Food for Free

There are many advantages to living on the doorstep of a wooded area. For instance, the abundance of wildlife. During the spring pheasants venture from the woods to look for potential mates, often ending up in our garden eyeing up our hens before deciding they are of course not suitable after all. Muntjac deer are [...]

Beefy Beets

The first sowing of beetroot have been ready for harvesting for a couple of weeks, some have grown quite large and beefy looking but still taste very nice. Nothing is wasted, the hens just adore beetroot leaves. There have been plenty of salads with sliced beetroot for lunch and of course cheese and beetroot sandwiches. Mmmm. I [...]

Cauli Curds

  Oh dear, I seem to have hit a problem with my cauliflowers. This is the first year that I have grown cauliflowers and they were going well. The curds developed and started off small and compact. I made sure I bent the outer leaves over the curds to protect them from discolouration from the sun. The curds [...]

Risky Garlic

I’m feeling quite smug. I took a bit of a risky gamble and planted the cloves from shop bought garlic, it paid off, I was lucky. You see, I did not have any back up cultivated garlic planted, so my garlic harvest this year could have gone very wrong. I did use an organic bulb so [...]

Gooseberries

The gooseberries are finished fruiting now and the final pickings did not even make the kitchen. Well, there was not enough fruit to make anything from them anyway, so popping them into our mouths was the obvious solution of course. Leaving them any longer was just an open invite for the birds. We have 2 young bushes, Careless and [...]

One Must Support One’s Mangetout

  Super easy to grow and the taste is just so much better than shop bought ones. I forgot how tall the plants actually get and now my support system resembles a pathetic mish mash of chicken wire, sticks, string and bamboo canes….all struggling to support the monster plants. Its failing miserably too, its all leaning over [...]

Courgettes

The courgettes have been a bit hit and miss really, but I would say more of a hit as we are harvesting them so its all good. Despite hand pollinating as many female flowers as possible, some of the baby courgettes rotted off. On the other hand, perhaps this is natures way of helping the plants cope with their [...]

Carrotastic!

We are harvesting young carrots at the moment and very pleased with the results, no forked or odd shaped carrots to be found. Yet! We are growing Autumn King this year and decided to leave the job of thinning the seedlings until the carrots were a decent size. This way we can munch our way through young tender carrot thinnings whilst leaving the rest in the ground to mature until [...]

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