Update in Photos - August 25th

Ok, so these are not in the order i wanted them to be in really - so enjoy some randomly ordered photos of the last month!




This is all the onions, now strung up in the garage. Apart from a few that i'm taking down to Sussex for Nan & Grandpa, and a few little ones that were too small to string.








This is how my tomatilloes should look (and apparently Nan's do look something like this) This photo and the next were taken at RHS Hyde Hall in Essex. If you go between 10am and 11am on the saturdays when they have a farmers market (not sure which week of the month that is) then you can get in for free for that first hour.





Theirs were grown ourdoors & were much bushier than mine. I'm not giving up hope yet though, mine still seem to be growing - no thanks to the cucumbers which have taken over the greenhouse. I'm taking on of those to Sussex too, although that is in exchange for one of Nan's round yellow cucumbers, as mine didn't stand a chance against my other more advanced plants.





Found this critter on the rubbish bin in the kitchen. We haven't seen any of the swarms here, and as much as i like ladybirds, i'm not sure i'd like them in those vast numbers that they've had in norfolk & suffolk.



This is my first white cabbage of the year. There are another couple in the garden this size. Its made about 4 or 5 batch of coleslaw so far and theres enough for another couple still yet!


These are my number one enemy! According to a collegue, the newspapers said that due to the weather they had bred twice this year! No wonder there are so many about. There for i feel even less guilty and more justified to dispose of them. The weapons of choice include an electric bug bat - the stun and stamp method, fly and wasp spray & jam jar traps. There is a deterant method i heard someone text in to the BBC yesterday & that is to blow up a brown paper bag, tie the neck with a piece of string and hang in up. The wasps then think it is another wasps nest and won't invade another nests' territory.

For some reason the purple haze carrots don't seem to have grown as well as the others, the white, yellow and orange seem to be bigger. I think i prefer the flavour of the yellow out of all of them, they taste sweeter to me.

This was some of the onions before they were strung, its been a gradual process.

This was possibly the longest runner bean we had this year, measuring a total of 14 inches. not sure it would be good enough for any competitions.

This was my first Kohl Rabi, which have learnt it quite nice cut as crudites and eaten with a cool tomato salsa (not homemade although we have got 3 selfset tomato plants which all have fruit, albeit still green at the moment right now, but mum spotted the neighbour has blight so they might have to be ripened indoors!)


Now a few photos from a day by the seaside at Southwold in Suffolk that mum and i enjoyed together.

Of course i've been in the kitchen! And now i'm enjoying eating my products too!
Jam i have discovered is not a strong skill, possibly from lack of practice, but it is far too stressful!

This was plum jam made with plums from work, i think i ended up making just over 30 jars of it! No more plum jam for me this year! I just had real trouble getting it to set despite following all the tricks of the trade i googled.

This is my Strawberry wine that is now brewing in the garage. It is an old recipe of my late uncle, who i never got to meet. I found it in mum's old recipe folder when i was looking for zucchini bread recipe (no photos, i at that already but it didn't turn out looking too great, bit stodgy - should have drained the pineapple, but i like my cake stodgy!). The wine is due to be bottled on the 20th september, so we shall have to wait and see. something else i got a bit too stressed over.
On a day off work, i filled my time by making those who were still working out in the fields some oaty banana mini muffins! devoured by all, and with compliments. In fact sam has asked me since when i'm cooking/baking next, sadly i don't think i have time before he goes back to poland in a couple of days time.

And something else i made and took to work - guilt free (almost) baked blackberry cheesecake, made with cottage cheese & fat free yogurt. I had so many blackberries from work that were just going to be chucked that i made 3 of them!

And tomorrow i'm taking in 5 cucumbers as they are getting out of control.

Garden Update 22nd July

B & B for wildlife?

Mum was startled by a visitor this morning in the garage, as she was continuing to paint the (over running) weekend DIY project. When you hear the call "Jennifer! come quick!", and you know someone is using a paintbrush & holding a paintpot, you tend to respond pretty promptly. DIY usually means disasters.....
A better call would have been "get your camera quick!", as when i saw what she was calling me to see i then had to, i then had to run back into the house, find my camera & discard its case. By wich time the visitor was swiftly scuttling away:

Mum was unsure as to whether s/he came in and went out again, or had perhaps sneaked in last night and was distrubed by her & was on her/his way out. The theory that s/he slept the night was almost made slightly stonger when he turned out, once we stopped talking and i was sat waiting silently with my camera.

I didn't want her/him coming back inside and getting stuck in there, as i don't think a few woodlice & spiders would satisy her/his hunger greatly. Especially as when s/he headed firstly into the hedge i could hear her/his crunching something in the undergrowth - presumably a snail - what a good little hedgehog!

Anyway we've shut the garage door down, hoping s/he hasn't snuck back in, even if it does mean the garage stinks of paint fumes, and i made D check under the tyres before he moved the cars this morning too!

Fighting other battles.

apologies for no updates recently but i have been fighting a rather large battle recently which has kept me rather occupied.

About 4 weeks ago, something came over me, something very strange, amd i started eating things that for the last 3 years have been "forbidden". This in turn has kick started my appetite and now it seems i have unleached a monster! A monster than wants lots of chocolate and cakes and stodge.

Just a quick note to say the garden hasn't been neglected, mum has helped get me motivated to plant things, although when i'm on my own that motivation isn't really there. Maybe i just prefer the company, probably what it is. So here's a quick run down:

Parnsips: not great germination, in fact very poor but my own fault really as i took the risk of last years seed.
Carrots: Purple Haze and Rainbow Mixed which i then mixed together to get a proper rainbow! Great germination, should be good.
Salsify: First time for this, i bought some from Borough Market to try (after sowing the seed...), seems to have germinated reasonably, although looks like grass so must remember that when weeding.
Onions: Red and white sets both doing well. i had a few red left over and lots of white so i filled a couple of trough planters our neighbour gave me.
Tomatoes: All varieties (Beefsteak, Sungold, Sungella, some seed Nan saved and one from an expensive seed grandpa bought by mistake) doing well. About 2 thirds planted out in the greenhouse now, and i have an idea for an spares.
Peppers: first sowing i got 1 out of 4 but that 1 is doing well. so i did another sowing of 3 and 100% germination that time but they are only about a week old.
Aubergine: 4 sown, 100% germination, doing well but not quite big enough to be planted out in the greenhouse yet.
Cucumber: 4 sown, 100% germination, planted out around the mini greenhouse frame (to use as support) which is in one corner of the greenhouse. Nan sent me some yellow round cucumber seed from the eden project, 3 sown yesterday.
Tomatillo: more eden project seeds, 3 sown yesterday.
Sugar Snaps: 1st sowing in a large pot on the patio with a make shift frame for them to grow up. about half a metre high so far. these were started in the greenhouse but have now been evicted by tomatoes! 2nd sowing germinated in the greenhouse but then planted out in the garden about a week ago.
Runner beans: Most seem to germinate upside down but eventually righted themselves. Planted out and starting to climb their poles.
Dwarf beans: Not great germination and mum did a second sowing as well. about 8 plants planted out next to the greenhouse, but i think she plans to sow some more direct.
Lettuce: despite trying to start some in the greenhouse, i'd sown in cardboard plugs, which seem to be crap. so the seed i have sown direct into a herb/strawberry planter is doing better! will so some seed direct into the ground just outside the greenhouse i expect.
Beetroot: tried to start some in those plugs, which are now planted out in the greenhouse, i put some in one of those planters/troughs the neighbour gave me and i've sown one row direct in the fruit cage in the front so far. i hope to do more.
Chard: one row sown in front of the raspberries which has just germinated.

In the Nursery cold frame, almost ready to be planted out are Brussels Sprout, Red and White Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Broccoli and Cauliflower.

In the fruit cage doing well and showing their first flowers are Blueberries, Strawberries, Raspberries, Gooseberries

I think thats about it. Theres probably something i've missed. No squash this year tho, just not enough room.....

And next week I'm planting strawberries at the farm, so it will be interesting to see it from a commercial side too.

Birth of a Greenhouse

Rare and brief update

Neglected for 2 months. Sorry blogger readers (if there are any left), but i've not been doing too great motivationally. Managed to kill the first lot of seedlings (onions, leeks and caulis). But with mum and david off this last week building a greenhouse (plus preparing the ground for it first) and landscaping more of the garden and converting to veggie and fruit patch, more has been done. Mum got the ball rolling by sowing runner and french beans yesterday.

Seeds sown today:

In pots - Aubergine, Cucumbers and Peppers. 4 types of tomato (beefsteak, sungella, sungold and one Nan saved from seed, possibly a plum type), various lettuce (lollo rosso, tom thumb, radichio and rocket). Sugar snap peas.

In the nursery bed (a glass cold frame i got from a freecycler): Leeks, Purple Sprouts, Red and white cabbages, kohl rahbi, caulis, brocollis

Mum put in some spinach outside the front of the greenhouse and continued digging the main veggie patch (removing root from various plants like azalea and hydrangea) and i put in 2 rows of red onion sets.

Tomorrow's jobs include white onion sets, and then sometime i need to get round to doing parsnips and carrots.

I just can't find the motivation on my own. In fact motivation in general even when they're around is a struggle.

i might get round to posting some photos...maybe.....sometime.

Baby it's cold outside

This is it, the final photos of 2008. Another year done and dusted. Not a great year but not as disasterous as some i've scraped through.

So to start with are the final mini Christmas cakes, all package up and ready to go into the hamper. The board's were gold coaster i spotted in sainsburys which were just the pefect size and i bought some cellophane from a local florist. When we got down to Nan's i wished i had made a 4th cake for her next door neighbour, who is also caring for a deteriorating husband. And i fear her husband is further along in the progression of the dementia, that the husband of the other friend, for whom i had originally planned the 3rd cake. I shared my frustrations with Nan and Mum, and it was actually Nan who suggested that she give a cake each to her friends and then keep one for herself and grandpa. In the dining room it became clear that they were not desperately in need of more cake, given that Nan had made a large cake of her own and also had cakes, sweets and biscuits that she had gained from raffle prizes at her coffee morning and from the walking group.

I used the remainder of the cellophane to wrap up the loaf of bread that i baked on Boxing day, ready for the hamper the next day.

I experimented slightly with this loaf by adding some seed mix that we had in the cupboard. D was supposedly going to have it on his cereal of a morning but that intention didn't last for long. so when i mixed the dry ingredients, i added a couple of handfuls. It worked out fine and in fact this is how mum prefers the bread now. With us visiting Nan had, of course, got bread out (2 different thicknesses of brown and white 'petit pain' rolls) for lunch and dinner. So before dinner i sliced it for her, re-wrapped in in the cellophane and put it in the freezer.

Please excuse this next photo. I tried to trim off the background because it was far too cluttered and detracted your eyes from the hamper. However it didn't work out as neatly as i had hoped and i soon got fed up with editing it.


The 'healthy' hamper - healthy in the sense that its rather full as opposed to full of health conscious items! The bread is probably the healthiest thing in there along with the cakes, biscuits, wine, beer, sloe gin. There is some cheese and cured ham under there somewhere too.

The garden is still producing goods.

One of the things i love about growing your own, is the variety of shapes and sizes that grow, i love the lack of uniformity.

Since the New Year, it has been rather chilly, certainly for south east england. One day last week the temperature didn't make it about -3 degrees celcius.
It does make for some pretty pictures though.

Thats so long as my finger don't get to cold that i lose all feeling in them and can't operate the camera!

It doesn't seem to worry the birds at all. The Robin has a particularly red breast this winter. I'm sure i heard somewhere that the redder the robin's breast, the colder the winter.
Mr/Mrs Robin hangs around the nuts waiting for the great tits, blue tits, sparrows, starlings, squirrel and other finches to peck away and then cleans up the scraps on the floor below.

Unfortunately the feeders are just a little too far away to get a perfect photo, but my little camera (when on a tripod) can still capture the subject well enough.

These are mum's favourite winter visitors here with a blue tit. The long-tailed tit, who arrive in a little flock to feed. I think we've had a maximum of around 15 at once, and if you see one you can be sure his/her friends aren't far behind. They are a beautiful soft pink colour, and every so scatty. They flit about, on and off the nuts and up into the trees, yet despite this they are quite brave, and have no fears about feeding when i am in the garden, over by the shed for instance.

They don't seem to mind the cold. I guess they have no choice, afterall they need to feed and i don't know of any indoor bird cafes. For me on the other hand - it is too cold, which leads me to staying with indoor activities, such as bread baking!

This is my latest bread experiment, that i saw when browsing online. I had a dilema. Mum wanted bread with seeds whereas i wanted bread without seeds, i'm not keen on bits in my soft, light, unadulterated homemade bread. So after i've mixed the dough, i split it in half, putting one half in a bowl to proove as it is and the other half i add the seeds to and knead/mix them in. The packet of seeds that we have in the cupboard right now is a mix of Sesame, Pumpkin and Sunflower but when that's finished i might see what other mixes Tescos sell.

Once both have prooved in their seperate bowls, i put them in the tin, one in each half and let it proove again. As they proove together, they join in the middle to create one loaf ready for the oven.

A couple of early(ish) morning shots to end with. It was 7.15am sunday morning when i got up and went downstair fo find mum having just put the kettle on. She pointed out the moon, which was still up, out the back of the house.

Then about half hour later when we were back in our beds with a nice warm cuppa she called through the bedroom wall for me to look out of the front of the house.
I know it was a sunrise, but i think the sunset setting on my camera works just the same!

Best of Luck for 2009 to everyone.

It's been a while....

Almost a month since the last post. Kind of says it all really. It's been a tough past month and i don't think its over yet. But whilst there's break in the dark clouds hanging over me i thought i'd take the opportunity to post a few photos of things i have managed to do in the last month.

The sweetcorn has finally been cut now, at the farm, i noticed when i drove past last week. There's nothing really to do on the farm itself now, so there'll be a little office work up to Christmas and then work will begin again in February.

I really do love it up there when the weather is good. It can be so peaceful - depending on the wind direction and time of day, but even when you do hear the motorway it is just a background hum and although the planes are annoying they've flown off before you get a chance to get worked up about them destroying the peace. The sounds of the buzzards crying, the jays and woodpeckers calling and at the end of october there was the most magnificent sound of a rutting Stag chasing the does in the woods. They were so close you could hear the rustle of the leaves when they were moving about. It would have be even more magical if they'd appeared out of the wood, but sadly they stayed hidden.

One of ladies at the farm was telling me about her 4 year old grandson, who was critically ill in hospital. He was born with a heart condition, for which the surgery hadn't been totally successful and then on top of that he had contracted pneumonia. He's been in hospital for a long time and by the sounds of it was very fed up with being there and being ill, so i put together this little craft kit, something they could do together, a spoon friend for each of them to create. I haven't heard how he is recently, however i do know they were extremely concerned and sadly not too hopeful. I'll ask the others when i next go down to the farm, they hadn't heard anything last week.

Now something totally crazy! It November. A few weeks ago this area (although not precisely here) had snow. Yet despite the cold i have sugar snap peas growing and forming!! Admittedly very very slowly, but still it's just madeness!

The cold and frosts mind you are good for one thing at least. They really enhance the flavour and sweetness of the parnsips, which seem to have become giants this year! I pulled this monster which fed all 3 of us as part of our sunday roast a few weeks ago.

Then came Mum and D's wedding anniversary - How many years was it again D??!!

I saw this idea in a Christmas book i picked up at a charity shop. But having left things a bit late, and then fighting to get it done at all, it wasn't quite as i'd hoped, and infact i didn't manage to do dinner for them in the end, but i managed to get the present/pudding done, which in fact lasted for 3 days! I didn't manage to get a cone of Oasis foam, so ended up carving my own from a rectangle.
The traditional English theme for the 4th wedding annivesary is fruit and flowers (american is linen and modern is electrical appliances) so i decided on an edible themed present! With a rose for each year on the top.
Served with 3 dips - melted dark chocolate, melted milk chocolate and vanilla yoghurt. Some thing we (ok, so more me) could all share.
With the evenings dark now by dinner time we have to remember to get any veg in from the garden during the day while its still light! This carrot had my name on it, almost literally! And is now in fact a nice "J" avatar on one forum!

And so to halloween. Again because i left things a bit late, i only managed to get very small pumpkins, and the first supermarket i went to didn't have any left at all! Seems the shortage due to poor pollination from damp weather really did affect supply. It kept my amused nevertheless. The sunflower pattern was a design i found online, but because of the size of the pumpkin my other design i had chosen didn't fit so i made up my own shooting star design.

Lidls have had some great special offer on recently including some stunning 2 spike orchids for £6!! so i picked up one for mum's collection - and for me to photograph!

And finally another great deal - a whole salmon for just under £10, from which i got 14 (!!!) decent sized fillets for mum and D. Ok so after descaling, filleting and pin boning i can understand the justification of the price difference between what i bought and the prepacked fillets. But as i had an afternoon free to do it i thought i'd save some pennies and do it myself. It worked out to 70p a fillet in the end!

i don't know whats going on with photo sizes and who knows what will happen when i hit publish, but thats me for the last month. I think i might look into some blogging events, maybe that will encourage me to post a bit more often.

Baking, Harvesting and Clearing - Busy Times

It seems to have been very busy recently but then i think a lot of that has been my choice to make it so busy. It's no secret to Mum and D that i've been struggling a lot recently and as a result i've thrown myself into what ever i can head first, whilst still managing to avoid seeing a lot of people! A month ago i started working at a farm 6 hours a week, just 2 hours on 3 days, well that was the plan but i have to adapt due to the weather at times as its all outdoor work. And the i've been doing little things for D to help him out, mainly so i'm not in the house alone, as i seem to have developed this major fear that i'm going to lose control, go on a major binge and eat every single item of food in the house, so there for if i'm not in the house i can't do it!

Anyway, i made a couple of batches of muffins for D's work collegues to keep the going during the Flu jab clinic on saturday. Seeing and jabbing about 1000 people in 3 hours can be exhausting not just phycially but mentally too, having to concentrate hard for so long without a break. I'm not sure the muffins were a success to be honest despite using the freshest produce possible - fresh sweetcorn and fresh raspberries picked with my own fair hands. Not in the same muffin i hasten to add!!
The original recipe for this one was Rasperry and cinnamon, however i decided that cinnamon may not be to everyone's taste so changed to to Raspberry and white chocolate, which is a combination i have seen elsewhere previously. As an after thought though i wondered whether i should have reduced the amount of sugar due to the fact that i had added more sweetness in the form of the white chocolate chips.

Plus then i decided to use the rest of the raspberries to make a puree and then mixed with icing sugar to make a very sticky icing. I know i made more of these than the savoury batch but there were more of these left at the end of the morning. Maybe it was just too early on a saturday morning for something sweet?

The second recipe was Cheesy Corn Muffalettas from BBC Good Food but Mum's reaction to these said it all. She sat eating it in a fit of giggles. I must admit the texture was a little strange, as the sponge was kind of chewy and rubbery from the cheddar but then there were hard little lumps in the form of corn kernels. D said it was strange finding hard bits as normally muffins contain things like raisins which are plump and soft after baking. The taste of the cheese wasn't strong either although it clearly wasn't a sweet muffin as there is no sugar in the recipe and that was clear to taste.

Having said all that all of these went, with the last 2 being taken home by one of the receptionists for her and her husband!

And so onto garden news....

More proud harvests in the form of....
Red Cabbage!!! They've finally hearted up and i'm so chuffed.

And even more chuffed when i cut it in half to find the tightly packed leaves and stunning colour. A quarter of it was used for coleslaw and i'm sure more of it will be too but i think its time to cook the warming winter dish of red cabbage almost sweet and sour style i guess, cooked in balsamic vinegar with a touch of something sweet at the end. Might even get a baby beetroot in from the garden and add that in.
With the red cabbage coleslaw again to get the colours different i used white onion rather than red to go with the yellow carrot.

Autumn is also the time to start getting the Squash in. This was the smaller butternut which i cut in half and stuffed with smoked tomatoes, olives, red onion and goats cheese then roasted in the oven.The slightly larger butternut is now stored in the cool and the dark of the garage along with.....

This stunning little thing. Who knows what variety it is, but then so long as it tastes good, who cares!!

Runner beans, carrots, beetroot, kale, chard, cabbages, onions and parsnips continue to be harvest as and when we want them. Although all the tomatoes are now inside, with the green ones on trays in the spare room, which are then transfered down stairs when the start to turn red! Stock rotation i call it.

I got some onions from work as well to string and last us over winter. The large ones make superb onion soup!

I have also been increasing the number of fruit bushes too.
Lidls had various fruit bushes at £1.30 each so i picked up 3 gooseberry bushes, which of course will need somewhere to be planted permanantly (i know thats spelt wrong but i'm running short of time!) So this weekend Mum suggested clearing the front garden to make room and turn in into a fruit patch as the raspberries and blueberries are already there. Remember how it looked before??

I can't find an old shot of the front which shows the whole patch but the photos above and below should give some idea.

And this is how it looks now:

It won't be usable for a bit as the are bush/shrub routes which now have RootOut on them, plus we are hoping to move the rose bushes from the right hand end down to where the chard is. But that where the holly and ornamental quince routes are. I just hope the don't mind the move and survive!

Anyway off to the farm whilst the sun is shining!