Edging makes a garden

I got some new edging last week. One of my neighbours was throwing it out. We're using the same builders and sharing a skip, but the builders (who have seen my garden and have probably identified me as the sort of person not averse to a bit of free second-hand stuff - it's possibly best we don't ask what they formed that opinion from) asked if I didn't want to keep it as there was nothing wrong with it.
So, after a small amount of humming and hawing followed by the discovery that I had accidentally dug my herb beds and rear beds to almost precisely the dimensions of the edging, I now have lovely new edging.
Everyone happy. Less in landfill, more money stays in my pocket and the edging finds an appreciative new home. The only thing is, my neighbour doesn't know I've got his lovely edging. I'm not sure what the socially correct thing to do is: tell him we took a shine to it and kept it, keep quiet, fess up if he notices or deny everything. Or of course the other option of sticking a photo of it on the Internet and telling the whole world the story (well, I say the whole world, me, the other half and a couple of folks who found it before the rush started, but still, in theory the whole world).
Oh, and in case you were wondering about the title, here's the before picture, albeit from a slightly different angle. I really didn't think it would make such an impressive difference or I'd never have hummed and hawed in the first place.

First radishes of the season

I got my first radishes of the season already.

This photo makes them look huge. That's due to a deceptively close-up shot though. The bigger one was only about a centimetre across. Still, the point is I managed to get my first harvest in the first half of April, albeit not of enough food to replace the calories for even half a sit-up, but let's not dwell on the negative.

I have now replanted the gaps in my radish seedlings and also planted a new line where I lost the seedlings from my remaining kohl rabi seeds to slugs. Given the poor quality of last year's kohl rabi crop (generally small and/or tough and woody), I'm choosing not to buy any more kohl rabi seeds this year and am allocating the space to radishes instead. My kohl rabi will have to come from the supermarket.

Digging a herb garden

I dug a new herb garden today. Well, I say I dug it, my husband dug it for me because my back and hip problems mean digging isn't practical for me. Even the planting I did was pushing my luck a bit. Anyhow, what we did was turn the grass over, then I stabbed it a fair bit with a small spade to break it up (a big spade would have done the job just as well, but isn't really compatible with my back problems). After that I added some composted manure, then marked out where I wanted to plant the herb seeds.

And planted some herbs I already had in pots (the chives were in with my mint, so there's a danger I may get rampant mint taking over the garden if I didn't manage to clean all its roots out.

Another potential issue with the herb garden is that the turned over soil contained quite a lot of grubs. I suspect them of eating roots, so I killed as many as I could see, but I suspect there were more. I definitely saw our local robin get one. I think he's rather fond of them.

Here are before and after shots of today's work:

Before

After

In other news, slugs and snails have been eating all my seedlings. Basically, if it's not covered by a cloche, it's being eaten by snails. I went on another slug and snail killing spree today, but I didn't find very many. Fortunately then I remembered my copper slug rings and beer traps.

I hope it works, it's bad enough when they decimate your radishes, but they nibbled every single leaf off my kohl rabi and they were heading that way with my broad beans, and I don't have enough of those seeds to keep replanting.

Only things under the cloches are unnibbled.

Seeds planted

It's been a big seed planting weekend. The weather was so warm I decided they could survive in the shed, having previously judged it far too cold for indoor planting. I now have a load of beans and also cucumbers, courgettes and squashes planted.

The shed decision is probably just as well, as I've already filled more of the dining table than I was hoping, with peas and sweetcorn and tomatoes and stevia.

The garden battered by Storm Katie

Before the storm rolled in, we had a mini precursor of wind and rain followed by sunshine, which left my plastic cloches wihout its plastic. Fortunately, no real harm was done, as it's protecting brassicas and they're a pretty hardy lot.

I responded by moving where I had my metal pegs, so there's now two at each end a few cm apart (alhough I had to remove one from the bamboo runner to do this, as I didn't have any spares). This seemed pretty successful, as the plastic remained more or less pinned through he ravages of Storm Katie with winds uo to 60 mph last night. OK, they didn't survive fully intact, but better than I'd expected.

Even the squash bottle cloches at the back only lost a couple, which didn't go very far.

I've now cleared the area at the back behind the apple tree. I've planted clover seeds around the tree itself because I hope that they will not grow so high it needs mowing. I didn't sow any right at the back because the plan is to move the compost heap there, as it's the least sunny corner of the garden, and although compost heaps also benefit from sunshine, my plants like it even more.
My seedlings I planted indoors have also started growing. It doesn't matter how often I plant seeds, I still find it exciting to see them come up, especially when the sun shines on them. Peas are particularly good because of how quickly they get big. The one in the front there only started showing through the soil at all two or three days ago.

Lentil and sweet potato curry

This recipe is a lovely vegan curry (providing you use a vegan curry paste and stock cube - my Patak's paste used to include lactic acid, but the jar I currently have appears not to. I'm not sure if the other acids in it come from non-vegan sources. I'm always shocked by how many animal-based ingredients turn out to be in unexpected products). It tastes so good even the confirmed carnivores in my life love it. The only vegetables in it that I can actually grow (at least until I get a greenhouse) are the onions, but you can't have everything!

Preparation and cooking time: about 60 minutes. Ideally put lentils in to soak an extra 20 minutes before you start.

Ingredients

150 g dried red lentils
2 medium/large sweet potatoes
c. 4-5 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. mild chilli powder
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 large onion
2 tsp. mustard seeds (brown look better, yellow are easier to find, both taste the same)
2 tbsp. of Patak’s mild curry paste
450ml of boiling water
1 vegetable stock cube (I used Kallo)
1 tin of black beans
1 handful chopped fresh or frozen coriander (optional)

1. Put lentils in a bowl of water and leave them to soak (ideal total soaking time: 45 mins, so best to put in about 20 mins before starting, but right at the start is enough time if in a rush).
2. Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/gas 5.
3. Peel sweet potatoes and chop into large bite sized chunks (c. 2 cm³). Place in a shallow roasting tin and drizzle with a generous quantity of olive oil (around 3-4 tbsp. - the more you put in the better the mouth feel).
4. Sprinkle the sweet potato chunks with chili powder (about 1 tsp.), then stir to coat evenly in chili and oil. Put in oven for 15 mins.
5. Chop peppers and onions into large bite-sized chunks, but keep separate from each other.

6. After the sweet potatoes have done their first 15 mins, add the peppers in with the sweet potatoes, stir, then return sweet potatoes and peppers to oven for another 25 mins.
7. Heat 1-2 tbsp. of olive oil in a large saucepan on a high heat. Add the 2 tsp. of mustard seeds, cook on a high heat with the lid on the pan till the seeds pop (like popcorn) or for 5 mins, whichever is shorter. Then add the onion and fry for c. 4 minutes until soft.
8. Stir in the curry paste, then stir in the lentils.
You can get the curry paste from Sainsbury's, or in case you can't find it, here's a photo of the ingredients so you can look for something similar or put your own spices together (I've tried it with other curry pastes and it just doesn't taste right).

9. Add the boiling water. Add the vegetable stock cube and stir. Simmer for c. 15-20 mins until lentils are tender (if you use 100% tinned lentils, you need only simmer for 5 mins).
10. Chop one handful of coriander if using fresh coriander.
11. Stir in the tin of black beans.

12. Stir in the roasted sweet potatoes and peppers and all the oil from the roasting tin into the lentils. Stir in the chopped fresh or frozen coriander and keep on hob till everything is warmed through.
13. Serve on its own or with warm naan bread or chapatis.

Squash bottle cloches

I planted my lettuces under cloches made of squash bottles today. About 20% of the reason I did this was to help warm the soil and encourage the lettuce to grow earlier. About 80% of the reason was slugs and snails, as cloches are the only way I've managed to stop slugs and snails from eating my lettuce seedlings. Even if I put them in squash bottles with the tops cut off and the rims cut into sharp corners, my slugs and snails just climb over them and start chomping.

We did quite a lot of digging, raking, weeding and adding chicken manure pellets to get the bed ready for planting and we've now cleared out so much of the beds that the compost heap is finally full.

We reckon it'll only be a couple of weeks before it's all rotted down and we can fit some more in though. I've come to see the compost bin as almost magic, it reduces what's in it so quickly.