Foliage and Flowers

Had a busy weekend doing a few odd jobs around the garden whilst dodging the rain showers but still made time to take in some of the sites. Here are a few snaps:

 

 

 

 

 

Rhubarb Jam

Yesterday, I thought I'd have a go at making some rhubarb jam. I've never made jam before and, as I've become a bit of a rhubarb convert this year, I thought it would be a good place to start. So, armed with a recipe from the BBC food website, I headed down the garden to harvest some of the delicious pink stuff. The recipe requires 1kg of rhubarb which, given the rate that it has been growing this year, was soon in my basket.

Once washed, trimmed and cut down to thumb-length pieces, I mixed it in our biggest pan with an equal weight of jam sugar and a couple of vanilla pods. I'm not sure what the vanilla adds to the final taste of the jam so I might leave it out next time or replace it with some fresh root ginger. I am having a go at growing some ginger in the greenhouse this year so with any luck I'll even be able to try it with some fresh from the ground.

After gently heating, the sugar dissolves and creates a remarkable amount of liquid. Then it was time to add some lemon juice and turn up the heat, bringing it up to the boil. I used a food thermometer to check that it reached the desired temperature of 105C that it needs to make it set; then it was a case of boiling it for 10 minutes or so whilst I sterilised the waiting jam jars.

I used a funnel to make sure there was no spillage as I ladled the hot jam into the five 200ml jars and that was it. Now we will have to see how long we can resist before opening the first jar.

Fortunately, after filling the five jars, there was enough left in the bottom of the pan to try some on the freshly baked bread that had just come out of the oven. I have to say it was absolutely delicious and definitely a recipe that I will be trying again, with or without a couple of tweaks.

Busy Bank Holiday Weekend

Who would believe it? A bank holiday weekend and the sun just kept on shining! We were torn between getting loads done in the garden and buying a new barbeque, so, to end up with, we did both.

Firstly, the down-side of all this sun is that all of the young plants are starting to steam in the greenhouse. So, despite the outside chance of a frost, I felt it was time to get as many of them planted out as possible.

Of course this meant that there was room to move the chillies out and give us our conservatory back.

It was also time to get some more things planted out into the veg plot. We eat a lot of onions so it makes perfect sense to grow as many as possible. In previous years we have grown from seed. This year however, mainly due to lack of planning, we've left it a bit late to sow direct so we have gone for sets.

I also put in two types of French bean (one climbing, one dwarf) and some runners. I was so impressed with the French beans last year that seemed to just keep on giving. There's not much to show for all the hard work this early in the year, other than the patches of bare earth, so it is nice to see the wigwams in place.





The herbs on the other hand are already looking good. I'm particularly impressed with the French Sorrel. I just hope I can find some recipes to do it justice, assuming of course that we like the taste when it's grown. Looks like I'll have plenty of potting on to be getting on with next weekend.

Thinking about Herbs

Alongside the vegetables this year, I am keen to try and grow a lot more herbs. These little beauties tend to take up relatively little space yet really pack a punch in the flavour department. There is absolutely nothing like fresh home grown herbs, picked minutes, or even seconds, before eating.

The windowsill propagator is full with a variety of little seedlings but the basil that I planted at the end of February is already maturing nicely and providing a plentiful supply of deliciously sweet leaves.

This basil is invaluable. It is one of those herbs that is immeasurably better fresh than dried and can be used to perk up salads as well as being added when cooking most tomato dishes. Of course you can buy it fresh from the supermarket but they don't seem to last long (or taste as good). An ideal herb to grow yourself then.

I simply sowed a handful of seeds into a 4 inch pot and sealed it in a plastic bag. As I had started them so early, I sat them on the propagator to give them a bit of bottom heat and they didn't take long to come up. Once the leaves appeared, I removed the bag and have just kept them on the conservatory windowsill, remembering to keep them well watered. I now simply pick off the whole stems as needed.

The only thing to remember is to plant some more in plenty of time before the first lot is all gone.