The new shed/greenhouse combo has arrived

It was installed on Friday by the company that made it and we've started transferring things into it. In case you're thinking "that's the shed of my dreams, where can I get one?", it was made by Himley Garden Buildings. They were very flexible about design and were even happy to include a gutter along the back for me.

The shed part is slightly larger than our previous shed, which is handy. But the truly exciting part is the greenhouse - which has real glass in it. Having initially planned to get a shed then add a separate greenhouse later, I'm so pleased I got a combined one. The greenhouse part is much bigger than I was expecting to be able to fit on the base and its shape is a perfect match for the shed. So it looks sleek and planned instead of my original design of mismatched and makeshift.

My big question now is: should I fill the greenhouse to maximum capacity with plants or would it be nicer to fill only the front of it with plants and put in a chair or two in for reading on days when the garden isn't quite warm enough, but the sunshine is glorious. I'm currently leaning towards the chair idea. I can always do it temporarily and then discover my plant urge has filled the whole thing and the chairs have to go.

Because of the guttering, I'm having to move the compost bin to make room for a water butt. The good news is that roughly the bottom half of the compost heap turned out to be good, usable compost, albeit possibly not up to the standards of Monty Don's home-made compost. It's been rotting down for 2-3 years now. But it still had big bits of sticks and roots in it that had to go straight back into the compost bin because they hadn't rotted down. This is largely my fault, as I didn't chop them up before putting them in. Also my back was very weak when I started the compost heap because I didn't go to the gym back then. That meant I couldn't stir it much to get air into it and mix what I put into it. Well, that and the awkward design of the bin, which makes stirring the compost with the garden fork difficult even with a strong back. The combination of the two means I had far from optimum composting in my bin, as revealed by the imperfect state of my compost.

My initial plan was just to pull the bin off the compost, but it was wedged on too firmly. Instead I forked the compost out of the top of the bin and into a pile next to it. After I got about a third of the way down, I managed to wiggle the compost bin enough to pull it off the top and put it over my new pile. I had to keep digging for a while before I got down to the decent compost.
I've saved myself a little bit in composted stable manure this year. I reckon this was a couple of big bags worth. I've mainly scattered it over where I'm going to plant the sweetcorn, plus some extra on the cucurbit bed and around the brassicas.

We've expanded the cucurbit bed (on the right in the picture below - cucurbits this year only because I'm using crop rotation). I should have plenty of room for my squashes, cucumbers and courgettes now. The remainder of the garden compost has gone on the cucurbit bed. Squashes love plenty of organic matter, so I'll be adding composted stable manure before they go in.

Major structural changes in the garden

There's been a flurry of activity in the garden of late. We've* dismantled the old shed...

...dug a new bed and stacked the turf behind the apple tree. Monty Don says it should rot down nicely in a stack where it's stacked grass side facing grass side and roots/earth side facing roots/earth side...

...and sprayed the fence with fence preserver. The tub called it "Harvest Gold", I think "Rust Orange" may have been a more accurate name.

We've ordered a new shed/greenhouse combination for the shed base, which will hopefully arrive within about 3 weeks.
It's very different from how the garden started out back in June 2014:

* Actual breakdown of the work: I can't claim much of the credit here. My other half removed 95% of the stuff in the shed, dismantled the shed and moved 99% of the shed and shed contents to throw out to the skip, although I did freecycle two bulky items and make a thank-you cheesecake for him.
I hired the skip and bought the fence spraying equipment, and the other half did all the spraying. But I did dig the new bed and stack the turf from it myself. It took me about 8 sessions over 3 days to do it, but I can now dig for at least 10 minutes at a time thanks to going to the gym. I credit the lower back extension machine in particular for my increased tolerance of digging.

Sugarless banana and date bread recipe

I didn't quite have the right ingredients for a banana bread recipe I found online, so I made my own version. It turned out incredibly moreish. Husband said: would have been better with sugar, but what wouldn't, could I have some more please? As someone who rarely eats refined sugar, I thought it was plenty sweet enough. Anyhow, here's the recipe.
Sugar-free date and banana bread recipe

Ingredients
120 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon (or mixed spice)
75g dried dates (pieces) (you can substitute other dried fruit or a mixture of dried fruits)
50g butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract (or essence if you're feeling poor)
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
2-3 large or 4 small ripe bananas, mashed

Instructions
1. Weigh the dried dates into a small bowl and pour over boiling water to soak for 5-15 minutes. Continue with the next steps while they are soaking.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas mark 4.

3. Grease a 450g/1lb loaf tin with butter. If you are using a metal one (not a silicone one), then also line it with baking parchment (if you're using a silicone one you don't need to line it).
4. Weigh the flour, baking powder and cinnamon (or mixed spice) into another bowl and mix.
5. Weigh the butter and melt to either completely melted or very soft in a pan or in the microwave (be careful not to heat for too long in a microwave).
6. Add the melted/very soft butter, vanilla essence, egg, milk and bananas to a bowl and mash together with a fork.
7. Strain the water off the dates, add the dates to the wet (banana etc.) ingredients and mix.
8.  Pour the wet (banana etc.) mixture into the dry flour mixture and mix thoroughly.
9. Pour the combined mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 35 - 45 mins, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
10. Remove from the oven, allow to cool in the tin for 10 mins then turn out onto a cooling rack.

NB You can double all the ingredients to make a loaf twice the size. If you do, it will take around 50-65 minutes to cook.

January in the garden - not an attractive sight

OK, it could look worse, but it's actually somewhat improved by the sudden and unexpected shower of hail.
The plants down the left-hand side are largely mustard with some rocket, all of which self-seeded, which is interesting, because previously I've found rocket difficult to grow from seed. I plan to keep any rocket that's growing in next year's brassica patch because I'm hoping it will produce its own seeds that are ideally suited to the conditions in my garden and growing it from seed will then be less of a challenge. Plus, I've had so much difficulty growing it from seed, existing plants are very welcome and a guarantee of actually getting some rocket.
From the moment I saw the seedlings, I knew one of my brassicas had self-seeded because of their classic brassica-style seed leaves. I incorrectly assumed it was entirely my mustard.

I discovered it was a mix of mustard and rocket when I saw the proper leaves. Or so I originally thought. I later picked some of the frilly leaves and they all tasted of mustard.

I left it growing because I know people grow mustard in the winter as a green manure and as far as I'm aware it doesn't matter which type of mustard you grow.
Elsewhere in the garden things have deteriorated. In particular the shed has decided to send a strong message that this is the year to replace it by letting one of the front boards that retains what's left of its roof sag off.

I'm not sure how that happened. We were away. But this hole is surely animal-made:

Turns out the gnome is no guard-gnome. He was standing next to it the whole time. My other half points out that if I would insist on painting parrots and butterflies on him instead of giving him a face, what did I expect?
In other animal damage, worms have pooed all over my lawn.

I'm in two minds about this. Worms and worm poo (or "worm castings" as people who want to avoid the word "poo" and/or sound more academic call them) are extremely good for your soil, but they make your lawn look even tattier that my half-hearted attempts to have a multi-plant lawn, where it now mainly looks like I don't keep my grass weed-free rather than like I've intentionally introduced other plants. Ah well, January is rarely an attractive sight in a vegetable garden anyhow. At least the worm poo is good for the soil and a sign of a thriving body of worms (they're currently now even outnumbering the slugs in my compost heap through no efforts of my own, which is excellent news).

Clearing out the garden

We decided to clear out the garden while the weather was still good. It's possible I could have got a little longer out of the tomatoes, but we wanted to take advantage of the good weather.

The garden now has some permanent fixtures in it, so it doesn't look as empty over winter any more. The sage in the herb patch and a few of the other herbs are permanent. So is the apple tree at the end and the stevia and raspberry plants (although the raspberry plant will be cut right back in February). I've also now planted Mr Fothergill's wildflower woodland mixture right at the back behind the apple tree because my abysmal failure to grow vegetables up that end of the garden this year made me think I should probably cut my losses and go for something pretty instead.

I've also sewn up the worst of the holes in the fleece protecting my leeks from allium leaf miners. I don't know if it'll work, but my entire leek crop was ruined last year, so it's got to be worth a shot.

Chili con carne recipe

Autumn is here in the garden and the morning sun makes the dew on the grass sparkle and casts long shadows.

It's an excellent time to eat chili and use up any excess tomatoes you may still have. OK, it's probably a bit late in the year to still be harvesting tomatoes, we've just cleared up the garden and there won't be any more tomatoes for us, but you can always use tinned or remember it for next year. Serves 4-6. Takes about 45 mins to 1.5 hours, depending on how long you simmer it for.

1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped (I often use frozen)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped/minced (I often use frozen)
2 peppers, chopped fairly small
500 g beef mince
1 - 1 ½ glasses of red wine (about 150 ml)
400-500g of fresh tomatoes (or 1 tin of tomatoes)1 level tsp mild chili powder
1 level tsp cumin
1 level tsp ground coriander
1 level tsp cinnamon
3 shakes of Worcester sauce
1 beef stock cube
1 tin of kidney beans

1. Heat oil in a pan, fry onion for 2 minutes, add garlic, fry for 1 minute,  add chopped peppers and fry for 3 minutes.
2. Add meat, cook until brown.
3. Add red wine and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Stir in tomatoes (if you want to avoid lots of large pieces of skin from fresh tomatoes, chop them up first, but I liked the texture the skin gave).
5. Add chilli powder, cumin, ground coriander, cinnamon and Worcester sauce.
6. Crumble in stock cube.
7. Simmer for between 15 and 1 hour, longer is better.
8. Give the tomatoes a good squish with a spoon to make sure they are broken up.
9. Add kidney beans, stir and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve with rice or couscous or baked potatoes.

Autumn harvest in the vegetable garden

My entire squash crop this year: Thelma Sanders squash (the yellow ones) and Winter Squash Sweet Dumpling (the green and cream ones)

I looked out at the garden this week and decided it was time for a bit of a harvest and a tidy up. This is largely because most things looked like their leaves were most of the way through dying, with the exception of my runner beans, which are still producing a regular crop.

In particular, the leaves on the squashes had gone from just being mildewy, but otherwise green, to increasingly brown and yellow and curled up.

The tomatoes also look like they've pretty much had it.

A lot of the tomatoes you see there are not in a state I'd consider edible (they probably would be if I were starving, but actually, I've already harvested kilo upon kilo of healthy tomatoes, so I'm choosing to leave the ones that are old, split and partially eaten, I suspect I'm going to get a lot of self-seeding tomatoes next year).
I've discovered that the tomatoes I grew (Moneymaker and Gardener's Delight) work well as a substitute for tinned tomatoes. The food I cook with them looks less red and more orange, but it tastes divine. I simply wash them, then pop them whole into the recipe and give them a good squish with a spoon after they've cooked for a while. You end up with a lot of fairly large tomato skins in the food that way, but the texture doesn't bother me and I'm pretty sure the skins are good for me. If you're fussier about this than me, chop them up first so that the pieces of skin are smaller. If you're really, really fussy, remove the skins first.
I've also gathered in the sweet corn.

I don't fancy eating them in that state. I think theoretically I could use them in a recipe that calls for dried corn, but my plan is instead to use them in some sort of autumnal wreath and then to see if I can grow fresh sweet corn from them next year.
I also gathered in some of my coriander seeds. Not all of them were ripe yet. I simply gave them a rinse and then left them to dry before putting them in a jar. If there's any moisture left on them I think they'd probably go mouldy in the jar.

Finally, I also harvested my mooli mino radish. I had thought that they hadn't made it, given my complete lack of attention to the brassica bed after about early June, but then I noticed one sticking up through the soil. The problem is, that it was supposed to be harvested over a month ago, so I just ended up staring at it for a bit thinking "that looks like it would be unpleasantly tough", then chucked it on the compost heap. I wish I'd noticed them earlier.