… brassicas. Another rite of passage for the year: I’ve been clearing my brassica beds. We ate the last of the Brussels sprouts several weeks ago (‘Maximus’ and ‘Trafalgar’: minimal crop as I’m not very good at growing Brussels and yet again succumbed to the temptation to plant those little itty-bitty seedlings too close together - but [...]
Archive for March, 2010
So farewell then…
Posted in Allotments, Harvesting, tagged brassicas, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, purple sprouting broccoli on March 31, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Spuds-I-like
Posted in Allotments, tagged frost, potatoes, sowing, weather on March 28, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Now, there I was, happily ambling along doing a bit of digging here, a bit of weeding there, sowing a few seeds and daydreaming about what they might one day become. Then…. whumph! The temperatures shoot into double figures, the sun comes out, I suddenly notice the grass has started to grow, and then everything [...]
Rogues’ Gallery: Ground elder
Posted in Allotments, Rogues' Gallery, tagged ground elder, weeds on March 24, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Aaaaargh! Nooooo! It’s spring! This may be the season all things begin to sprout and burgeon and generally leap into life, but to the gardener’s disgust that means the weeds are revving up for action too. In my front garden, where vegetables like chard, kale and leeks are woven in among my ornamental plants, there is a nasty menace [...]
Recipe of the month: March
Posted in Recipe of the month, tagged baby leaf salads, cooking, leeks on March 21, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Leek and Bacon Pasta Bake This will sound immodest, but I’m famed for my leek and bacon pasta bake. I cobbled it together one evening when I was in a hurry and hadn’t had enough time to do the shopping, raiding the fridge and adding leeks and salad from the garden. It’s been a firm [...]
Taking the direct approach
Posted in Allotments, sowing, tagged baby leaf salads, beans, beetroot, carrots, peas, pests, seed, slugs, sowing, spring onions, time management, watering, weather on March 17, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I don’t know why all the gardening books tell you sowing seed direct into the ground is the obvious and therefore, presumably, easiest option. When I first started veg growing, I followed the general assumption that there’s no other way to do it. This meant I lost my entire first year’s seedlings to marauding slugs: at the time I [...]
Pick of the month: March
Posted in Pick of the month, tagged heritage varieties, leeks, ornamental vegetables on March 14, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Leek ‘Bleu de Solaise’ Isn’t that a wonderful colour? Somewhere between that steely-blue metallic effect paint finish you get on very expensive cars and the deep aquamarine of the ocean somewhere very hot and sunny. This is my number one favourite leek for using in among the ornamental plants, or in potagers where the look of [...]
That’s shallot
Posted in Allotments, sowing, tagged onions, shallots, sowing on March 10, 2010 | 5 Comments »
If you don’t count the broad beans and garlic, both of which I put in before the winter proper began, shallots are always the first off the starting blocks in spring on my plot. Normally I have them in by mid-February, but this year I’ve held back a couple of weeks because I didn’t fancy planting them with an icepick. [...]
Limping out the other side
Posted in Allotments, sowing, tagged beans, broad beans, cloches, frost, seed, sowing, successional sowing, weather, winter on March 4, 2010 | 3 Comments »
In celebratory mood this week as the sun is out at last! The ice-covered puddles have melted and are drying up, the soil is becoming workable, and I can smell spring in the air. First for the post-winter casualty-assessment inspection were my four rows of broad beans, which have been sheltering under their polythene cloches all [...]
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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