by goodshoeday, on July 23rd, 2010
At last the English fruit season has arrived. The gooseberries and strawberries are in full flow and the raspberries, cherries and currants (black, red and white) are all just starting to come into their prime. For all these fruits when the season starts and end is inevitably affected by the weather and where you are in the country, some have much longer natural seasons than others and making the best of each while you can is what its all about.
I like them fresh of course, or cooked in compotes, sauces and pies and some preserved to bring a little summer [...]
Continue reading Mostly berries, some cherries and currants
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by goodshoeday, on April 18th, 2009
Lets hope that it all turns into quinces and the squirrels don’t steal them this year…..
by goodshoeday, on March 30th, 2009
Today we harvested our first stalks of rhubarb this season. Coming in at six stalks it made a nice compact handful. We’ve got 3 rhubarb crowns and one seems to be slightly ahead of the others so all the stalks came off the one plant.
Over the last few seasons we’ve had mixed cropping results – in the first few years after they were properly established we got a pretty good crop and then a couple of years ago they started to bolt very early in the season. We would get curious but quite attractive flowering rhubarb stems but very [...]
Continue reading First rhubarb harvest
by goodshoeday, on March 14th, 2009
It really is amazing how a bit of sunshine, some daffodils and lots of blossom on the almond tree can make you come over all horticultural.
A few weeks ago I was thinking about growing veg from seed (its time to sow this weekend now its getting warmer), then we were reorganising the herb bed and lavishing love on the lemon tree but toady here’s a quick guide to making compost. Where will all this horticultural longing take me next?
How to make great compost?
Well first make sure you have a garden – its pretty useless to start a project like this if [...]
Continue reading Coming over all horticultural
by goodshoeday, on March 2nd, 2009
After the gardening bug bit me on Saturday I decided it was time to see how my lovely little lemon tree was doing.
It lives in the lean-to that we use as a utility room and often gets forgotten amongst the never-ending piles of washing (how exactly do 2 people create so much to be washed, its not like we wear three different outfits each day – well not normally any way!).
So off I pottered to check it out.
HORROR.
It had been hit by another bout of scale insect (ugh ugh ugh). These evil creatures don’t look much – rather like raised brown ovals [...]
Continue reading Labour of love
by goodshoeday, on February 28th, 2009
Over the last few days I’ve been doing food related sort of ‘gardening’ activities. What exactly does that mean?
Well so far its involved visits to three garden centres, some internet surfing, the purchase of about 10 packets of seeds and one rather nice terracotta pot, oh and a little bit of time actually in the garden. All this because some nice mild sunny weather and those daffodil shoots and tree buds I mentioned in my last post mean I just can’t help but start thinking about what herbs and vegetables to attempt to grow this year.
Last year we had a glut [...]
Continue reading Just like ‘The Good Life’
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