The Cottage Smallholder

I’m a raspberry lover. When the dessert trolley rolls up in a restaurant I ignore the profiteroles and sticky meringues and go for raspberries sprinkled ideally with a little vanilla sugar. My passion for raspberries has led me astray recently. Our allotment site in Newmarket is a raspberry lovers haven. There is a narrow path that’s Read More »

Growing tomatoes is quite easy but growing tomatoes well requires relentsless enthusiasm. Their growing period can last for six or seven months before the first small and fragrant harvest. They are susceptible to blight. If not watered regularly they can fail due to blossom end rot. If you don’t feed weekly when the first flowers appear they Read More »

It was Gilbert who introduced me to gooseberry gin. He produced a battered old hip flask out of a hidden pocket in his fatigues. We were foraging for wild cherry plums and were resting on a mossy bank. Gilbert opened the stopper with a flourish. “I bet that you haven’t tasted this delicacy before.” One sip and Read More »

I had a sip or two of our elderflower vodka a couple of days ago. The flavour has improved and mellowed a bit. Unlike TCL’s - it’s drinkable – just. It has good notes when you open the bottle and sniff but the waft promises loads more than the grog actually presents. There is no trace Read More »

Fresh Morello cherries are quite hard to find in the UK unless you grow them yourself. We have two Morello cherry trees that I bought for 99p each from Netto a few years ago. One was supposed to be an ordinary cherry tree but clearly there had been a mix up of labels at the Read More »

Years ago my friend Sylvia said to me. “The Fosdykes have their 50th anniversary coming up and we’re planning to give them a Judas tree. What do you think?” My head whirled. I had just been given a weeping tree that I did not want. A tree can be a great present if.. a) The person has Read More »

  We haven’t been out to eat for ages so we decided to take my mum to one of her favourite restaurants – The Three Horseshoes, in Madingley. The food is very good, the service friendly and it’s a real treat to visit. Of course, on special occasions, it’s a set menu. Having rather overindulged Read More »

  “You’ve been led astray by Mark Diacono.” “No. He’s just shown me new ways of investing in our future!” There’s no sensible repost to that. If being led astray means that we have harvests of great edibles in the future, count me in. Gilbert agrees. At the moment he’s doing the same, buying trees, Read More »

  This idea was given to me by Amalee Issa in a comment on a tomato post that I wrote. Amalee writes the quirky blog The Garden Diaries of Amalee Issa and is well worth a visit. Not just gardening and always entertaining. Basically all you have to do is spread the seed on a piece of Read More »

  Do you remember my excitement over growing Florian strawberries from seed? And later, my frustration when they just didn’t seem to grow- just sat there the size of doll’s house plants? Eventually I got fed up with viewing them though a magnifying glass and planted the five plants that had survived my fury in a Read More »