment Agency and the landowner first. (Actually, some sources say you don't need permission if you're going to fish with a net, rather than trap them, but the EA's application form seems to cover net-fishing and simply 'removal of crayfish' as well, so I'll be double-checking that before I go trying it.)

Dessert was a damson sorbet, made with last year's preserves, and a shortbread-style biscuit filled with rich elderflower cream!

Another fun, delicious and inspiring evening!

St Albans Festival Launch

2011-06-20T14:01:00.004+01:00

Yup, it's St Albans Festival time again, when the city's parks and public spaces are filled with music, dance, theatre, kids' activities and local food stalls, and local attractions and eateries offer special deals. The festival lasts a few weeks, but proceedings kicked off on Saturday with a one-day 'Festival for All', featuring everything you'd expect from a festival - music stages, tents for performances and storytelling, workshops, food stalls, cider... not to mention an inflatable whale and a puppet-pilgrimage to the cathedral featuring a re-enactment of the death of St Alban!

Only thing was...

Oh dear. Showers like this were intermittent, but brutal. Despite the umbrella, my jeans and shoes were soaked within minutes of arriving! Bad as I feel for the organisers, I can hardly blame everyone for staying away.

The show went on regardless though, and I have to admire the performers for staying positive and giving great shows despite the tiny audiences! Those of us there had a lot of fun!

We hung out for a long time at the folk stage, enjoying a bunch of traditional and modern folk performances (Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts pictured above, and highly recommended) plus some traditional African music, which felt a bit wrong in the pouring rain but soon brought out the sun again! At times the folk stage had a bigger audience than the main stage which was playing hip-hoppy stuff. Ha!

Have you ever seen a festival main stage looking so sorry? What a shame.

There were some nice sunny spells between downpours, and everyone would come out of hiding and enjoy themselves for a bit, but the place was still pretty bare. See the inflatable whale in the distance? Children were invited inside for a kids' show. I was very disappointed I was too big.

We treated ourselves to cupcakes from friend Lucy Clark's Heaven is a Cupcake, and got free cake pops! And very delicious they were too!

I had to question the wisdom of this sweetshop set-up, considering the strong gusty wind... Can you imagine the carnage?!

And we were treated to some pretty sights as the sun broke through the rain.

I hope the rest of the festival is not such a washout. I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty more about it as it goes on, either way!

For Fathers Day yesterday we had a little barbecue in the garden, which was really nice. I think my parents are seeing the garden as a bit of a burden lately, and after a lot of hard work getting it back in shape after a period of neglect, it was good to get them out there actually enjoying it! To accompany the obligatory beefburgers and marinated chicken, I made my awesomest potato salad (mayo, lemon juice, wholegrain mustard, black pepper, chives, and a drop of rapeseed oil to loosen it) and served NomeGrown lettuce (along with shop-bought tomatoes, cucumber and peppers), and we finished off with scones, strawberry jam, strawberries and clotted cream. Delish!

The blog may go a bit quiet for the next few weeks as I'm about to throw myself into screenplay rewrites... Oh, who am I kidding? I should be knee-deep in it right now but I'm not, and there's plenty of allotment work that desperately needs doing. I'll still be around, I'm sure, just maybe not every day. If I hang around here too much, somebody slap me, okay? Good.

Very Berry

2011-06-18T09:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we tasted the very first of our sweet and juicy raspberries, planted last year.

There are only a few at the moment - I'm hoping they'll hold on a few days so I can get a decent handful together for a dessert...

Some of the plants are looking a bit stressed, with yellowing or shrivelled leaves, and I'm not sure what's wrong. I forgot to take a picture... And we were disappointed to find a few of the canes mysteriously disappeared over winter! Hopefully I can transplant a few shoots or something to fill the spaces.

Ooh, what's that bug on the bottom-right of the raspberry? I didn't see that when I was taking it. I'm a bit paranoid about raspberry beetles but I don't think this is one. Looks mean though!

On a berry-related note, I have to show you the size of our 'Lucy' strawberries - they're so impressive and gorgeous!

On the other end of the scale, check out these wild strawberries! They grow like weeds in our garden - Mum hates them! But it's a shame to see them go to waste - I think I'll have to pick them and make use of them...

Elderflowers

2011-06-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

For weeks I've been watching other bloggers, twitterers and friends enjoying elderflower season. Elderflowers are a foraging staple - a treat that many look forward to each summer and preserve for the year ahead. Yet I've never picked any!

But seeing the flowers start to turn brown on the trees last week, I figured it was time to give it a go. Elder trees (bushes?) are a common sight across Britain and there are plenty near me - in fact there are four or five on our allotment site, as well as dozens along a footpath I use regularly. Of course, it's best to avoid picking them on roadsides and in town centres, where they may be polluted with car exhaust and the like.

I had to be selective when picking, as it's right at the end of the season now and some flower heads are starting to discolour. Choose the brightest, whitest ones; just snip the flower heads off the plant with scissors (some of the stems can be a little tough, and you risk breaking branches if you pull too hard) and give them a good shake to get rid of any bugs.

There are plenty of things you can do with the flowers; our 'wild food night' chef makes a syrup to add to ice-creams, brulees and other desserts all year round; wine and champagne are of course popular; 'The Cottage Smallholder' Fiona has even been having a go at elderflower vodka! In fact, I notice the plant's latin name is Sambucus Niger - is this what Sambuca is made from...? Anyway, I kept it simple and made elderflower cordial - thanks again to Monica!

It's dead easy. Rinse 25ish large elderflower heads (the sizes vary enormously, so use more if they're tiny!) and put them in a large bowl or pan with 50g citric acid (less than the recipe said purely because that was the size of the pack, but I don't think it mattered), the pared-off peel of a lemon, and the lemon itself in slices. Then put 550g sugar and 1.2 litres of water in a separate pan, simmer until the sugar is melted, and pour over the elderflowers. Mix well, cover, and leave to stand for 24-48 hours, stirring occasionally.

After that time, taste-test the cordial (mixed 1:5ish with water, still or sparkling) and add more sugar if you feel it's needed (I didn't). Then strain through scalded muslin.

At this point I had to stop and wonder how sterile the cordial was. Of course, the hot syrup would have killed some germs, but I didn't add it at maximum temperature for fear of scorching the flowers, which I read can damage the flavour, and it has sat at room temperature for a day and a half since then... Would it be a good idea to simmer the strained cordial just before bottling? Or process the bottles in boiling water like when canning certain things? The acid and sugar content should do a pretty good job of keeping nasties down I suppose, and I'll keep the cordial in the fridge, but if anyone has any advice or reassurance to offer in this area I'd be interested to hear it.

So anyway, I washed my bottles and funnel in very very hot water and ladled in the cordial. I reused bottles from other products, which isn't really ideal - I must buy myself some proper preserving bottles for next time!

The result? It's lovely! Sweet and tart in perfect proportion, fragrant and refreshing. And Eddie loves it!

I am wishing I'd made some syrup to experiment with in desserts though... Or is the cordial syrupy enough for this anyway, do you think? And next, year, who knows? Champagne has got to be tried...

A quick note on citric acid; it can be quite hard to come by these days, but some health food shops stock it (or should at least be able to get it in), Indian grocers often have it, and you can find it in some smaller independent chemists (ask - mine was under the counter). If all else fails, you'll be able to find it online.

Posh Courgette Pasta

2011-06-15T10:03:00.000+01:00

And so courgette season is upon us. I know we're not exactly in desperate times yet (they'll come, they'll come), but in the never-ending search for great ways to use courgettes, I poshed-up this Jamie Oliver recipe using Boursin with garlic (which was on special offer at Tesco) and adding some mushrooms, to make a really quick and easy supper that Eddie said he'd have been happy to pay for at a restaurant! The rich creaminess and the bacon go so well with the courgettes!

Courgette Boursin Pasta
(serves two)

Put pasta on to boil. A flattish shape, such as farfalle, works best.
Slice a courgette and four or five mushrooms, and cut four rashers of bacon into roughly 2cm pieces.
Fry off the bacon, then add the veggies and fry gently until soft.
Add the Boursin (about half a pack or 75g) and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Lower the heat and stir gently until the cheese is completely melted. (Of course, any other soft garlic/herb cheese would work too.)
Drain the pasta, stir into the sauce, and serve! Great with crusty bread...

Where Did I Go Right?

2011-06-14T08:09:00.001+01:00

Last week we harvested the first of our broad beans and baby carrots - and what a pleasant surprise!

In contrast to last year's dismal broad bean harvest, this year's crop is entirely pest-free, healthy and gorgeous! In fact, there's not a single blackfly on the plants (sssshh!), and I didn't pinch the tips off. This is unheard of!

Similarly, while our carrots usually struggle and end up ridden with carrot fly (despite religiously planting them between rows of onions as companion planting gurus would advise) these are unmunched and in perfect health. In this case, though, I know what did it - we grew them in one of the raised salad beds this time, so the soil is finer, there's far less weed competition, and the carrot flies, which fly low along the ground, haven't found them. Hurrah!

I put this lot in a summer chicken stew (recipe here), as has become customary with the first of the broad beans. This dish is a joy, mixing beans, peas, carrots and new potatoes in chicken stock with mint and lovage (pictured above) - the herbs are fragrant and lovely and the sweetness of all the veg really comes through. I love it.

Inside Job

2011-06-13T08:02:00.012+01:00

One of my jobs is projecting films at the theatre where I used to work full-time. It's the perfect job for me - I get to sit alone and watch movies!

Recently I had the dubious pleasure of projecting 'Inside Job', which comes out on DVD today. I'm not usually one to watch documentaries but perhaps I should do so more.

The Oscar-winning 'Inside Job' tells the tale of the economic meltdown that cost tens of millions of people their savings, homes and jobs in and around 2008, and how the shameless greed and lies of a few financial top-dogs cost the world trillions of dollars. It's a serious eye-opener. Everyone should watch this film.

It left me pretty speechless, so I'm gonna turn to the words of others. Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe called it "A masterpiece of investigative non-fiction movie-making – a scathing, outrageous, depressing, comical, horrifying walk through what brought on the crisis. Scarier than anything Wes Craven and John Carpenter have ever made." Ben Kenigsberg of Time Out Chicago said it was "A relentlessly compelling primer on the economic meltdown, at once broad in its scope and lucid in its explanations... Remarkable that the movie could be as entertaining as it is."

The scariest thing of all? Considering how the last financial crisis was dealt with, which the film describes, many think we're heading for another, bigger, one.

In Praise of Public Transport

2011-06-11T08:20:00.086+01:00

Yes, that's right. I said praise.

I had a real moment of clarity a couple of years back when I arrived in an unfamiliar sports centre in an unfamiliar town for a one-day course for work. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and I'd armed myself with a book and an MP3 player and taken the train. I had to make a couple of connections but they were problem-free, the journey was smooth and timely, and I rather enjoyed the ten minute stroll from station to destination at the other end. It was a really pleasant journey and I arrived relaxed and happy... to find all the other course attendees moaning and grumbling over coffee about the traffic, the roads, the signposts, the one-way system, the traffic, their own cars, other people's cars, the sat-nav, the lack of car-parking, the cost of car-parking, the cost of petrol, the traffic...

So I'm getting sick to death lately of people looking at me funny, or even implying I'm some kind of loser or weirdo, because I choose not to drive.

In fact, I only learned to drive last year, and Eddie doesn't drive either - I've always resisted, for the many reasons outlined here, but family insisted it was a life skill I must have. I'm insured to drive Mum's car, and sometimes I do. But I'll be honest; I'm not a very confident driver, and I don't like to drive anywhere by myself, and big roads, roundabouts with more than two lanes, and speeds over 50 scare the crap out of me.

But none of that changes how I feel about cars in the first place. They're expensive, they're hassle, they're dreadful for the environment, and there are way, way, way too many of them on the roads.

Anyone disagree?

My sister and I recently considered getting a car to share. Our brother fixes cars up for fun and offered us a little Fiesta for free - surely an offer to be snatched up! But then we started looking at running costs...

Tax: £130
Insurance: £1000!! (We're both new drivers, remember.)
Petrol: £600 (That's £50 per month - optimistic much?)
MOT and maintenance: £170 (Another generous estimate, I think.)
TOTAL: £1900, or £950 each, per year. And that doesn't factor in parking. And there are probably other things I've forgotten...

For that amount of money, I could buy a return bus ticket to town (£2.70) four times a week (£562), go anywhere in or around London at peak time (£24) once a month (£288), and keep £100 aside for a train to a holiday destination...

But I don't actually use public transport anything like this much. In the last six months I've taken the bus to town 30-40 times, and been to London three - that's about £180 for half the year. I also get a lot of lifts with family and friends - not every place I frequent is as well-served by public transport - and for that I'm hugely grateful. (Of course, car-sharing is something we should all try to do more for the sake of the environment and the traffic, but I do confess that I'm doing all the taking most of the time...) However, if those lifts weren't available, I could quite honestly do without. We'd all be healthier and happier if we walked a bit more, and let's face it, there are always taxis.

Photograph from Wikimedia Commons, taken by Kameragrl.

There's nothing at all wrong with the bus service round here (nor, I suspect, most bus services). In fact, just recently they had a bit of an upgrade and they're better than ever. They're regular, frequent, and take only five minutes longer (even on a bad day) to get into town. Very, very rarely is a bus late. They're clean. There's always enough room for everyone. They run early til late. They're going anyway, so me getting on one has zero impact. And best of all, I don't have to worry about roads or traffic or parking or petrol or knocking cyclists over or anything at all when I get one.

So keep your car if that's convenient for you; if you can afford it and you don't mind the hassle and you love driving. But this hippy weirdo loser doesn't plan on getting one until she absolutely has to, and is gonna do her damnedest to support the public transport network in the meantime.

The Simple Things

2011-06-10T08:29:00.003+01:00

As much as I like fancy, cheffy food, and learning new dishes, and trying new things, and making stuff up, and fresh ingredients, there are times when you just want a quick, simple, fuss-free supper, and while it's easy to turn to a frozen pizza or beans on toast (and I often do), at this time of year when there are so many fresh green veg to be eaten it'd be a crime...

My go-to at times like this is a frittata (now served with some fresh, Nome-baked, no-knead bread!), and it's another one of those dishes where you can pretty much throw in whatever's available.

And I know I've blogged about frittatas a few times before, but they're so damn good I don't care. And I've stopped burning myself making them now I've bought myself some fancy 'Glovens'!

To make this frittata for two I dropped thinly sliced new potatoes and bite-size asparagus pieces into boiling water for 3 minutes, then fried chopped bacon and spring onions in a generous knob of butter, added the potatoes and asparagus, threw in some perpetual spinach and sorrel and let it wilt, then beat up four eggs with seasoning and a few tablespoons of milk, stirred the egg mix into the veg and topped the whole lot with chunks of brie. Then I let it sit still and cook on a medium heat until the edges started to look cooked (a few minutes) before popping it under a hot grill until set through and golden on top (a few more minutes).

Mmm, eggy, bacony, melty cheesy goodness - but with vegetables! We have vowed to have a frittata at least once a week, with whatever's available at the time - maybe a few more cheap suppers will save us a bit of cash too!

Mangetout Stirfry with Baked Sesame Salmon

2011-06-09T11:24:00.003+01:00

As promised, we harvested the first of the mangetout yesterday - 'Golden Sweet' yellow-podded mangetout from Real Seeds. I couldn't resist munching on a few raw - they're so sweet and lovely, and completely untouched by pea-moths and their ghastly offspring (the curse of allotment peas!). Think I'll have a few more with lunch today. And if I manage to stay organised over summer (ha!) I think I'll try a second sowing for an autumn crop too...

After a quick whiz round the garden for some other bits, we were ready for a stir-fry! We added some salsola, a couple of baby courgettes that seemed to be struggling (they're still having a hard time getting going) and some spring onions. Check out those onions! For some reason I always struggle with spring onions but this 'Eiffel' variety, grown on the doorstep in a big pot, are doing me proud! (The mushrooms were not grown by us. Sadly.)

I used to have trouble knowing how to flavour stir-fried veg. I wanted something to spice them up a bit, but I'm not keen on some of the common Chinese flavourings such as five-spice powder, and if I keep fancy stuff like fish sauce and rice wine in my cupboards, most of it will go out of date before I use it up (while sherry never sticks around long enough!). But I've found the perfect combination of flavourings - it gives that oriental feel and a bit of punch but doesn't drown out the flavours of the vegetables. Just a little soy sauce and red wine vinegar, and a dash of white pepper. Garlic, chilli and ginger can all be used to taste, too, but I don't tend to use them with a fish dish like this - I prefer to let the pea, salmon and sesame flavours rule.

Mangetout Stirfry with Baked Sesame Salmon
(serves two)

Slather two salmon fillets in a little olive oil and soy sauce. Place on a baking tray and sprinkle generously with sesame seeds. Then pop in the oven at 180C for around 15-18 minutes (when it is just opaque in the middle, it's done).
Wash your vegetables and slice bigger ones thinly. You'll need a big handful per person and you can use pretty much anything; mangetout, babycorn, peppers, courgettes, asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, greens, broccoli, pak choi, beansprouts... but I recommend a heavy emphasis on the mangetout!
Put some rice or noodles on to boil.
Put a wok or large saucepan on a high heat, add a little oil and let it get hot. Chuck all the veg in, with 2 tsps soy sauce, 2 tsps red wine vinegar and a dash of white pepper, and stir gently.
The veg will only need a few minutes, depending on how crunchy (or not) you like them. Three to five minutes should be plenty for most veg. If at any stage the pan seems too dry or things are starting to brown, add a tablespoon or two of water.
If you're using noodles, toss them in a little sesame oil.
Serve rice or noodles and stir-fried veg with the baked salmon on top.

Doh! I forgot to put the salsola in! Guess I'll have that for lunch too. I was too busy getting excited about the leftover asparagus I remembered in the fridge and throwing that in! Next time...