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.

Fair Weather Gardener

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a fair weather gardener. I'm more than happy to order seeds, plan the garden and update the blog when the rain is coming down outside but I need to at least see the sun to get me motivated enough to pull on the wellies and get stuck in. Fortunately, despite the intermittent hail storms, this weekend the sun came out and I was more than happy to get out and do a bit of digging.

The vegetable plot is organised into deep beds which, as we never walk on them, never need digging. A bit of hoeing and the occasional addition of some compost but that's about it. The flower beds on the other hand are a different matter.

Slightly neglected over the winter, the weeds had definitely taken over the flower border. However, we eventually managed to uncover a couple of last year's plants that had survived the winter and cleared enough room to plant out some of the new batch, maturing nicely in the greenhouse.

We are planning to put a new path in, running along the edge of the flower bed, so, in preparation, wanted to include some herbs. I therefore planted out the purple sage that we bought at our last garden centre visit and transplanted a lavender that has followed us on our last house move.

 

 

 

The final job was to tidy up some of the various pots we have about the garden, including the winter pansies which have been giving a splendid display all through the winter.

Now to sit back and wish for more fair weather...

Warming Up

It seems like the weather has at last decided to start warming up. It is therefore time to start moving the plants that have been taking over the conservatory out into the greenhouse and, ultimately, out into the garden.

We could be accused of over-doing it with the plug plants this year but better to have too many than not enough. We may have to invest in a few hanging baskets though...

The sweet peas are doing well and have been in the greenhouse for a while now so with the chances of frost diminishing we have got some of them planted along the fence. With a bit of time to get established, they should be fine even if the temperature does drop again.

In other news, we have done a bit of investing in our local bird population. It's always good to attract these little pest controllers into the garden. A new feeding station nearer the house is already attracting a nice variety which we can now sit and look at from the conservatory.

We also put up four separate bird boxes at various locations throughout the garden. These are already attracting interest from the local bluetit population. I only wish they could be encouraged to visit my chillies and eat the pesky greenflies that have made them their home.

Taking Over

It's that time of year again when the newly potted plants start to take over every spare windowsill of the house. Fortunately we have plenty of windowsill space in the conservatory . Even so, I was still struggling to find space for everything after a busy weekend of indoor gardening, including potting up all of the plug plants that the postman keeps delivering. I really should compare notes with my good lady wife to see what she has ordered before I start browsing the gardening websites. I think we might have to extend our flower beds a bit this year...

All the seeds I planted in the propagators at the end of last month have developed nicely. I'm particularly proud of the chili seeds that I retrieved from a shriveled fruit that was clinging on to a neglected chili plant in the corner of the greenhouse. It seems that every one of the seeds has germinated so now I have 27 nicely developing baby Cayenne chili plants.

Given the weather this weekend, the only thing to do outside was to remember to water the greenhouse which is currently home to a collection of sweet peas. At least I don't have to water the rest of the garden yet.

Succulent Spring Rhubarb Crumble

This year I decided to have a go at forcing some of the rhubarb so I shoved an upturned black bucket over the top of one of the plants just as the first shoots started coming through. It has worked wonders and already this year we have had two harvests of the sweetest young stalks, and it's only the 10th March!

I know I could have tried any number of recipes for these first tasty treats but thought I'd go with the old faithful, rhubarb crumble. So here's my recipe for Succulent Spring Rhubarb Crumble:

Rhubarb Crumble
Makes 4 generous helpings

ingredients
12 oz fresh forced rhubarb, picked less than an hour before you're ready to eat;
4 oz butter;
4 oz castor sugar;
8 oz plain flour
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger (optional)

method


Stick the oven on.

Wash and cut the freshly harvested, sweetest forced rhubarb roughly into chunks. Bung it in a pan with 1 tbsp of water and gently stew, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb is softened. No need to add any sugar; the rhubarb is sweet enough. The water is just there to stop it sticking but you do need to keep stirring it.

To make the crumble topping, mix the sugar, flour, butter and, if using, ground ginger, in a large bowl. Rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.


Place the stewed rhubarb in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and cover with the crumble mix. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top to give it a nice crispy topping and bake in a medium oven for approximately half an hour until the top is nicely browned.

Serve with cream, ice-cream or, in my case, custard.

Ideal to round off a Mothers' day meal.

Insect Hotel

We are always looking for new ways to attract beneficial insects into the garden so when we spotted an old firework waiting to be chucked in the bin, we jumped at the chance to recycle it into a luxury insect summer residence. The firework was a multiple roman candle type when it was new but now it is, in essence, a group of thick empty cardboard tubes bound together with a thin paper wrapping. All it needed was something to protect it from the worst of the British weather and some 'stuffing' to attract the guests.

Last year we grew spuds in black plastic sacks and, as I rarely throw anything away, we still had the sacks kicking around the veg patch. One of these was perfect for wrapping around the cardboard to offer it some protection.




I started to stuff dried grass and twigs into some of the openings to give the prospective guests something to nestle into. I'm sure I have some straw somewhere that, once I find it, I will use to furnish the remaining rooms. For now though, like all good hotels, it's open for business, despite the work in progress.

Potting On

Did a lot of potting on and generally moving plants around on Sunday.
Firstly, I dug out one of the compost heaps. We have two so that we fill one whilst the other is left in peace to rot down. Time for a switch round before the season gets into full swing. The full heap should have most of the summer to slowly rot down ready for an autumn mulch.

We've had some broad beans coming on nicely in toilet roll tubes in the greenhouse. Time to plant these out into their own bed. They were such a surprisingly good crop last year, I made sure to put plenty in this time. I found they were great for adding to stews and even chilies last year, as well as being delicious on their own. To keep the mice off, I surrounded them with freshly cut holly leaves. I have no idea if this really works but I tried it last year and never had any problems with mice so no harm repeating it and it may even help to keep the cats off the fresh dirt. I even got creative and constructed a simple frame to give the beans something to cling on to as they grow.





Moving the beans out of the greenhouse left room to move the first of the rather leggy sweet peas in. I have really gone to town with these this year so it seemed to take most of the day to transplant them from their seed tray into individual pots. Only another couple of trays to go...








I also moved in the marigolds from the windowsill propagator out into the greenhouse. Of course this meant the propagator was empty so I couldn't resist putting a few more chili seeds in.
All in all a pretty busy day. I just hope I can keep up with things through March as everything seems to start to speed up this time of year.

Here's hoping to some warmer evenings and the chance to get something done throughout the week.