Spade Work : From Plot to Plate

Do You Chit?

I got out to the veg plot for some real hands on gardening today - hoeing off weeds that have come up in the mild winter and pulled several potato plants that had begun to show through - left overs in the ground missed in last years harvest.

Now these weren't chitted so I'm wondering if it's necessary at all?

If I don't have to do it then it'll free up some window-sill space. But then again it's real gardening at a quite time in the gardening calander.  What do you think?

London's Light Dusting

London, 7.45am, 24/01/07, a glorious morning.

The light dusting of snow on the dishevelled winter veg patch lifts the spirits.

Harvested two sticks of Brussels sprouts to go with dinner this evening and my hands were numb by the time I'd trimmed them. The tops I'll keep to make a caldo gallego soup.

The kale, Lacinato, pictured in the fruit cage (to keep the pigeons away), will go to make a winter pesto I read about on The Veg Box Diaries. I'm not sure if it will taste too strong, but I'll give it a try and maybe add some smoked bacon? Lashings of garlic and grated cheese won't hurt it.

Down To Earth

The allotment escaped damage after the recent  spell of stormy weather.

Sadly this old oak fell in the next field.

But looking forward to Spring, these daffodils, which I planted near the fruit trees, are beginning to poke through the grass. Hopefully they won't be checked by the cold weather forecast for this week. They've bulked up and colonised in the two years they've been here, but it'll be interesting to see how they do this year as lots of rabbits have been burrowing nearby.

Tag Along

Sue from The Balcony Garden tagged me to ask for five things you don't already know about me. So here goes. You won't grow any better veg though.

1. Nickname at school - 'Bubbles' later affectionately (I like to think) shortened to 'Bubs'. Why I don't know and so far everybody has been kind enough not to tell me.

2. Announced, aged 7, to my keen gardening parents that if I ever had a house with a garden I'd tarmac the whole lot for parking. A reaction, I'm sure, to being shown the 'proper way' to water lettuce. Now I've two gardens, one allotment and occasionally help out at the Friary grounds. Who knows where life leads us?

3. I'll only use Kerrygold butter.

4. According to my wife my most annoying saying is ' " If I get one more thing done then I'll be ahead of myself " ' Why can't I just be? Well there's a risk you'll fall behind yourself and that wouldn't do! Exasperating.

5. Is it any surprise that we have seperate tools and sheds?

I'm not so sure of tagging etiquette but if you're reading this and want to join in consider yourself tagged.

Colour Fast Veg

For the past few seasons I've grown Blauhide, a prolific, stringless, climbing, purple podded bean. But it's a bit disappointing when it turns a meaty green when cooked though the taste is good.

I'm looking for varieties that keep their colour so I can have a tricolour salad of beans - deep purple, green and yellow.

Any suggestions?

New For 2007

With all the seed catalogues coming in there is plenty in the way of temptation.

I'm keen to expand the varieties of winter veg I can grow or store. A diet of leeks, parnips and kale gets a bit tiresome. So this season I'm thinking of getting Butternut squash, Swede, Turnip seed. I'll add Jerusalem Artichoke tubers to the order (I've come to love their taste  roasted, though not their effects) and Celeriac (great in a curried soup).

Any tips or warnings on my choice of newbie veg for 2007?

Is there one winter veg you'd not be without?

Prickly Carpet

Just when I thought my broad beans were off to a good start with excellent germination rates and no really hard frost to knock them back  - the mice struck. At least I think it was mice, maybe voles.

They topped about a quarter of the plants, taking the bean in most cases and discarding the stem, leaving a neat hole  in the bed next to where the plant had stood.

And then I had a plan. Instead of tossing the Christmas tree on the bonfire - I don't have a shredder - I'd spread the prickly leaves around the broad beans to see if it would stop the critters.

A week on and nothing has been touched. Now I'm just waiting to see if the beans I've resown to replace the losses come through this prickly carpet.

Storing The Good Stuff

One of Kim's New Year resolutions over at A Study In Contrasts is to store more of her garden grown crops  and she's asked what I was referring to when I wrote that I'd dug up my Christmas potatoes from a 'clamp'.

There is a well illustrated explanation over at Self Sufficientish.

To store suitable vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, celeriac, Swedes) growers dug a trench in a dry,well drained postion, lined it with sand or straw and then covered this with a single layer of carrots or potatoes or other suitable crop. Over this would go a layer of straw then another layer of crops and so on until a large cone formed. A hole was made in the top for ventilation and the cone covered with the soil from the trench - so it was essentially waterproofed. The crops were dug out as needed.

My own method is an adaption on this - much less labour intensive and on a much smaller scale! Get a large plastic box with a snap shut lid, line with damp, not wet, sand and lay a single layer of potatoes (blemish free ones only), then sand, then potatoes and so on finishing with a layer of sand. Seal the lid, dig a hole in the garden, bury the box about  a spade deep, mark it (!) with a stake, dig it up at Christmas. This way I've had perfectly preserved Charlotte potatoes on Christmas Day. Its a second early salad type, which I've not been able to store well in bags much later than November, but the clamp works really well. 

This year I couldn't find a suitable box so I used two plastic grocery bags, filled these with sand and spuds, wrapped the bag in foil to waterproof it (often grocery bags have holes) and buried it as before.

Because my soil is free draining and winter temperatures here seldom get below zero for any length of time, I leave my leeks, parsnips and carrots in the ground, harvesting as I need them but using them up before they start to regrow in Spring.

But if Kim is to store more she'll have to keep an eye on the canine competition!

I blamed overnight strawberry losses on mice only to find the culprit was a Springer Spaniel; cherry tomatoes were snacked on by a Wheaten Terrier and I've heard of a German Shepherd who digs up his own carrots.

Well a dog like that would get away with it, wouldn't he?