I think they must just hack the roots off straight across in supermarkets, as I've never seen the end looking like that on a supermarket one - mind you, nor have I ever seen such a diddy one at the shops.
Wednesday 27 August 2014
113 grams of swede
I picked my first swede today. I needed one for Delia's shepherd's pie and one of the ones in the garden looked big enough.
I was expecting the swede to look similar below the soil line to what it looked like above, but I was wrong. It wasn't just one big, bulbous, edible root, it was a mass of little ones.
I bashed as much soil as I could off it, then took it in to the kitchen to wash it. But actually, I found myself washing valuable topsoil down the drain.
So I decided to take a different approach and cut off the roots then take them back outside for composting.
After I'd cut more of the roots off and peeled it I had 113 grams of swede left.
The recipe only called for 75 grams, but it would have been a real waste not to use the whole thing, and besides, the more veg I can sneak into the other half's dinner the better (left to his own devices it's possible he'd live on nothing but Super Noodles and chocolate, so every little helps). I personally don't think I chopped the veg quite fine enough this time, I should have chopped finer to start with or gone over it a while longer with the knife.
But the other half was pretty pleased with the result:
Sunday 24 August 2014
Rocket in flower
Two or three of my rocket plants have bolted, i.e. they've grown tall and flowered.
Mainly people recommend against eating plants after they've bolted. They say they don't taste as nice. In rocket's case its leaves purportedly get tougher and hotter.
Annoyingly, there wasn't much of a gap between the rocket growing big enough to bear the loss of a decent number of leaves and it flowering, so I didn't get very much from it before that happened. I do still have a plant or two at the shady end of the row that hasn't flowered yet, so I may use those for the mozzarella chorizo pasta recipe I'm having later in the week. I'll have to do a taste test at the time, as the leaves on the flowering rocket look a lot more like I expect rocket to look than the leaves on the plants that haven't got that far yet. And besides, the whole point of the rocket in the recipe I'm making is to add a bit of fiery pepperiness, so maybe the tougher, hotter leaves will actually be preferable.
My runner bean is growing well, but I'm still not holding out much hope of a harvest. I walked past our local allotments today and their runner beans had climbed all the way to the top of 6 foot canes already. It may be alright if we have a warm September, but the way it's turned chilly already doesn't make me think that's going to happen. I'm already shivering at night, even with my extra blanket.
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| Rocket in flower |
Annoyingly, there wasn't much of a gap between the rocket growing big enough to bear the loss of a decent number of leaves and it flowering, so I didn't get very much from it before that happened. I do still have a plant or two at the shady end of the row that hasn't flowered yet, so I may use those for the mozzarella chorizo pasta recipe I'm having later in the week. I'll have to do a taste test at the time, as the leaves on the flowering rocket look a lot more like I expect rocket to look than the leaves on the plants that haven't got that far yet. And besides, the whole point of the rocket in the recipe I'm making is to add a bit of fiery pepperiness, so maybe the tougher, hotter leaves will actually be preferable.
My runner bean is growing well, but I'm still not holding out much hope of a harvest. I walked past our local allotments today and their runner beans had climbed all the way to the top of 6 foot canes already. It may be alright if we have a warm September, but the way it's turned chilly already doesn't make me think that's going to happen. I'm already shivering at night, even with my extra blanket.
Wednesday 20 August 2014
Beetroot harvest & hardly-any-chicken soup recipe
I harvested some beetroot today, as a couple of them looked like they'd got to a fairly decent size.
I had a plan for them, I decided I was going to make hardly-any-chicken soup, which is a recipe I made up to use up the chicken carcass after we've had roast chicken (although it's actually heavily reliant on beetroot for its taste, so would probably taste fine in a vegan version if you replaced the chicken stock with either vegetable stock or just boiling water and a bit of olive oil (the fat it gets from the chicken gives it a good mouth feel, so a vegan version should include at least some olive oil).
When I pulled up the beetroot though, it turned out that something had already taken chunks out of them. I'm guessing slugs or snails.
My other half almost refused to eat them when he saw them, but I persuaded him I could cut the damaged parts out. Most of the veg I've produced so far has at least been nibbled by something by the time I got to it and I don't see that changing in the future unless I start spraying with chemicals, which is something I'm hoping to avoid.
After I'd peeled them and cut the damaged parts away there wasn't much left, so I was a bit worried that there wouldn't enough beetroot to make the soup work. I made it with pre-cooked beetroot once and it was a shadow of its normal self, so a strong beetroot flavour is vital. Fortunately - as you can see from the colour - my two small pest-eaten beetroots did prove to be enough. So, here's the recipe for you:
Hardly-Any-Chicken Soup
1 chicken carcass from a roast chicken stripped of almost all meat, but still with as much skin, fat and juices as possible
4 small potatoes (ideally leftover roast potatoes)
1 onion
1 butternut squash
1 medium beetroot (raw)
1 medium turnip
2 large carrots
2 tbsp chopped parsley (frozen is fine)
salt and pepper
optionally 20 shakes of Worcester sauce
1. Boil kettle full of water.
2. Put the chicken carcass (including leftover skin, fat and juices) in a large saucepan. Pour boiling water over it until saucepan is about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bring to boil, then gently simmer, ideally for an hour, but half an hour seems to work OK too. If using raw potatoes, peel, chop fairly small and add to the pot for the last 20 minutes.
3. Remove chicken carcass (and any potatoes cooked with it) to a plate and pour the liquid (the chicken stock) through a sieve into another large saucepan.
5. Cut the butternut squash in half, scoop out the seeds, peel the two halves, then chop into chunks of about 1 cm cubed. Chop the onion very small. Add some fat (chicken fat, butter or olive oil) to the saucepan you originally cooked the chicken stock in (to save washing up rather than for flavour reasons) and then fry the onion and butternut squash in it until soft (c. 15 minutes).
6. Meanwhile, peel and chop the beetroot, turnip and carrots into small pieces.
7. Bring the soup liquid back to the boil. Add the beetroot, turnip and carrots and boil for 10 minutes.
8. Pick any remaining chicken off the chicken carcass (not any skin or gristle) and add to the soup.
9. Crumble the potatoes into the soup.
9. Once they're soft, add the onions and butternut squash to the soup, then add parsley, salt and pepper and optionally Worcester sauce.
10. Serve with buttered crusty bread or granary bread.
When I pulled up the beetroot though, it turned out that something had already taken chunks out of them. I'm guessing slugs or snails.
My other half almost refused to eat them when he saw them, but I persuaded him I could cut the damaged parts out. Most of the veg I've produced so far has at least been nibbled by something by the time I got to it and I don't see that changing in the future unless I start spraying with chemicals, which is something I'm hoping to avoid.
After I'd peeled them and cut the damaged parts away there wasn't much left, so I was a bit worried that there wouldn't enough beetroot to make the soup work. I made it with pre-cooked beetroot once and it was a shadow of its normal self, so a strong beetroot flavour is vital. Fortunately - as you can see from the colour - my two small pest-eaten beetroots did prove to be enough. So, here's the recipe for you:
1 chicken carcass from a roast chicken stripped of almost all meat, but still with as much skin, fat and juices as possible
4 small potatoes (ideally leftover roast potatoes)
1 onion
1 butternut squash
1 medium beetroot (raw)
1 medium turnip
2 large carrots
2 tbsp chopped parsley (frozen is fine)
salt and pepper
optionally 20 shakes of Worcester sauce
1. Boil kettle full of water.
2. Put the chicken carcass (including leftover skin, fat and juices) in a large saucepan. Pour boiling water over it until saucepan is about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bring to boil, then gently simmer, ideally for an hour, but half an hour seems to work OK too. If using raw potatoes, peel, chop fairly small and add to the pot for the last 20 minutes.
3. Remove chicken carcass (and any potatoes cooked with it) to a plate and pour the liquid (the chicken stock) through a sieve into another large saucepan.
5. Cut the butternut squash in half, scoop out the seeds, peel the two halves, then chop into chunks of about 1 cm cubed. Chop the onion very small. Add some fat (chicken fat, butter or olive oil) to the saucepan you originally cooked the chicken stock in (to save washing up rather than for flavour reasons) and then fry the onion and butternut squash in it until soft (c. 15 minutes).
6. Meanwhile, peel and chop the beetroot, turnip and carrots into small pieces.
7. Bring the soup liquid back to the boil. Add the beetroot, turnip and carrots and boil for 10 minutes.
8. Pick any remaining chicken off the chicken carcass (not any skin or gristle) and add to the soup.
9. Crumble the potatoes into the soup.
9. Once they're soft, add the onions and butternut squash to the soup, then add parsley, salt and pepper and optionally Worcester sauce.
10. Serve with buttered crusty bread or granary bread.
Sunday 17 August 2014
All potted up
The herbs are now all in pots along with the herbs I bought on special offer from Sainsbury's a while back and the lavender I was given as a house-warming present. I hope that the chamomile, sage and curry plant don't intertwine their roots too much by next year when I want to plant them separately.
Saturday 16 August 2014
New and unusual herbs
We went to Wisley Gardens today. It's a huge and beautiful garden near the A3, just outside the M25. It's also my favourite garden in London (more or less – being outside the M25 pushes even my definition of London, but it feels local to me). Aside from being full of different gardens, from rose gardens to vegetable plots to orchards to ponds of water lilies, it's also run by the Royal Horticultural Society, which uses the place to test various varieties of plant to see which ones grow best and produce the best results. It also has a pretty big garden centre selling a wide variety of plants – I hope the ones that came out well in the tests. I decided to use the opportunity to buy some of the slightly more unusual herbs (the ones you can't pick up from the living herbs aisle from the supermarket). So I got a curry plant and some purple sage... |
| curry plant and purple sage |
...a green fennel...
...a common rosemary (OK, not technically an unusual herb, but I wanted one for cooking purposes and of all the varieties available at Wisley, it was the one that best fitted what I wanted, including blue flowers and tasting like I expect rosemary to taste)...
 |
| common rosemary |
 |
| chamomile |
The only one I have got fairly definite plans for is the chamomile. It turns out that "chamomile lawn" isn't just the name of a book, you genuinely can make a lawn out of chamomile, and I don't think you have to mow it either, as it only grows to 8 cm. I've been looking for something to go under the washing line other than grass (something useful that I don't have to mow) and chamomile's going to be at least part of it, although I think I may need quite a bit more than I can produce from the one pot. I might grow some thyme there as well, as you can walk on thyme too (and hopefully accidentally drop clothes without them getting too dirty too).
I also think I'm going to copy this London park and use clover (great for the soil as it adds nitrogen and already a large constituent part of my existing lawn) and pennyroyal, as anything that repels the insects currently overrunning my garden is OK by me . But unlike in the park, there won't be any mint going straight in the ground in my garden, as if you let it out of a pot it spreads everywhere.
Sunday 10 August 2014
Leafy growth spurts (before and after)
I've been looking at my vegetables every evening while I water them, so, much like children you see every day, I didn't really realise how much they'd grown until I decided to do a before-and-after comparison to add some context the fact I've just needed to expand my butterfly net (the one I put up to prevent butterflies from landing and laying eggs on my brassicas). For quite a while now my swedes and cauliflowers have been straining against the confines of the net and I've been wondering what I was thinking building the butterfly tunnel so small, but looking back at the old photos, here's my answer:
It's amazing how much they've grown in just a month an a half. The leaves on the sunny end were practically bursting through the netting, so I found another stick and bent it into an arch to increase the size of the left-hand end.
Turns out that's a much better idea than lashing sticks together if you can find ones that are prepared to bend without snapping. The only slight downside of the expansion is that I'd cut the netting a little too short to easily cover this extra height, so I had to carefully pull and twist it so that it still goes down to the ground all round.
All in all it's been a highly successful measure. I haven't found a single caterpillar in there yet, so it turns out it doesn't matter if the leaves touch the netting, what matters is that butterflies can't get underneath any of the leaves to deposit their eggs.
While I'm on before and after, look how well my bean is growing:
I've also noticed another stump that looks like a bean stem stripped of leaves (or possibly a new stem yet to grow leaves), so I've put a slug ring round it to give it a fighting chance. I still suspect it's too late in the season for me to actually get any beans from these, especially given the shady position I'm growing them in, but, as they used to say about the lottery, you've got to be in it to win it.
 |
| Before (24 June) |
 |
| After (post-net expansion – 10 August) |
All in all it's been a highly successful measure. I haven't found a single caterpillar in there yet, so it turns out it doesn't matter if the leaves touch the netting, what matters is that butterflies can't get underneath any of the leaves to deposit their eggs.
While I'm on before and after, look how well my bean is growing:
 |
| Seedling (9 July) |
 |
| Devastated by slugs (17 July) |
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| Now (10 August) |
 |
| Bean and gone? |
Thursday 7 August 2014
White Turnip radishes – my verdict
I picked some more radishes yesterday. The majority of them were the White Turnip variety again, as have been the majority of the radishes I've picked so far even though they only made up 13% of the seed mix. I guess that means a lot of them germinate and they grow quickly so they're never the one I thin out.
The problem is that I've picked the lion's share of them after they were well past their best. I don't seem to notice they're ready to pick before they're practically ready to collect their bus passes.
This time's crop were tough and woody, too peppery and an unattractive shade of off-beige (admittedly slicing them thinly would have helped on all those counts, but I realised that after I'd already ruined my salad).
Even when I do catch them when they're still a pretty shade of off-white, they're too small to eat and still don't even look as pretty as the red and pink varieties.
So my overall verdict is this: Next time I'm going to look for radish seeds that don't include White Turnip. Sure, they've got good qualities (germinate well, grow quickly), but those are more than outweighed by my inability to pick them while they're still worth eating.
The problem is that I've picked the lion's share of them after they were well past their best. I don't seem to notice they're ready to pick before they're practically ready to collect their bus passes.
This time's crop were tough and woody, too peppery and an unattractive shade of off-beige (admittedly slicing them thinly would have helped on all those counts, but I realised that after I'd already ruined my salad).
Even when I do catch them when they're still a pretty shade of off-white, they're too small to eat and still don't even look as pretty as the red and pink varieties.
So my overall verdict is this: Next time I'm going to look for radish seeds that don't include White Turnip. Sure, they've got good qualities (germinate well, grow quickly), but those are more than outweighed by my inability to pick them while they're still worth eating.
Saturday 2 August 2014
Other people's compost heaps
When I got this garden I inherited the previous people's compost heap.
The composter has a little door at the bottom so you can take the oldest compost out from underneath.
But after I took the first few forkfuls to add to the first vegetable bed I'd dug, I couldn't get any more out, as it was pretty solid around the sides (it was so solid, I thought I'd hit the plastic sides of the bin and only discovered I was wrong about that when I took the plastic bin off the top). Also, looking at the top and what came out the bottom, I'd thought they'd probably put nothing but grass in it (boy, was a I wrong about that). What was worse was that when I took the lid off the top of the composter a lot of particles came off that I thought might be mould spores.
Unknown garden moulds can be pretty dangerous to your health. One man died after breathing some in. So what with me thinking it was mainly grass (which doesn't compost well on its own) and my worries about the mould, I thought I'd better get rid of my existing compost by sending it off to the council's green waste recycling. And I also thought I'd better wear a mask.
So, I mask up, put on my gardening gloves and start forking the grass clippings into my green waste sacks.
It doesn't take me long to get through the grass layer and that's when things start getting interesting. Below the grass clippings are copious slugs and snails, garden waste in varying stages of decay and a whole host of things I really wasn't expecting, including strips of packing tape, plastic packaging, wodges of sodden, rotting paper, an Open University book, a 2009 desk diary and...
....the two of clubs.
I picked out all of the non-garden waste and put it in our wheelie bin. I could probably have fitted all the green waste in the two green waste sacks the council is prepared to collect once a fortnight, but then it would have taken a competition-level weight lifter to lift it, which I thought was probably both unfair to the bin men and likely to see my garden waste left on the pavement, so I split it between three bags and left some where it was (with the composter removed from the top), because I was pretty tired by that point.
It looks pretty good compost, but I'm in two minds whether to use it or not. I did find a load of rubbish above this level that was completely unsuitable for composting. Clearly the people who made it took a unique approach to composting, so it may have perennial weed roots in it, or worse, perhaps even toxic substances. On the other hand, what's left does look like good, well-rotted compost.
I think though as it's vegetables I'm growing, safety first. I'm planning to eat the stuff that would grow in this and goodness knows what's in it. It feels like a waste, but I will be sending it off to the council who will sterilise it and turn it into soil conditioner (I assume that's another word for compost). I will just have to trust that it only contains inappropriate things and not things that are positively poisonous that won't be dealt with by sterilisation (which will kill off perennial weed roots and any other living nasties) and dilution with everyone else's green waste (which I think should reduce any problematic substances in it to harmless levels, as I'm hoping that the people who made this compost weren't being malicious, just slightly odd in their composting choices).
Unknown garden moulds can be pretty dangerous to your health. One man died after breathing some in. So what with me thinking it was mainly grass (which doesn't compost well on its own) and my worries about the mould, I thought I'd better get rid of my existing compost by sending it off to the council's green waste recycling. And I also thought I'd better wear a mask.
....the two of clubs.
I picked out all of the non-garden waste and put it in our wheelie bin. I could probably have fitted all the green waste in the two green waste sacks the council is prepared to collect once a fortnight, but then it would have taken a competition-level weight lifter to lift it, which I thought was probably both unfair to the bin men and likely to see my garden waste left on the pavement, so I split it between three bags and left some where it was (with the composter removed from the top), because I was pretty tired by that point.
I think though as it's vegetables I'm growing, safety first. I'm planning to eat the stuff that would grow in this and goodness knows what's in it. It feels like a waste, but I will be sending it off to the council who will sterilise it and turn it into soil conditioner (I assume that's another word for compost). I will just have to trust that it only contains inappropriate things and not things that are positively poisonous that won't be dealt with by sterilisation (which will kill off perennial weed roots and any other living nasties) and dilution with everyone else's green waste (which I think should reduce any problematic substances in it to harmless levels, as I'm hoping that the people who made this compost weren't being malicious, just slightly odd in their composting choices).
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