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.