Recent Posts Tagged With 'vegetables'

• Blooming Friday: November, week 2 – Give me shelter

  Posted on Friday November 13th, 2009 at 02:58 in flowers, vegetables, agave, chillies, pelargonium, pelargonium sidoides, blooming friday, abutilon, pelargonium 'shannon', chilli pepper 'apache f1', sophora molloyi ' dragon's gold'

  This is my greenhouse where I keep my tender plants over the winter. Greenhouse It has an electric fire to keep the temperature above freezing and is lined with plastic bubble wrap for extra insulation. As you can see it is rather crowded. Greenhouse...

• Vegetables going and coming, and a rather large Fern

  Posted on Monday October 26th, 2009 at 15:45 in vegetables, cucumbers, ferns, cabbage 'marner early red', dryopteris affinis 'cristata'

  This is the last of my home grown cucumbers – sob! I will buy the occasional cucumber over the next few months. As usual I will temporarily forget that shop bought ones  are tasteless during the winter months. I get cucumber amnesia every year...

• Vegetables – some surprises and some satisfaction

  Posted on Saturday September 5th, 2009 at 15:13 in vegetables, carrots, beetroot, beetroot 'forono'

  I have spent this year ( and previous years) whining about our inability to grow carrots.  This weekend The Digger appeared with these which he had grown on the big allotment. What cheek. Now I’m the only one who can’t grow carrots! Look...

• Podding Peas Puts a Pest In the Picture

  Posted on Tuesday August 11th, 2009 at 15:27 in wildlife, vegetables, peas, pea moth, pea 'stenu'

  My climbing peas ‘Stenu’ did particularly well this year. Too well in a way, as I had to resort to extra canes and string to stop their climbing frame leaning over and collapsing with the weight of the plants. They grew over 6 feet tall ...

• Let us ponder on some vegetable mysteries.

  Posted on Monday August 3rd, 2009 at 05:29 in vegetables

  This is a fraction of this weekend’s harvest. Everything is coming at once. While picking I got to thinking: How come 8 large French Beans can hide behind one leaf? Why is a giant Courgette/Zucchini invisible until you trip over it? How do Run...

• What will we have today?

  Posted on Thursday July 16th, 2009 at 07:46 in vegetables, peas, courgettes

  I think it’s going to be minty Pea Risotto tonight…. …accompanied by Courgettes fried with olive oil and garlic. Meals are now dictated by vegetables from the garden. It’s a delicate balance. One slip and I could be drowned in...

• The Vegetables say they want a look in!

  Posted on Thursday July 9th, 2009 at 14:37 in vegetables, peas, beetroot, rhubarb, tomatoes, chillies, courgettes, cucumbers, leeks, french beans, runner beans, mange tout

  The vegetables claim they are not appearing in my blog because they are not “exotic and flowery” enough so I’m giving them a post to themselves to keep them quiet. The big allotment is full of Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and Brassicas ...

• Allotment and Greenhouse update. Vegetables are go!

  Posted on Tuesday May 19th, 2009 at 04:00 in greenhouse, vegetables, allotment, big allotment, mesclun 4

  This is our big allotment which is actually half the size of a full one. The one on the left (with the cane frame) belongs to someone else. We recently had a tidy up day and here are a couple of pictures. Only now do I realise that I should have take...

• Wild flowers I hope, and seedlings for sure

  Posted on Tuesday April 14th, 2009 at 06:17 in vegetables, seeds, allotment, wild flowers

  I’ve decided to plant some wild flowers on the small allotment bank which runs alongside the fence separating us from the public footpath. At the moment it contains Daffodils, some Comfrey, a wild Clematis and a couple of small bushes. It is me...

• Petunias, Verbena and Horseradish

  Posted on Thursday April 9th, 2009 at 15:42 in flowers, vegetables, horseradish, petunias

  I made a brief visit to a garden centre to pick up some annuals for my summer hanging baskets. I got some trailing Petunias and a white Verbena. Some of the Petunias are the Million Bells variety - smaller flowers but more of them. I’ve not tri...

• Pity the garden blogger who is trying to find colour amongst the vegetables

  Posted on Monday March 30th, 2009 at 15:36 in cats, Herbs, vegetables, seeds, allotment, rhubarb, beetroot 'chioggia', chicory 'grumolo bionda', cozzie, lettuce 'bronze arrowhead'

  I’m feeling guilty about neglecting the vegetable garden so I decide to devote a few hours to getting the small allotment in shape. It is through the gate at the bottom of the garden so I don’t have far to go.  My garden is full of colou...

• Blown away, so vegetable seeds stay indoors

  Posted on Monday March 23rd, 2009 at 10:39 in wildlife, vegetables, ladybird, lettuce, spring onions, endive, mesclun 4

  We have had a wonderful few days of sun and I spent much of the time tidying the garden borders. Today was to have been vegetable seed sowing day on my small allotment. Sensing my plans the weather promptly changed. Today has been much colder and ext...

• One potato, Two potato, Three potato

  Posted on Monday February 16th, 2009 at 11:06 in vegetables, allotment, potatoes, alan romans, potato 'highland burgundy red', potato 'mimi', potato 'royal kidney'

  Our seed potatoes arrived on Friday and the Digger will lay them out in trays to chit (sprout) before planting. This is the point at which the house starts filling up with seed trays as we wait for the weather to warm up so they can go in the greenho...

• Creeping Blooming Rot leads to golden delight

  Posted on Friday November 28th, 2008 at 08:54 in vegetables, winter squash

  Every time I go into the garage to get something out of the freezer I glance at my Pumpkins and Squashes and think “I must do something with them”. It’s not as if I’m short of recipes. I’m putting things off because I ha...

• A Weasel, Beets and property To Let

  Posted on Sunday November 2nd, 2008 at 07:55 in vegetables, allotment, beetroot, cloches, perpetual spinach, beetroot 'chioggia', small allotment

  I saw my first weasel today but unfortunately it was already dead. I refrained from taking a picture. It had been  brought into the garden by one of our cats. I assume he had been hunting in the wood nearby. As usual with cats he then looked surpris...

• Nothing and some rather big somethings

  Posted on Wednesday October 1st, 2008 at 14:07 in vegetables, Onions, allotment, pumpkin, japanese onions, big allotment, onion 'radar', pumpkin ‘rouge vif d’etampes’

  As we had sun at the weekend the Digger went off to the big allotment to plant the Japanese onions ‘Radar’. These are onions which are planted in September or October to overwinter. They then give an early crop the following year from lat...

• Green tomatoes and Green Tomato Chutney

  Posted on Wednesday September 3rd, 2008 at 05:08 in recipes, recipe, vegetables, tomatoes, green tomatoes, green tomato chutney

  I’m sure many UK tomato growers will be knee deep in green tomatoes at the moment. A poor summer and tomato blight have made many of us strip our plants early. Some of my tomatoes went into my recipe for Green Tomato Chutney. The rest are cover...

• Snuffle, panic and drip

  Posted on Monday September 1st, 2008 at 08:28 in recipes, garden, weather, vegetables, rain, tomatoes, olive oil pickle, runner beans 'white lady'

  I’ve been snuffling and weeping in the kitchen cutting up onions to make Olive Oil Pickle which lilymarlene kindly posted on her blog. Why are my own onions always so tear making compared to bought ones? Anyway, I’ve managed to dispose of...

• Drip, drip, drip, squelch!

  Posted on Sunday August 24th, 2008 at 07:18 in flowers, vegetables, rain, tomatoes, fuchsia, geranium, canna, aeonium, garden borders, chelone, sungold

  Rain does have the advantage of making the garden borders look nice and fresh, and the plants are so lush. I’m the droopy one, waiting for the sun to shine. In the meantime I thought a few wet photos might be appropriate. The photo doesn’...

• Feeling that Summer has been and gone

  Posted on Tuesday August 19th, 2008 at 05:09 in vegetables, seeds, Onions, allotment, hercules, broad beans, red baron, broad beans martock

  When August is drenched in sunshine and I’m sitting outside sipping a cold glass of wine I can forget that autumn is fast approaching - not this year. The cool wet weather has put paid to that. Now I have to sip my wine indoors otherwise I̵...

• Cucumber, Pepper and Onion relish

  Posted on Tuesday August 12th, 2008 at 15:03 in recipes, recipe, vegetables, cucumber, relish, cucumber onion & pepper relish

  Here we go again, another step in my campaign to conquer the vegetable surplus. Who am I kidding! It’s a losing battle. My cucumbers are doing well this year and some have gone into this relish. There is a chopped ‘Bulgarian Carrot’...

• Blight: synonyms - destroy, disease, plague, ruin, kill, spoil

  Posted on Monday August 11th, 2008 at 10:27 in garden, vegetables, tomatoes, tomato blight

  I’ve been in denial for a week, averting my eyes as I walked past the tomato plants. Now I have to admit to myself that the dreaded tomato blight has appeared. It’s affected four of the seven plants I have outside and two of the plants in...

• Please stop trying to hide from me

  Posted on Saturday August 9th, 2008 at 06:46 in vegetables, courgette

  There is always one that gets away no matter how hard you try. I’d already spent time in the allotment picking beans and courgettes. The Digger goes out a few hours later and strolls back in with the dark green one. Perhaps I’m going to ...

• French beans, tomatoes, turnips and kohl rabi

  Posted on Sunday August 3rd, 2008 at 11:36 in vegetables, allotment, turnips, beans, tomatoes, french beans, kohl rabi

  We are starting to get lots of vegetables from the allotment now. I’ll quickly pass over courgettes (a deluge) and move onto french beans. I’m growing four kinds and three of them were sown at the same time. I thought I’d note the o...

• I come back to a vegetable glut

  Posted on Tuesday July 29th, 2008 at 04:58 in vegetables, allotment, peas, peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, vegetable art

  I’ve been away for five days on a visit to the North of England. Unbelievably the trip coincided with a heatwave - how lucky was that! Naturally when I returned I found the vegetables in the allotment had gone into production overdrive and I...

• Those first French Beans

  Posted on Monday July 14th, 2008 at 14:40 in vegetables, allotment, french beans, purple polish stringless

  I so look forward to the first crop of French beans from the allotment. It’s an added bonus if the beans look attractive and my Polish Purple Stringless certainly do. It’s a flat bean with numerous purple splashes, although it does go gre...

• First early potatoes - are they ready?

  Posted on Sunday July 6th, 2008 at 04:57 in vegetables, allotment, potatoes

  The Digger went off to the allotment to see if the first early potato Rocket had produced anything yet. We had grown some in a large pot, started off in the greenhouse, and were quite pleased with the amount we got from just three tubers. They gave u...

• All is serene, and when to take a holiday

  Posted on Friday June 27th, 2008 at 10:13 in holidays, vegetables, peppers, tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers

  Quite frankly everything has gone rather quiet on the gardening front - in both the allotment and the flower garden. It’s rather unnerving. I find I’m looking for something to go wrong. Must be paranoid gardener syndrome. I’ve now d...

• A milky drink for the cucumbers and tomatoes

  Posted on Monday June 23rd, 2008 at 16:10 in vegetables, cucumbers, powdery mildew, milk spray

  Every year I get powdery mildew on my cucumbers (indoors and out), and sometimes on my courgettes (zucchini). It’s particularly bad if the weather is very hot or if there is high humidity. I was never too happy about spraying with sulphur powde...

• Suddenly we have vegetables!

  Posted on Wednesday June 18th, 2008 at 07:39 in vegetables, allotment

  It’s always a pleasurable surprise when vegetables start arriving in quantity - I know it’s going to happen, in fact I’m waiting for it to happen, but still it catches me unawares. One minute I have single courgette and six peas, ...