1. Wait until it snows. A lot. 2. Then wait a bit longer, until a good smattering of sleet and near-Arctic night-time temperatures have frozen any would-be slush entirely solid. 3. Set off to collect your Christmas dinner veg in a large and unwieldy Mercedes estate car with less-than-ideal traction in icy conditions. 4. Abandon said estate [...]
Archive for December, 2009
How not to do it…
Posted in Allotments, Harvesting, tagged frost, parsnips, potatoes, winter on December 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Recipe of the month: December
Posted in Recipe of the month, tagged beetroot, pickling, preserving crops on December 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Pickled beetroot Beetroot is so obliging. I have a row growing somewhere most of the time, and just leave it in the ground till I need it. Unfortunately, in my family, I’m the only one who likes it unpickled. So, with regret, I gave up trying to persuade husband/small people to enjoy roast beetroot: instead I came up with [...]
Seeing the trees for the wood
Posted in Fruit, Pruning, tagged apples, chickens, time management on December 13, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Oh dear. This is a bit of my garden not many people get to see. Well, nobody, actually, if I can help it. It’s my group – orchard is perhaps too optimistic a word – of four apple trees, two Cox’s Orange Pippins and two Bramley’s Seedlings in the chicken run at the bottom, and [...]
The cutting edge
Posted in Propagation, Pruning, tagged blackcurrants, cuttings, Fruit, techniques on December 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
While I was pruning my blackcurrants the other week I spotted some handsome-looking young side branches. As so often happens at this time of year when I’m just itching to get growing something, they’ve made me come over all propagational. Any time from autumn to spring is good for hardwood cuttings, and it’s dead easy. I find [...]
Pick of the month: December
Posted in Allotments, Harvesting, Pick of the month, tagged frost, kale, winter on December 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Kale ‘Dwarf Green Curled’ This is a staple on my winter allotment, and in fact in my winter front garden too: it’s so pretty with its frothily crinkled leaves and makes a great contrast to broad-leaved evergreens or spiky winter seedheads. It’s almost libellous to call it a brassica. It is nonetheless undeniably a relative of [...]
Two for the price of one
Posted in Harvesting, tagged beetroot, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cooking, garlic, onions, turnips on December 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
This morning I was to be found enthusiastically slicing the tops off all my Brussels sprouts plants. I hadn’t developed a sudden and irrational hatred of Brussel sprouts, though many have done so before me. (In fact we all like sprouts, even the 7-year-old, especially when they’re fresh from the garden and steamed to just the [...]
Doing the admin
Posted in sowing, tagged seed, sowing, time management on December 1, 2009 | 2 Comments »
May I introduce you to my ground-breaking invention: the Infinitely Flexible Seed-o-matic Calendar. Otherwise known as the box where I keep my seed packets. It used to be a floppy disc box. Now, for those of you who have more immediate memories of this century than the last, that may need explaining. Floppies were the cutting-edge technology which took [...]
Crocus kitchen garden shop
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Harvesting Now
Blackcurrants, calabrese, cauliflower, courgettes, French beans, garlic, globe artichokes, gooseberries, kale, onions, peas, potatoes (new and second early), raspberries (summer), redcurrants, runner beans, salad leaves, shallots, strawberries, tomatoes, whitecurrantsSowing Now
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