Beetroot Pickle

One of my garden staples is always Beetroot. It may not be a particularly fashionable vegetable but I adore it's earthy sweetness and wouldn't be without it in my kitchen.
This year I've grown three varieties of the red root; Perfect 3, Cylindra & the candy stripped Chioggia. I sow in modules and then plant out when the beets have outgrown the module. Most seasons I plant a very early crop in the polytunnel too...see, I told you, I love the stuff!
Three of my favourite ways to cook with Beetroot are to use it in a fabulous bright pink Hummus along with Walnuts and Tahini ( There's a great recipe in the River Cottage Veg book), to make a traditional Borscht or to pickle it. This is my recipe for Beetroot pickle.
This pickle is great with strong cheddar & crusty bread

3lbs Beetroot
1lb   Eating apples
1      Large red onion
1lb   Soft brown sugar
1pt   Pickling vinegar
2tsp Maldon Salt
Spice bag containing Bay leaf, mustard seeds,allspice berries, peppercorns

It couldn't be easier...
Peel the beet, apples & onion & finely chop so they're all a similar size. Add to a large preserving pan and add the sugar, salt & vinegar. Place spices to your personal taste in a muslin bag and hang in the pan.
Slowly bring it all to the boil & then allow to simmer for approximately an hour or until most of the liquid has gone. Remove the spice bag and bottle in sterilised jars. Try to leave the pickle for a month before eating to allow the flavours to develop.
Happy pickling x

And the award for the laziest blogger goes to...

When I started my blog late last year I was full of optimism that I would blog weekly ( well, maybe fortnightly ) and really embrace the format.
It's now eight months later and I've written the sum total of six posts...
I could use the age old excuse of too  much to do and too little time to do it but to be honest the truth is far less complicated...
There are sooooo many blogs about gardening, smallholding & Urban Homesteading ( as they call it in the US ) out there that I'm not really sure where I fit in or if I've anything worth adding...in short I've suffered a crisis of confidence. 
Lack of confidence already stops me doing so much in life from not leaving a job I hate ( I worry that people will think I'm a quitter ) to not wearing what I want for fear of what other people might think...hell, I only jog after dark incase someone laughs at my bum! 
I'm not alone though; lots of fabulous women I know are their own worst critics. Madness! 
Having been quite poorly for a while now I've had a lot more time on my hands to think about my confidence issues and how to address them. I don't have a magic wand; ( if I did I'd be writing a self help blog and not tweeting about Broad Beans ) but I do know that the best way to beat your demons is to face them head on...so watch this space I'm going to give it another go. Please be gentle with me x

A little taste of Spring

I'm not a lazy person; I have too many animals and am juggling too many 'balls' to be allowed that luxury. I am however someone who is far more sloth like in the long days of winter; I need the extra nudge to get me out of bed, the additional cup of tea before venturing outside...
Today, for the first time in what seems like an age the sun is shining, and suddenly (albeit briefly) I'm kick started back into action. This morning I've noticed things in the garden that have no doubt been there for days but which I've only spotted when the suns rays have touched them. The first signs of florets on the Purple Sprouting Broccoli, new feather growth on the poultry and the first glimpse of tulip bulbs pushing through the soil.
I know that it won't last, I know that snow could return tomorrow or that my garden could be awash after heavy rainfall but for today I'm going to enjoy the sun on my back and pretend that Spring is here

Potatoes...

Potatoes

Even if you are short on growing space it's easy to grow the humble spud at home and to enjoy the taste of freshly harvested, home grown potatoes. Potatoes can easily be grown in pots and planters, recycled waterbutts and dustbins, purpose made potato growing bags and even inside old car tyres...in fact they can pretty much be grown in anything you can find as long as there's enough room for a good root system to thrive and enough space to mound up earth as the plants grow.

There are a huge variety of seed potatoes available to the home grower, usually marketed as First Earlies, Second Earlies and Maincrop; you'll also find varieties marketed specifically as Salad potatoes and wide selection of traditional Heirloom potatoes. 

First and Second Earlies are ideal potatoes to grow if space is a premium; they spend less time in the ground leaving the ground clear by mid summer for other vegetables to take their place. Maincrop potatoes remain in the ground for approximately 20 weeks after planting and are the best to grow if you're looking for a crop to store for future eating however they do take up more space and will take up ground space for longer than earlier varieties. They can still be grown in pots but need more space than their early cropping cousins,

This season I've decided to grow he following varieties;

Rocket and Swift, both First Earlies. Rocket has a waxy skin and is great in summer salads

Pink Fir Apple, a traditional Heirloom Main Crop variety,  lovely knobbly tubers, pink skins full of flavour

Desiree, red skinned Main Crop. An old favourite of mine, a heavy cropper with great flavour. Stores well too

Before planting I chit my spuds.

By chitting your seed potatoes you are simply giving them maximum opportunity to sprout before you plant them. I place my seed potatoes in egg trays and stand on a warm dry windowsill so that they can benefit from the winter sunshine, but anywhere with plenty of natural light is ideal. When the shoots are between 1/2 an inch and an inch long I then plant out.

Last season I made a very early planting in February in old waterbutts inside my poly tunnel.

Planted into warm soil and kept undercover until the temperatures outside improved we feasted on new potatoes in early May. The remainder were planted outside in pots and raised beds in March, Main Crop followed in late April. I also thoroughly recommend growing a few spuds inside a stack of car tyres, the rubber keeps the soil warm and protects from frost and it's easy to add another tyre as you mound up soil around your growing plant. Harvesting is super easy too, just remove the tyres and 'dig' for buried treasure with your hands.

Happy growing!

          

New year...same old resolutions

New Years Eve, Old Years Night...call it what you will. Tonight of all nights there's magic in the air. Hidden in amongst the chink of glasses, the chatter of friends wishing each other good health for the year to come and the fireworks that light up the winters sky there is the expectation of a clean slate, a new chapter, a chance to start afresh.

New Years Eve sparkles with excitement and expectation...

Tomorrow is New Years Day; less sparkle and more grim reality. In the cold grey January light of day there are resolutions to be made, diets to start, & budgets to stick to...the party is over and there's a lot of tidying up to do!

My 'tidy up' will start the same this year as it does every year.

The garden planner will be retrieved from its place under the sofa, the seed catalogues spread out on the kitchen table and my trusty shortbread tins full of seed packets will be opened up and their contents exclaimed over like lost treasures.

Making lists, deciding what to plant in the year ahead, and ordering seeds makes Christmas last a little longer but also clearly marks the end of the festivities and the hard graft to come. Winter may be hanging around for some time yet but tonight I can at least dream of spring and ease myself gently into the year ahead.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

Back to the beginning...

In these modern times where technology advances at the speed of light, possessions are increasingly disposable and Supermarkets sell everything from tents to Tofu it's easy to be swept far away from the simple pleasures enjoyed by previous generations. When asparagus can be bought year round and ingredients from all cuisines and cultures can be purchased at your local shop it's no wonder that we've been spoilt rotten where our appetites are concerned! It's nearly Christmas and my mind has turned to food and feasting. This is traditionally the time of year when more food is bought and wasted than at any other, and it's also the time when so many of us get caught up in the shopping frenzy and buy products that we normally wouldn't touch for the rest of it.

All the list making and menu planning has got me thinking about why I started to grow my own in the first place...

The turning point for me came from a 99p grow bag and a 1970's sitcom.

When I was a child I can clearly remember the fascination I felt when during the seemingly endless summers of the 70's my brother and I would pick soft fruit from the bushes in the garden and gorge on tomatoes straight from the vine. It seemed a magical thing to watch a plant grow from a tiny seed into a robust plant and to then stuff it's bounty into our mouths away from parents prying eyes! We would help our Dad dig potatoes from the ground for Sunday lunch; deeply buried treasures covered in soil, full of promise for what lay beneath the earthy skins. I can remember too the massive marrows that I grew and entered into the village show, shiny skinned emerald green monsters that would be hollowed out in October to make Jack O'lanterns. Each season bought with it new treasures and an anticipation at the harvest to come. Then things began to change; whilst we would still marvel over our home grown veg there were also new treasures to feast upon, strawberries in the middle of winter, asparagus flown from Israel. Our palates were widened and slowly but surely the expectation that we had for the seasonal pleasures to come was replaced with the knowledge that we could eat anything we wanted when we wanted too.

Years passed me by, I flirted with growing herbs and a few salad leaves whilst at University, tried to eat more seasonally and bought; when I could afford to, from local markets rather than Supermarkets. I remained however a slave to the glutton inside and every now and then would buy something that had flown half way around the world and lost all its flavour and character in the process. 

One evening whilst flicking through the TV channels looking for something to watch I found myself reliving my childhood all over again. I found myself transported back to my parents sofa, sitting in cord dungarees and Bagpuss slippers watching Tom and Barbara Good growing their own veg, brewing their own booze and keeping pigs in their suburban back garden. I watched in fascination at the size of the flares sported by Felicity Kendall and chuckled my way through a couple of episodes, but even so the seed of an idea was sown. I mentally planted my garden with vegetables and fruit, thought about keeping chickens and buying a rotivator, toyed with the notion of doing exactly what my parents had tried to do years before... The thought came and went until a few days later I bit into a huge strawberry and tasted...absolutely nothing. The fruit was beautifully formed, ripened to perfection and no doubt engineered to cheat rot for weeks on end but it tasted bland, the texture was watery and the whole experience was worth forgetting as soon as possible. Later that day I went out and bought a grow bag and some tomato seeds and haven't looked back since. I've gone from patio grower to the proud owner of a couple of allotments and a well stocked kitchen garden...I even grow veg on my porch roof!

Growing your own veg is addictive; you may start with a row of lettuces and a few strawberry plants but pretty soon there will be Borlotti beans growing up wigwams on the patio, spuds growing in amongst the flowers beds and carrots nestled next to your marigolds. Natures bounty will be plentiful, so plentiful that you'll start looking to preserve and prolong your harvest for as long as possible. Jams and pickles, sauces, wine, beer the possibilities are never ending...I'd advise against the Pea-pod Burgundy though!

So, as I make my Christmas shopping list I may be tempted by a couple of naughty treats but I know also that the vegetables I serve for Christmas dinner will all have been grown by me, the bird that my family eat will have been reared by me and dispatched humanely having spent it's life with the sun on its back and grass under its feet, and that the pickles and chutneys eaten over the holidays with cold cuts will all have started life in my veg patch.

I've got a lot to thank a 1970's sitcom for.

Confessions of a compulsive composter...

A good compost heap really is the cornerstone of the healthy and abundant garden.
The compost I make in my ramshackle wooden compost heaps and in the tardis shaped plastic bins that are dotted around the veg garden and allotment really is the stuff of life itself.
I layer my bins up rather like making a huge (albeit slightly stinky) lasagne with layers of brown carbon rich waste (straw,cardboard,twigs) interspersed with green waste (grass cuttings, flowers, veg trimmings etc). I also add chicken, turkey, duck, quail and rabbit pooh to the mix...that's some lasagne!
Despite trying our hardest to waste as little food as possible and although we feed a great deal veg to the menagerie we still manage to compost a ridiculous amount of waste each week. Egg shells, flowers, peelings, tea bags (split the bag first) and shredded envelopes (avoid glossy paper) all go into the compost pail and then out into the garden or up to the allotment. Once you start thinking outside the box you'll be surprised at what can be added to the heap or even direct to the garden. Pine needles and coffee granules are excellent as a top dressing around Blueberries and wood ash can be added in small quantities to the heap or scattered around the those veg that appreciate a potash rich soil.
Avoid adding cooked food or any waste from animals that aren't strict vegetarians unless you're the lucky owner of a hot composter in which case the variety of things that you can compost will be much wider.
As long as you allow plenty of air to circulate between the layers and turn regularly you should be rewarded with a compost that's dark in colour has no unpleasant smell and is speckled with worms...your garden will thank you for it