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Garden Diary – The Bounty begins and a Moth rescue!
Another busy week! “What’s new pussycat!” Does anyone else think that time is going faster than ever? I keep saying, we are an alien experiment and they have speeded up time to see if we notice. Well I’m onto them lol. This week has brought the ramping up of food production in the kitchen garden with rhubarb, cucumbers and the first chillies. The tomatoes – some unusual coloured ones that I’ve not grown before and so I’m not quite sure what colour they will be when ripe – seem to be nearing picking. There are a few huge figs that will be ready this coming week, I’ve got the balsamic…
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Garden Diary – Let’s get you up to date!
You may have noticed by the lack of contact, that I am really struggling to keep up with the blog at the moment. As well as the usual work, and gardening, the house renovations are keeping me rather busy and away from the computer! I have good intentions each week of sharing my gardening goings on with you, but before I know it another week has whizzed by! So, I’ve had an idea of how to keep you up to date with the garden until my life gets back to normal. In hopeful optimism that it will! Each morning I do manage a brief post on social media, occasionally two…
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The Garden is Calling!
I’m sure you all think I’ve deserted you over the last few months but I just haven’t had a minute to let you know what’s been going on in the garden. Truth is, the bare minimum but every now and again I feel the garden calling! The house renovations continue at a slow pace, sometimes two steps forwards and one step back! But it will come to an end – one day! And I will be able to devote much more time to doing what makes me truly happy and relaxed – gardening. In the meantime I’ve just about kept my head above water with the gardening jobs, although we…
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Super Simple Green Tomato Chutney
What do you do with all those left over green tomatoes? Green tomato chutney of course! It’s been the best tomato harvest I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something as I’ve been growing tomatoes longer than any other crop. By September I already knew this was the best harvest I’d ever had, but October just kept on giving. More tomato salads; the fruit bowl with a constant supply of cherry sized tomatoes to snack on; and even more tomato sauce for the freezer. As we slipped into November they just kept on ripening. This is now the second November that I’ve had ripe tomatoes, last year though the supply had…
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October/November – The best time to sow Broad Beans!
October and November are the best months to sow your broad beans. I always used to sow mine in early spring, but when we moved here a neighbour told me that he always sowed his in autumn. I was shocked saying, “surely any frost will kill them”, but he assured me that they are really tough little plants and that his had always survived. His reason for doing it was the lack of black-fly because of cropping so early. I had to give it a go! That autumn I did as he said, simply direct sowing the beans where I wanted them to grow. Within a few weeks they had…
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Tomato Bonanza
It’s turning out to be one of those, tomato bonanza years. I think it’s because we had the really hot sun early on which stimulated their growth and ripened fruits early, but then the cooler temperatures slowed them down. Whatever the reason though I’m not complaining, as I now have many portions of delicious tomato sauce in my freezer. Most of you know by now that the first food crop I ever grew were tomatoes and I’ve grown them every year since. If I only had space to grow one crop, tomatoes would be it. The flavour of a homegrown tomato is simply unbeatable, especially if you pick the right…
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Naga Chilli Relish – Best made outside!
After the garden apprentice discovering his favourite curry of all time, is made with Naga chillies. Guess what I’m now growing? Yes, Naga’s. Growing Naga Chillies I bought the seeds mid-season last year and had a bit of trouble with germination. I ordered two varieties, ‘Yellow Blaze’ which as the name suggests are yellow and a classic red ’Norfolk Naga’. I didn’t get any Norfolk Nagas to germinate at all and only managed one yellow blaze. It was slow to grow as chillies are but it got to reasonable size and I managed to keep it going through the winter. In the new year I ordered more seeds of the…
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Produce coming out of my ears!
It really is hard work trying to keep up with all the harvesting at this time of year, I feel like I have produce coming out of my ears! So as not to waste any I am cooking at least as much as gardening – which doesn’t always make me happy if the sun is shining outside. The freezers (yes two) are filling up fast! Luckily we had an old one of my mum a couple of years ago and honestly I don’t know how we ever managed without it! It’s true though that you don’t miss what you haven’t had, but once you’ve had it you would really miss…
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Fragrant Summer Bean Curry
We are big curry fans in our house, so at this time of year there is a lot of bean curry being made. The heat of the curry is where we differ, but this is easily remedied by adding homemade, hot haberero chilli sauce to the individual serving. Lots of curry is made all year around – always from scratch – in large portions to freeze. This makes for super easy week-night meals. It’s also a great way to use the produce from the garden, as most things can go into a curry. July is the beginning of the main harvest time in the veg garden, but now as we…
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Salmon Pasta with Broad Beans, Soy & Honey
Salmon pasta with soy and honey, is one of those meals we never tire of. It’s a weekly staple that tastes delicious; is really good for you; and only takes half an hour, so what’s not to like? There is however one little down side, it uses three pans. So not the end of the world if you have a dishwasher, either the mechanical type or the human type! I grew up with a rule that whoever cooks, gets out of the washing up! I appreciate though that that doesn’t really help if you live alone. Back to the food! Today I’m using broad beans, because the harvest is in…
