RHS Science Newsletter September

Please find attached some really useful information about pests and problems that can occur in the garden courtesy of the RHS science newsletter

Gardening Matters summer 2013

A little bit of Cookery

As it’s a rainy Saturday today I didn’t go down to the garden but did a bit of cooking instead. As you have read in our previous posts we are enjoying the fruits of our labours at the moment among these are potatoes. I threw together a random dish yesterday as I’ve been watching Celebrity Masterchef lately, it is scary how addictive it is but it widens my horizons. I like the  seeing how different foods and flavours are put together to produce something original and different.

Last week I tried out a dish that took my fancy from one of the programmes and it involved Lime Pickle, something I had never tasted before. I’m not a lover of chillies except in the minutest quantities so I used it sparingly but was pleased with the new flavours. I cook mostly mediterranean style,  occasionally with a bit of ginger and soy sauce etc but I don’t do curries although I use some of the spices like cardamom.  So it was time I experimented a bit.

I took some potatoes which I sliced and steamed together with some sliced carrots. When cooked I tossed them in a mixture of butter and olive oil, salt & pepper, a dash of capers and a tiny splash of lime pickle. I cut some fresh coriander and sprinkled it over the top. It wasn’t quite right but interesting.  I made enough so that I could keep some for another meal as sometimes the flavours are better the next day. Today I took them out of the fridge, I wanted them hot as it is that sort of day and heated a bit of olive oil in a skillet and fried them off so I had crispy bits and added a few slices of apple and cooked it until soft which really made it tasty adding that extra missing element of sweetness to go with the sour.

With a beef tomato, I had made a tomato sauce by reducing it down in the pan with garlic and seasoning. I put a teaspoon or two of the sauce at the bottom of the dish followed by the potato and topped with a sausage grilled and sliced and crisped off in a pan.  A good combination of flavours and a tasty little dish.

Harvest is coming

I haven’t been to the garden for a few weeks as we’ve been on holiday so it was lovely to see how much things had changed.  We had a productive couple of hours before the rain in the afternoon.

Owen volunteered to mow the grass  Which he did ALL morning. What it is about boys and making lots of noise?

Jean tackled the now abundant flower bed

I discovered whole new varieties of tomato.  These ones are called ox-heart tomatoes.  I wonder why.

I love the way the colours of the tomatoes change as you look down the vine.

Karen continued to show that she’s the Queen of Beans

We had a heated discussion about who would have the globe artichoke.  Fortunately Jean rescued me from having to try to cook it.

The borlotti beans are coming along nicely.  I’ve never seen them growing before.

Paul set to digging up some annoying comfrey.  It’s got a strong root system and so I had struggled to get rid of it from the raised bed I’ve been using to grow salads.  We’ve replanted some of it in the hedge and used the rest of the leaves to make a fertiliser.   I replanted the last of the out door lettuces in the space he freed up.

There’s a crazy amount of red onions in the little polytunnel.  I’m going to make a chutney with the ones I took home today.  I’m also going to make pesto with the basil and make a preserve with the cucumbers.  I’ve bought litres of vinegar in preparation.  I only hope my attempt at chutney works out better than the last time I tried it, when I ended up with a boiling mass of burnt acidic onions.  It wasn’t nice.

Here we are, working hard.

Finally, I think my favourite plants of the garden at the moment are these little tiny chillies. Not sure they’ll be my favourite thing to eat, though!

Lois

Pigs and Potatoes

We saw the arrival of four new members to our garden at the beginning of July our four piglets! They are cross breeds again , two are black and two have  white middles, shows how much I know about pigs! But I believe two are a saddleback cross. They are certainly a lot quieter than the last few pigs we had who squealed at the slightest sign of a human, these seem quite happy lazing away in the shade either under their awning or by the fence where the hedge gives them shade. Any sign of food though and they are just as keen to get there first as the others. They are certainly great weed devourers and made short work of the overgrown pig pen, there isn’t a blade of weed or grass in sight. Also a very useful way of getting rid of those perennial weeds you don’t want to put in the compost. When we clean any of the harvested vegetables it either goes to the pigs or chickens and certainly keeps the pile of unwanted greenery down to a manageable size this time of year; obviously anything with signs of disease gets burnt.

I was busy doing some gardening the other day when I heard all this squeaking going on coming from the pigs, wondering what on earth they were doing I went over to look and was met by the sight of four little curly tails in a row as they were frantically trying to get their snouts  through the wire fence or under it to reach the blackberries on the other side. When they managed to snaffle one they were in ecstasy. It’s  not only humans who have a sweet tooth then.

They are very amusing to watch and it is easy to see how the phrase “greedy little pigs” came into being, when the greenery hits the ground they are pushing and shoving to get their snouts in the goodies.

These few summer months see us with such a proliferation of produce it hard to know where to begin. One of the real pleasures of growing your own vegetables is eating freshly dug potatoes  as they are sweeter than kept ones. We have a wide variety this year and luckily we haven’t suffered with blight so there is no mad panic to harvest them. Also our beans are showering us with goodies and again we have a good variety of them.,thankfully we have had a nice spattering of rain lately so the watering has not been so necessary outside.

The poly tunnel is looking very healthy this year as Rosemary our captain tunnel, has got a strict watering system in place to make sure the plants have all the requirements they need to thrive.