A new veg bed, different rules for growing tomatoes in London and a possible archaeological find

There's not a lot of my garden left that isn't already devoted to growing veg. There's the circle of grass in the middle where we put up the washing line, the concrete path and the grass paths to the shed and the water butts. None of them could go. We need all of them. But what was dispensable was the grass path between the concrete patio at the back of our house and the circle of lawn for the washing line. 

It is with some sadness that I have dug it up, as it was a useful thoroughfare in the garden, made watering easier, gave a greater sense of space and was appealing to look at. Well, I say I dug it up, my husband dug it up for me and it was hell to do. I know, as I had already tried.

It was as dry as dust and packed hard together. We had to water it several times to make it possible to get into it at all. In normal circumstances, I wouldn't have dug it up. But these aren't normal times. The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have meant rules in shops about how many items you can buy at once and the dry spring means farms may not be able to produce as much food usual, so it makes sense to grow as much food as possible. And in particular, the vegetable I use the most of is tomatoes, so it makes sense to expand my tomato bed.

I hope that this change is not permanent and that I will be able to return this area of grass in 2021 or 2022. I don 't think I will dare do it at the end of the tomato season this year. Instead, I will want to wait and see how this pandemic and the food supply are panning out. I only hope that after so little rain and with no spare compost, the soil is adequate for growing tomatoes in this year.

I have also made a decision about how to grow tomatoes in London. On Gardener's World Monty Don always tells us not to put our tomatoes outdoors until the end of June. But I think he is basing this on the temperatures in the rest of the UK, not London temperatures. One thing that convinces me of this is my tomatoes that have self-seeded in this year's root vegetable bed.

They are much bigger, healthier and more vigorous (and less leggy) than the tomatoes I grew indoors. One even has flowers on it already. So, from now on I am going to carry on sowing tomatoes indoors, but I am also going to sow seeds outdoors in April where I want them to grow (or possibly even earlier, as they appear not to grow until they are ready, however long they've been in the soil). I will continue to grow tomatoes indoors as a back up, but I will plant these out in mid or late May unless it's an unusually cold or wet year or frost is forecast. I get self-seeded tomatoes in my garden most years, so they are clearly perfectly capable of surviving here.

This year, I don't have enough tomato plants to fill my new bed, as I am rejecting one as too straggly and weak, so I intend to plant one of these self-seeded tomatoes in the new bed. This isn't technically a good idea for crop rotation reasons, but given that I have no known tomato disease anywhere in my garden and that I am hoping to turn this bed back into lawn before tomatoes reach that bed again in my rotation, I think it should be OK.

Finally, whilst he was digging up the new bed, my husband turned up a small pile of large stones, a piece of rusty pipe and what looks like a flint spearhead or similar tool.

It has been shaped to a sharp edge all around it through the rock being chipped away. I don't know if this is a genuine archaeological find or whether a modern person decided to create it using ancient techniques, but either way it's an interesting thing to have found in the garden.

Painting a watercolour of a foxglove in the garden

I wanted to send my uncle a get-well-soon card, so I decided to make my own in watercolour. And what better subject than the foxgloves at the end of the garden and the bees that swarm around them? Actually, it turns out that foxgloves are quite hard to paint close up. I know that now, but I've made the card already. 

First of all I took some photos of my foxgloves and also as many photos of bees as possible, as they move too fast to be able to paint them well from life.

Then I made a pencil sketch of the foxglove with some of the bees, having marked out the size of the card on my bigger piece of paper for sketching.

I then transferred a really light version of the sketch onto my watercolour paper by putting my watercolour paper over the sketch on the inside of a window facing the sun (my own cheaper version of a light box) and marking the key lines in lightly with a pencil.

Next, I masking-taped my watercolour paper to a piece of card and put a faint, intentionally patchy sky-blue wash around the background, using plenty of water. I wanted it to be reminiscent of the sky, even though that wasn't the foxglove's actual background. The reason I chose this background was because I didn't want it to distract from the foxglove.

I then mixed a colour for the foxglove flowers and started filling it into my lightly sketched pattern. It was so sunny out that the colour kept drying out and I had to make more. Every time I ended up making a slightly different colour, but this ended up working to my advantage. 

I'd run out of masking fluid, so I had to make sure that I left areas I wanted to stay white unpainted without any help from masking fluid.

After I had all the lighter background colours in, I filled in the darker colours, including the bees. There's a real difference between the bee in the air, which I sketched and painted based on one of the photos I'd taken earlier, and the bees on the foxglove, which I sketched while they were there and painted from memory. In retrospect, I should have done all the bees from photographs. I also notice from looking at the photographs that I should have added some stronger green parts to the stem.

When it was finished, I took the masking tape off and folded the card back up. I'd already folded the paper before I even started. In retrospect, I should have scored along the fold using a ruler and scissors, as the paper was so thick that it creased all the way along the fold.

Nevertheless, overall I was happy with it as a card and I hope it cheers my uncle up.

Compost successfully made in compost bin despite half-hearted effort

A lot of work is supposed to go into making good compost:

• chop what you put in it small (I sort of did this, I chopped some things and put others straight in because I couldn't be bothered)
• regularly turn it (I largely skipped this part)
• water it if it gets to dry (I almost entirely skipped this part)
• make sure you include a balanced mix of browns (tougher, drier stuff) and greens (softer, moister stuff) (I was pretty OK at this)
• not include anything so tough and woody it's never going to break down, especially not if not chopped small (I was bad at this, I often add things to my compost heap that are very tough and not chopped. Sometimes I take them out entirely later and sometimes I just send them back round if they reach the bottom without composting)
• not include anything that will attract rats, such as fat or meat (I was excellent at this)
• not include weeds or seed heads (I was poor at this, but I did exclude seed heads, tap roots and weeds I know to be problem weeds in compost - my failure is probably best exemplified by the fact my compost heap currently has poppies growing out of it)
• not include any diseased vegetable matter (I was pretty good at this, some things that shouldn't have got in there probably did, but I made an effort to avoid doing this, I really don't want to spread disease in my garden)

Considering how badly I followed the rules, I turn out to have made excellent looking compost. When I removed the front slats from my home-made compost heap (instructions on how to make it are available here), there was a lot of well-composted compost at the bottom. I can't help thinking that given my failure to apply the proper rules of composting in full, that the design of the compost bin must have aided me. It certainly made it much easier to get the compost out than those plastic bins you can buy with just a small door at the front.

I was able to scoop most of the compost out with a fork and spade before the compost above it fell down and took its place. I didn't manage to get right to the back before that happened, but I think I got most of the way there. I think I got about 4 or 5 large tubs full, which I've spread over my squash, tomato and brassica beds, plus a little bit around my sweet corn. I'm pleased to say that there was enough of it that I'm now no longer worried about not buying composted horse manure this year.

I was a little surprised to find that there weren't any worms in my compost, only woodlice. Given how full of worms my garden is, I can only assume that this was because I haven't been keeping it watered and they may well have been in there over winter with all that wet weather, but left when the compost dried out.

After I'd taken all the thoroughly composted compost out, I gave the top part a mix and encouraged it to settle down into the empty part of the compost bin. The compost heap is now much lower, with plenty of room to add more organic matter. Previously compost was heaped above the top of the bin.

Now I've spread my compost I've planted my squashes out. I have my fingers crossed they're not all consumed by slugs and snails as has happened to me in years gone by. I'm not sure if I've still got time to propagate new ones from seed.

Providing they don't meet death by snail, they should pretty quickly fill this bed, then make a bid for more space by crawling across the lawn - unless they don't get enough light; this is the shady side of my garden.
I've also put up the bamboo canes and planted out my remaining beans. There aren't enough of them to fill the canes, so I'm hoping some more of my beans successfully grow. It's not looking good so far, but we'll have to wait and see.

Flowers in the vegetable garden

It's that happy time of year when a lot of my vegetable garden is in bloom. From a distance you can barely see that I have any flowers in bloom at all.

But if you walk round the garden you'll see my bright yellow iris...

...and also climbing roses at either end of the garden...

An aberrant pale pink rose on my white iceberg rose

...and foxgloves...

...and even some of my herbs, fruit and veg are flowering:

Chives in flower

Thyme in flower

Broad bean flowers

Strawberry flowers

Rocket flowers

The bees are loving it and are buzzing everywhere. It's turned beautifully warm outside with more warm weather forecast and so I've taken the decision to plant out my runner beans and French beans on the assumption that London will remain frost free:

It's still a bit tatty in this bed because I'm still growing the kale there for seeds. Because of this, some of my French beans are still sitting in pots while I cross my fingers that I'll get kale seeds soon so I can use the space for more beans. I've also already planted out my sweetcorn. When you put them in, it always seems hard to believe that they'll need the 40 cm spacing the packet requires, but they should start growing pretty quickly.

I've also brought several of my plants that were indoors out to the greenhouse. There's a mixture of plants that will live permanently in the greenhouse and squashes that will go outdoors after I've hardened them off.

I still also have plants indoors, as I repotted some of them. Quite a lot of plants were still several plants to the pot because I had a pot shortage. Planting a lot of my beans out meant that new pots became available.
I also had an interesting experience where several of my maxima squashes died and I thought they were just difficult to grow. What I didn't notice until I moved all the pots was that several of these were in fact growing successfully nearer to the window. It turned out that only the end of the dining room table really near the window is suitable for propagation. If I try to grow plants even a little further in it doesn't work.

An alternative to straw around strawberries

For the past few years I've been using shredded paper instead of straw around strawberries and it's done a perfectly decent job. It eventually starts clumping together and disappearing (possibly birds run off with it, possibly it disintegrates), but at the start of the season I simply empty my shredder all over the strawberry bed and brush it off the leaves. A nice thick layer works best. You can water on top of it, I always do.

In other news, I've had a big weekend digging, weeding, mowing, sowing and planting and the garden now has that pristine, ready-to-go look.

It's slightly marred by the fact that I've left a big bush of rocket and my kale in the ground because I want to collect seeds from them. The kale at least is most of the way there. It's flowered and formed seed pods. Now they just need to ripen before I need the bed for beans. I wouldn't be bothering with the kale if if hadn't been so hard getting seeds during lockdown. The rocket is well worth it, though, I find it hard to coax rocket seeds from a packet to germinate, but when they self-sow they germinate everywhere!

Scarlet kale seed pods

I've also planted out this year's kale, interspersed with turnips and kohlrabi. All three of them are brassicas, so belong together in my crop rotation. The reason I've interspersed them is because the kale plants need to be planted 60 cm apart, but it won't need all that distance until later in the year. In the meantime I'm growing turnips and kohlrabi in between them that should be ready to harvest before the kale needs all that space.

Also, just as I was giving up hope on my carrots, they've finally germinated. No such luck with the parsnips, but after watching Frances Tophill at her allotment on Gardeners' World I've resown them much more thickly than I did the first time. They have until the end of May, if there's no sign of them by then I'll sow another root vegetable in their place.

Chocolate and orange cake and sticky orange cake tray bake recipe

I did some baking last weekend, and as usual I adapted someone else's recipes to match what I had available in my cupboards. This can be a bit of a hit or miss approach, but this time the result was definitely a hit, so I thought I'd share the recipe. I made both of these cakes at once by making a base mixture, then adding cocoa powder to one half of it. You can make both together or make each separately. It's surprisingly hard to choose between the two cakes, you think any cake with chocolate in it would win hands down, but there's something utterly delicious about the sticky orange cake.

Recipe for making both at once

For the sponges 

275g room temperature butter (plus a little extra for greasing the tin)

275g golden caster sugar 

4 large eggs 

275g self-raising flour (sifted) (or 260 g of plain flour and 15 g (= nearly 4 tsp) of baking powder) 

2 large oranges (zest of both oranges and the juice of one) 

5 tbsp cocoa powder (for the chocolate and orange sponge only)

For the sticky orange drizzle for the sticky orange cake

50g golden caster sugar 

Juice of half the second orange

For the chocolate and orange icing

2 tsp cocoa powder

3 tbsp icing sugar

Juice of around quarter of the second orange (enough to form the icing into a thick paste)

1. Grease two 20 cm x 20 cm (8 inch) square cake tins with butter and line them with baking paper (if you only have one suitable tin, you can bake one cake at a time). Just a single strip of baking paper will do for the lining, ideally with enough left sticking out of each end of the tin to allow you to use it to pull the cake out when cooked.

2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees without fan or 180 degrees with fan.

3. Optionally weigh your mixing bowl and write down the weight, so you can work out how much precisely half the mixture is later.

4. In your mixing bowl cream together the room temperature butter and sugar until light, fluffy and paler in colour (it's best to use a mixer for this). 

5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating really well between each egg you add. 

6. Sift the flour (and baking powder if using plain flour).

5. Fold the flour (and baking powder) into your cake mixture until well combined

6. Use a grater to zest both oranges and use a juicer to juice one of them.

7. Add the orange zest of both oranges and the juice from the one orange you have juiced to the cake mixture.  Put the other zested orange in the fridge for later.

8. Stir well - if you are using a mixer, I recommend hand stirring at the end to make sure the mixture is thoroughly mixed, my mixer did not evenly mix all the ingredients.

9. Put half of the mixture into the prepared cake tin and make sure it is evenly distributed so that it has a flat top. If you weighed your mixing bowl first, you can work out precisely half as follows:

Deduct the weight of the empty bowl from the weight of the full bowl (e.g. full bowl = 1,830 g, empty bowl = 700 g, difference = 1,130 g). Divide the difference by 2 ( e.g. 1130 g /2 = 565 g). This is the amount the cake mix for each sponge should weigh. So after you have removed it from the mixing bowl, the mixing bowl should weigh the amount of the full bowl less half the difference (in my example 1,830 g - 565 g = 1,265 g).

11. To make the chocolate and orange sponge, add 5 tbsp of cocoa powder to the remaining cake mixture in the mix bowl and mix thoroughly.

12. Pour this mixture into the second prepared cake tin and bake both sponges in the oven for 20 minutes until they are well risen and springy to the touch and a skewer comes out of it clean (i.e. without unbaked cake mixture sticking to it). If you don't have two tins, simply stick the chocolate and orange cake mixture in the fridge until your cake tin is available again - it's then the same instructions as above to bake it.

13. While the sticky orange cake is baking mix the drizzle. Place the golden caster sugar in a small bowl. Juice half of the remaining orange you have been storing in the fridge and pour this juice onto the golden caster sugar and stir thoroughly.

14. Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them in the tins. 

15. While the sticky orange sponge is still hot, drizzle or brush over the orange drizzle. You can use a pastry brush for the brushing.

16. Now leave both cakes to cool in their tins until cold. 

17. While the cakes are cooling, mix the chocolate and orange icing. To do this, put the cocoa powder and icing sugar in a small bowl. Juice the remaining half an orange and slowly add the juice to the cocoa powder and icing sugar, stirring all the while, until you have formed a thick mixture with just enough give in it to spread evenly on a cake. This will probably be around half the juice of that half orange (i.e. the juice of quarter of an orange).

18. When they're cold, lift the cakes from the tins using the paper to help you. 

19. Spread the chocolate and orange icing over the cold chocolate and orange sponge.

20. Cut the cakes into squares or rectangles. Suggested numbers of squares are 16 per sponge (3 cuts by 3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in each direction), 20 per sponge (3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in one direction and 4 cuts to divide it into 5 in the other - this is what I did after lengthy negotiations on portion size with my husband) or 25 per sponge (4 cuts by 4 cuts to divide the cake into 5 in each direction).

This cake will keep up to one week in a tin. I kept out what we expected to eat and froze the rest. I haven't yet tested how well it freezes, but based on other cakes I've made recently, taking out the squares you want to eat about an hour in advance should work well.

Recipe for just chocolate and orange cake (you can halve this recipe)

For the sponges 

275g room temperature butter (plus a little extra for greasing the tin)

275g golden caster sugar 

4 large eggs 

275g self-raising flour (sifted) (or 260 g of plain flour and 15 g (= nearly 4 tsp) of baking powder) 

2 large oranges (zest of both oranges and the juice of one) 

10 tbsp cocoa powder (for the chocolate and orange sponge only)

For the chocolate and orange icing

4 tsp cocoa powder

6 tbsp icing sugar

Juice of around half of the second orange (enough to form the icing into a thick paste)

1. Grease two 20 cm x 20 cm (8 inch) square cake tins with butter and line them with baking paper (if you only have one suitable tin, you can bake one cake at a time or halve the recipe and just bake half of it). Just a single strip of baking paper will do for the lining, ideally with enough left sticking out of each end of the tin to allow you to use it to pull the cake out when cooked.

2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees without fan or 180 degrees with fan.

3. Optionally weigh your mixing bowl and write down the weight, so you can work out how much precisely half the mixture is later.

4. In your mixing bowl cream together the room temperature butter and sugar until light, fluffy and paler in colour (it's best to use a mixer for this). 

5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating really well between each egg you add. 

6. Sift the flour (and baking powder if using plain flour).

5. Fold the flour (and baking powder) into your cake mixture until well combined

6. Use a grater to zest both oranges and use a juicer to juice one of them.

7. Add the orange zest of both oranges and the juice from the one orange you have juiced to the cake mixture.  Put the other zested orange in the fridge for later.

8. Add the cocoa powder.

9. Stir well - if you are using a mixer, I recommend hand stirring at the end to make sure the mixture is thoroughly mixed, my mixer did not evenly mix all the ingredients.

10. Put half of the mixture into each prepared cake tin and make sure it is evenly distributed so that it has a flat top. If you weighed your mixing bowl first, you can work out precisely half as follows:

Deduct the weight of the empty bowl from the weight of the full bowl (e.g. full bowl = 1,830 g, empty bowl = 700 g, difference = 1,130 g). Divide the difference by 2 ( e.g. 1130 g /2 = 565 g). This is the amount the cake mix for each sponge should weigh. So after you have removed it from the mixing bowl, the mixing bowl should weigh the amount of the full bowl less half the difference (in my example 1,830 g - 565 g = 1,265 g).

11. Bake both sponges in the oven for 20 minutes until they are well risen and springy to the touch and a skewer comes out of it clean (i.e. without unbaked cake mixture sticking to it). 

12. Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them in the tins until cold. 

13. While the cakes are cooling, mix the chocolate and orange icing. To do this, put the cocoa powder and icing sugar in a small bowl. Juice the remaining half an orange and slowly add the juice to the cocoa powder and icing sugar, stirring all the while, until you have formed a thick mixture with just enough give in it to spread evenly on a cake. This will probably be around half the juice of that half orange (i.e. the juice of quarter of an orange).

14. When they're cold, lift the cakes from the tins using the paper to help you. 

15. Spread half the chocolate and orange icing over each cake.

16. Cut the cakes into squares or rectangles. Suggested numbers of squares are 16 per sponge (3 cuts by 3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in each direction), 20 per sponge (3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in one direction and 4 cuts to divide it into 5 in the other - this is what I did after lengthy negotiations on portion size with my husband) or 25 per sponge (4 cuts by 4 cuts to divide the cake into 5 in each direction).

This cake will keep up to one week in a tin. I kept out what we expected to eat and froze the rest. I haven't yet tested how well it freezes, but based on other cakes I've made recently, taking out the squares you want to eat about an hour in advance should work well.

Recipe for just sticky orange cake

For the sponges 

275g room temperature butter (plus a little extra for greasing the tin)

275g golden caster sugar 

4 large eggs 

275g self-raising flour (sifted) (or 260 g of plain flour and 15 g (= nearly 4 tsp) of baking powder) 

2 large oranges (zest of both oranges and the juice of one) 

For the sticky orange drizzle for the sticky orange cake

100g golden caster sugar 

Juice of the second orange

1. Grease two 20 cm x 20 cm (8 inch) square cake tins with butter and line them with baking paper (if you only have one suitable tin, you can bake one cake at a time or halve the recipe and just bake half of it). Just a single strip of baking paper will do for the lining, ideally with enough left sticking out of each end of the tin to allow you to use it to pull the cake out when cooked.

2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees without fan or 180 degrees with fan.

3. Optionally weigh your mixing bowl and write down the weight, so you can work out how much precisely half the mixture is later.

4. In your mixing bowl cream together the room temperature butter and sugar until light, fluffy and paler in colour (it's best to use a mixer for this). 

5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating really well between each egg you add. 

6. Sift the flour (and baking powder if using plain flour).

5. Fold the flour (and baking powder) into your cake mixture until well combined

6. Use a grater to zest both oranges and use a juicer to juice one of them.

7. Add the orange zest of both oranges and the juice from the one orange you have juiced to the cake mixture.

8. Stir well - if you are using a mixer, I recommend hand stirring at the end to make sure the mixture is thoroughly mixed, my mixer did not evenly mix all the ingredients.

9. Put half of the mixture into each prepared cake tin and make sure it is evenly distributed so that it has a flat top. If you weighed your mixing bowl first, you can work out precisely half as follows:

Deduct the weight of the empty bowl from the weight of the full bowl (e.g. full bowl = 1,830 g, empty bowl = 700 g, difference = 1,130 g). Divide the difference by 2 ( e.g. 1130 g /2 = 565 g). This is the amount the cake mix for each sponge should weigh. So after you have removed it from the mixing bowl, the mixing bowl should weigh the amount of the full bowl less half the difference (in my example 1,830 g - 565 g = 1,265 g).

10. Bake both sponges in the oven for 20 minutes until they are well risen and springy to the touch and a skewer comes out of it clean (i.e. without unbaked cake mixture sticking to it). 

11. While the sticky orange cake is baking mix the drizzle. Place the golden caster sugar in a small bowl. Juice half of the remaining orange you have been storing in the fridge and pour this juice onto the golden caster sugar and stir thoroughly.

12. Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them in the tins. 

13. While the sticky orange sponge is still hot, drizzle or brush over the orange drizzle. You can use a pastry brush for the brushing.

14. Now leave both cakes to cool in their tins until cold. 

15. When they're cold, lift the cakes from the tins using the paper to help you. 

16. Cut the cakes into squares or rectangles. Suggested numbers of squares are 16 per sponge (3 cuts by 3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in each direction), 20 per sponge (3 cuts to divide the cake into 4 in one direction and 4 cuts to divide it into 5 in the other - this is what I did after lengthy negotiations on portion size with my husband) or 25 per sponge (4 cuts by 4 cuts to divide the cake into 5 in each direction).

This cake will keep up to one week in a tin. I kept out what we expected to eat and froze the rest. I haven't yet tested how well it freezes, but based on other cakes I've made recently, taking out the squares you want to eat about an hour in advance should work well.