Sunday – weeds out and plants in

Oh dear, lost my secateurs, so nipped out to buy some more from The Range, bargain seed offer when we got to the checkout, all the packets in the basket were charged at half-price.

We spent the rest of the morning tidying up the borders, cutting back the tops of the old perennials from last year, pruning and tying in the roses, then weeding out the couch grass, nettles and dock leaves, that’s the trouble with country gardens. One bag of mushroom compost later and I saw a huge area at the front of the border that was so bare I felt guilty, I couldn’t leave the bed like that, so a trip to Haskin’s was needed.

Dad’s favourite spring flower is aubretia, now I’m looking after the borders, I’ve put some in plus some wonderfully frilly pansies and some other white perennials. Then I watered them in and just as I was finished, it start to drizzle, perfect timing and now they are settling in nicely. It was a lovely surprise for Mum and Dad, they had been having an afternoon nap, whilst they were asleep the garden fairy turned the bare soil into a pretty garden.

Lots of possibilities this year in the garden, we are trying to make the border a lovely cottage garden, now I need some more hollyhocks in different colours, the double yellow ones were beautiful last year, the lupins are already bursting from the ground and the other perennials I put in last year and now beginning to shoot. Spring is such a lovely time for new awakenings.

Discussions about the future were interesting, the most thought provoking was, to get chickens or not?  They would be great at getting rid of the slugs and snails as we seem to be inundated and they ate most of the crops last year, but they need looking after, feeding and could eat what they shouldn’t. The debate continues, but my hunch is that six chickens will appear in the next couple of weeks, Dad’s such a softie and daughter hasn’t ever looked after chickens and will work on her grandparents whilst she’s on holiday.

Watch this space!

A wonderful day for gardening

After waking at 5.30am, I decided to get up (well the clocks go forward anyway tonight so I’m already readjusting my internal clock ready for Monday). I watched some Teacher’s TV washed down with a hot cup of coffee.

Once the basics were done, the farm shop called it’s merry tune, we stocked up on meat for most of the week, now I need to plan the meals for the week ahead, a chance to try a new recipe or two.

Tuna and sweetcorn salad for lunch fired us up to work in the garden and greenhouse. It was a productive afternoon, I’ve moved one staging rack so that I can get more seed trays and pots in.

From the seeds planted last week, there are now pea shoots showing, Webbs lettuce, rocket and mizuna. The rocket and land cress are showing the odd white speck where a shoot will appear. The temperature in the greenhouse reached 30degC, it was gorgeous, I managed to move the bubble wrap to allow the air to circulate.

I’ve planted one strawberry plant in a pot in the greenhouse, to get some early berries. A large container of carrots and another of dwarf purple podded beans. I also planted some modules with 3 different types of beetroot, golden, red and white ringed and also normal red beetroot, plus a tray of kholrabi. This is a first for me, normally I plant them direct in the garden, but hope that this will give me a head start and allow me to intercrop better and increase the yield in the garden. The other strawberries are now in the garden, they are Mara Des Bois strawberries, which are a cross between wild strawberries and cultivated, so you get the flavour of wild with size of standard, they also produce over a long season, so hopefully we’ll get lots of strawberries over the summer. With the sun shining today, the vitamin D felt good soaking into the skin, a wonderful boost.

Time to sit back and watch a film with a lovely cup of tea.

Getting ahead with the cooking and shopping

After a very busy day at work I needed to relax. The fridge was full of meat, some dates were getting short, so if I’m going to pop one dish in the oven, I might as well make it 2 and save on energy.

It was great, I started making a lancashire hotpot, then venison stifado. Whilst this was all in the oven, I made dinner, a paella but without any seafood just the chicken with chorizo.

Was I pleased I had done this, by Wednesday I was shattered and just needed to put the hotpot back in to the oven to bubble and brown. On Thursday after a very tough day at work, I reheated the stifado and served with chips and peas.

I finished work in time to collect daughter from school, she’s now broken up for Easter, we headed off to Sainsbury’s to stock up on salad, veg and also a few other treats to go with dinner.

Now a perfect evening lies ahead. The roast lamb is studded with garlic and is in the oven, it’s nearly time to make some dauphinoise potatoes, then I just need to steam some spinach, oh and make a starter with the wonderful prawns that seemed to jump into my shopping basket.  I’ve got the film Julie and Julia on, this was a present from hubby for Mother’s Day and I love it. I now want a great french cookbook, do I get the Julia Child’s book, or another french cookbook, then I can started working through the book as I get the time and widen my repertoire.

I think this weekend is going to be filled with gardening and cooking, lots of fresh air and wonderful aromas, totally lush.

Garden centres - arggggh

I followed my own advice and I created a garden centre shopping list on my phone, added a sprayer, beetroot seeds, organic slug pellets and potato fertilizer to the list and hubby and I headed off to the first garden centre.

We fell in love with a really cute woolly sheep tea cosy , it reminded me of my pet sheep, Jenny, who I was given when I was 8 years of age and lived at home with us for a couple of years until we returned her back to the farm in Wales due to her antics. Hubby met her just after we got married when I was 24. Jenny’s antics, now there’s a tale for another day or 20.

Tick off the slug pellets, fertilizer, but their seed range was so disappointing, 20 varieties of carrots, 25 of tomatoes, but only red beetroot :( they had 3 different seed suppliers displayed too.

Off to garden centre 2 – still no golden beetroot, just the boring red. The displays were identical to the first garden centre, the size and positioning of the packets, none of the interesting varieties, yes they can read a display chart from the supplier and it is really annoying that there is no difference.

Garden centre 3 – yes, same display, still no unusual varieties. So I headed home and onto the Internet.

Finally, there is a different supplier, I add the yellow beetroot to my basket, then concentric ringed white and red beetroot. Oh, Saltwort now that sounds interesting as I love Samphire, some baby aubergines, Red Sorrel, Chinese Broccoli, Honey Squashes, oops, and Strawberry Mara des Bois plants that combine the taste of wild strawberries with a standard strawberry and producing over a really long season. Roll on the summer, cream and sugar.

We are really proud that all of us are serious foodies, our daughter may be 16, but she’s so good in the kitchen, came home to a wonderful salad, “Mum, I’ve added some of the hazelnut oil to the salad, I think it makes it taste really nice”, and yes, she had made a perfect dressing.

Sunday afternoon – the time for daughter to finish homework and me to plan my lessons for next week, we always put a film on and today it’s “Julie and Julia”, a true foodie’s film, I was given it last week for Mother’s Day and we watched it last Sunday afternoon, snap today, I think this may become a regular pattern for Sunday’s.

It’s time to put a loaf in the breadmaker for tomorrow’s sandwiches and to prepare the roast chicken in true Julia Child’s style, covered with lashings of butter. Scrummy roast chicken sandwiches for my lunch tomorrow. We managed to get some wonderful forced English rhubarb at the farmshop this morning, so I’ve been asked to make a deep rhubarb pie for pudding.

I have decided that I need a decent french cookbook, perhaps Elizabeth David, or is there a better book, perhaps a Cordon Bleu book. I think I need to do some serious research and then drop some hints at my hubby/daughter.

I think this evening is going to be foodie heaven.

The greenhouse beckoned

Yippee, I left work in daylight and got home before the bewitching hour of 5pm. So after getting into jeans and scruff order, I was in the greenhouse by 4.30 and started sowing seeds. One of the best things about the greenhouse is being able to grow lots of salad leaves which can’t be beaten for freshness and are great for mum to pick as she wants. They are a fortune in the supermarket and aren’t as fresh, just a few leaves here and there and we have a really varied salad.

So planted some large pots of mixed salad leaves, mizuna, land cress, rocket, parsley, sweet basil, pea shoots and also to get ready to go in the garden 2 trays of broad beans plus some Webbs wonderful lettuces.

Turned the hose on and got soaked, the multi-sprayer was left outside over winter and has been damaged by ice, it’s splitting all over it and water was spraying everywhere, yuk, now drying off in the warm.

Add new sprayer to list and also some different varieties of beetroot, saw them on Raymond Blanc’s cookery programme and they looked brilliant. I only have the traditional variety Boltardy at the moment, so need to find some different ones when I next go shopping.

Time to put a garden shopping list in my app on my phone and make sure I don’t forget.

The seed potatoes also arrived, so need to get some organic potato fertilizer now, then they can go in old compost sacks in the garden.

A nice cup of tea is needed now!