May round up

Because I have been so tardy in my blogging recently most of the vegetables are in the ground and hopefully flourishing.

Here is a round up of what is growing in the frog garden.

In the greenhouse the tomatoes are flourishing. Everything I am growing this year is a heritage variety (bought from The Real Seed Company) and I will be able to grow on from them next year.

These tomatoes are Purple Ukraine, Galina and Rose De Berne.

On the other side of the greenhouse are the melons and cucumbers. The cucumber is Tamra (two bucket on left), a virtually extinct variety that is so rare I could only get hold of ten seeds. The melons are Minnesota Midget and Petit Gris De Rennes, both of which promise small, sweet and plentiful crops.

Not yet planted out are my squashes, Blue Banana and Burgess Vine Buttercup alongside the chillis, Pretty in Purple. They produce an unusual purple fruit and is known as the rainbow chilli.

Outside, the upside down strawberries are doing very well although I perhaps overcrowded them a little as I only had one thing to hang them from. Now I know that it works, I'll make a better frame next to give them more room.

Staying with fruit, the black, red and white currants are doing very well, as are the gooseberries. I transplanted them into large pots in February to give me more veg beg space and they seem quite content in their new homes.

Also transplanted were the raspberriy bushes and they seem happy next to the sweetcorn that I am growing up through the cold frame. Can't waste any space!

The sweetcorn is a bicolour variety and promises to be sweet and tasty.

Next we have the shallots, garlic, broad beans and behind them the courgettes. The broad beans are Longpod and the courgettes are White Volunteer, all heritage varieties.

In the new bed by the greenhouse the peas and runner beans seem content and despite the fact that they only get sunlight in the mornings (because of my neighbours apple tree) they are doing very well. The peas are Champion of England (a ten foot tall variety!) and the runner beans are Czar.

Lastly, here are the potatoes. Six bags in all, British Queen and a first early, Rocket.

Rocketed indeed!

And there you have it. After all the work of seeding, growing and potting, it is lovely when things can be planted out and left to get on with it.

Hard work, yes, but absolutely worth it.

Rain

Whilst it might have been a lovely April (and May so far has not been so shabby either) it has also been incredibly dry. Last week the Met Office stated that April was the warmest on record and also one of the dryest with average rainfall in the UK at 52% of the average.

My three water butts were getting very low and a couple of times I'm afraid that I had to resort to the hose pipe. Although tap water seems plentiful, especially when it has been raining, it is full of chemicals and I would much rather feed my plants and veg on rain water.

I am delighted to report however that it is raining! And although I am in Liverpool City Centre at the moment earning my daily crust, it is hopefully also raining on my garden, a mere eight miles away on the Wirral.

In fact, the more rain the better. I have watched the levels on both ponds drop alarmingly the last few weeks so I am keeping my fingers crossed for more downpours.

Rain, rain, rain!

Unauthorised leave of absence

I have been chastised (quite rightly) by a friend for not updating my blogs. I can only apologise, dear reader, for the unauthorised leave of absence and promise to try harder in the future.

Strawberries and seedlings

After starting things off a little too early I was amazed to see that the majority of my tomatoes and chillis had survived the recent frosts. They have been in the greenhouse and covered with fleece at night but still it has been awfully cold.

This gives me a bit of a head start although I'll start off the rest of my seedlings this week now that we are into March.

I've also decided to try something new with my strawberries. A while ago I saw this done by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and thought I'd give it a go. So here we have the upside-down strawberries!

Easy to grow, easy to water, keeps pests away from them and they look rather funky too.

This year's strawberries were all grown over winter from shoots put out by last year's strawberries. I had those in two large strawberry planters although I'll be planting them up with herbs this year instead. Having used them I discovered that I'm not keen on strawberry planters and upside-down growing looks much more fun.

These little chaps are waiting to be planted but I ran out of empty pop bottles!

I just couldn't help it

All right, you don't have to tell me, I know it's too early to be planting seeds yet but I really needed to see something growing again.

I am not a winter person. I can live with the cold and the wet and the frost but what I really hate is the dark. Somewhere between my twenties and the old fart I am now I became a creature of light and winter is a torturous event to be endured but never appreciated.

Usually by February I am getting desperate for light and those little teasing hints of a lighter sky when I leave work do not help. It's not enough. By a long shot.

So, just because I could I put some herbs to grow in a couple of pretty little strawberry type pots and put them in the front window by the radiator.


And look what has appeared! Tiny basil seedlings have poked their heads up and have been joined by one lone coriander.

There is no sign yet of the parsley and thyme but even those few signs of life are enough to brighten my spirits.

Not much, I know, but it feels wonderful to be growing something again.

Rhubarb battles on!

Despite the frosts and the damp, miserable weather we get when there isn't frost, the rhubarb has started to appear.

Beautiful rich stalks are poking their way out of the crown with abandon, seemingly unconcerned about the cold ground and damp air.

Such enthusiasm!

In honour of the humble but very persistent rhubarb I looked for a rhubarb poem that would highlight the plant's virtues.

Unfortunately, I could only find this although on second thoughts, it is rather appropriate.

Long and thin

Covered in skin

Pink in parts

It goes in tarts

Rhubarb!

Spring

Well, here we are in a brand new year and looking forward to a whole new growing season. I cannot begin to count the things I learned last year; what to grow, what not to grow, what to put where and how many of it to grow.

I learned that with growing food comes the responsibility to actually eat it. There is no point growing something only to realise that you don't like it all that much and it ends up in the compost bin.

I also learned that no matter what I grew for me, nature intended to get to it first! Ignoring black fly does not make them go away and not protecting cabbages from butterflies and moths means that some little hairy chaps are going to get a very good meal indeed.

That being said I dined on the most wonderful peas, beans, beetroot, tomatoes, chillis, onions, potatoes and garlic before autumn came. The effort was most definitely worth it and silly though it may sound, dear reader, I am excited at the thought of what this year's labours will bring.

I can't wait to get my hands in soil again, to plant the seeds and watch each one appear, tiny sentinels of spring lined up in my front room window. I can't wait to clean the greenhouse ready for this year's tomatoes and melons. I can't wait to get compost under my fingernails and grit in my wellies!

And I really can't wait for the whole marvellous cycle to start over again and to be a part of it.

Sweet chilli toffee!

My first full growing season is now at an end. Winter has come earlier than expected although the beds are all empty now and their vegetable goodies harvested.

Only some nibbled cabbages remain that I have left for any remaining insects who want a cold snack.

Despite the fact that I am enjoying the rest for gardening I'm already planning what will go in which bed next spring.

Surprisingly, one crop that is still going are my chillis although the plants have now taken residence in my kitchen instead of the greenhouse.

I have had so many chillis in fact that I am struggling to use them all. Some have gone in chutneys and general cooking but the majority of them still need using up.

Last week I decided to make a sweet chilli sauce and found what appeared to be a good recipe in one of my preserving books.

As a word of warning here, never ever prepare chillis without gloves on. I had some small cuts on my fingers and was in agony for the rest of the day!

After putting all the ingredients into the pan I was somewhat unimpressed at the quantity that would be made. Leaving the chillis as they were I quadrupled the other ingredients thus making a nice amount of sauce.

The sauce needed simmering for 45 minutes and then 1 teaspoon of pectin adding. Due to the increase in the amount I increased that to 1 tablespoon instead.

As soon as the sauce was finished and I poured it into the jars it became apparent that the consistency was more than of jam than sauce. Sweet chilli jam sounds rather nice, I thought.

It was only the next morning when I investigated the jars that I found the sweet chilli jam had set as hard as toffee. Clearly the pectin was somewhat over-enthusiastic!

All is not lost however as microwaving it for a few seconds allows it to become temporarily spoonable and the taste really is lovely.

I'm looking for a new recipe for my next batch of sweet chilli sauce but I am quite proud to be known as the inventor of sweet chilli toffee!

Lessons learned

As they had just about finished, on Sunday I cleared out the tomato plants from my greenhouse. Because it was my first year of greenhouse growing I got a little too enthusiastic and as I've mentioned in previous posts filled the greenhouse with enough tomato plants to fill a small Heinz factory!

Even their last effort has produced a carrier bag full of red and green offerings that are heading for my first ever batch of tomato ketchup.

During the course of the clearing however I learned the following things:

1. A greenhouse entirely full of tomatoes and nothing else is not necessarily a good idea. When one has grown them, a home is then needed for them!

2. Nature is untidy. Those pretty little tomato plants were neat when I planted them but became sprawling behemoths as the summer went on. Perhaps less plants might have helped. See point 1.

3. Nature is messy. The tomatoes that fell off their stalks attracted all sorts of wildlife who half chomped them and left the rest for me to clean up. Unfortunately because of the size the tomato plants grew to I could not reach many of them and they went mouldy. See point 2.

and most importantly:

4. Spiders like greenhouses. Or to put more clearly - very large spiders indeed like greenhouses!

My ability to relax in my greenhouse has been shattered forever. Who said they could move in?

Not to be

Last night I cut my beautiful cauliflower intending to introduce it to some cheese sauce this very weekend.

Alas, it was not to be. Within the perfect white crown of my cauli lived every kind of caterpillar known to man, plus several varieties of fly and several slugs. They had eaten, burrowed and generally munched my cauli into submission, leaving only the top to fool the idiot who thought she was going to eat it.

Nature has outsmarted me.

Destiny?

Phooey.