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Garden Diary – Blue skies at last – but dragons on the horizon!
There I was lapping up the good weather, we were having sunshine and blue skies at last! The garden at its fullest, bursting with colour, the insects finally appearing in larger numbers, although still not as many as usual, but getting better. We were at the beginning of maximum harvest season and I’d already defrosted one of the freezers in readiness for all the cooking sessions ahead. And then…. On Tuesday 30th July I fell, whilst walking backwards carrying a radiator. Now this might sound like a funny thing to be doing, but not at our house! After spending all those years landscaping the garden we are finally getting on…
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Garden Diary – Figs, Blueberries & Tomatoes, not necessarily together!
The top photo is Hydrandea ‘Sunset’, she’s quite a newcomer to the woodland border so I’m thrilled how many flowers she has on this year, although I think like all shrubs she’s loved all the water. Unlike most of us humans! The harvesting has really got going this week with as predicted the first tomato, who ate it? Find out below. And the first good hail of blueberries, despite the blackbird’s best efforts to pinch them! The purple potatoes are nearly ready for me to have a root around and judging by the amount of flowers on the climbing beans its a good job I’ve defrosted one of the freezers…
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Garden Diary – Rain, rain, the produce is liking it, but the bees are not!
Well, rain, rain, thunder and more rain this last week! In all fairness the sun did peep through and was wonderfully warm when it did but really! This is our summertime! Luckily the apples and pears are plumping up with all the watering and most of the veg is doing well despite the awful weather. We’re getting a few firsts of the season now like our first fig this week and we are now tantalisingly close to the first tomato. I do hope two ripen then I won’t have the dilemma of whether to share or not! The mid summer flowers have been late but are now starting to open…
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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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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…
