There's Life & Boxty Revisited

The (very!) early gutter sown peas have come up already (two weeks after sowing) and amongst the fallen leaves the first of the broad beans, Aquadulce Claudia, have broken the surface (three and a half weeks after sowing). Not much leggy growth so fingers crossed they'll make it through the frosts forecast for this week.

I'm a little worried that I've not seen any garlic yet but there is time.

Now that I have a greenhouse I'm thinking of starting off some winter salads - corn salad, lambs lettuce/claytonia/Vit, that type of thing. I'll sow them in trays indoors, harden them off in the lean too and then put them out in the unheated greenhouse. Any advice? Is a potting compost/seedling mix a suitable growing medium? Right now the greenhouse has gravel over landscape fabric on one side and sand over landscape fabric on the other.

So the new gardening season is under way!

The wintry weekend mornings were just perfect for a side of boxty to go with the poached eggs and baked beans. I quickly realised though that the boxty recipe needs fine tuning (eggs to bind rather than more flour). The cakes, reheated from frozen in the microwave were very doughy - a bit like eating a warmed up brown bap. They'd lost their crispy crust as well but how I'm going to solve that I'm not sure. Finish them off under the grill or in the toaster perhaps?

Comments

[Patrick]

I'm glad the peas germinated okay. I was a little worried because of their age.

Expect the garlic in February. Not much of my garlic has emerged yet either.

There's no reason you can't use potting compost for the greens, but you know me, I hate buying this kind of thing. Is it from an Irish peat bog? Is it full of chemical fertilizers? Does it contain compost made from collected household waste, and did someone put their cat's litter box into it?

Why don't you just dig up some dirt from your garden or allotment and use that instead? If it contains fresh compost, manure or you otherwise think it should be sterilized, you can put it in the oven for 20-30 minutes first.