The Cottage Smallholder

  Being a devoted alpha carnivore Danny’s face always drops when there is the prospect of a low meat meal. My Wednesday plans were kyboshed when he returned home with two fillet steaks for £2.50 from the Waitrose CFC. “As they are rather brown I think that we have to cook them tonight.” So he did. Read More »

  Wow. I’ve just been watching last night’s episode of Monty Don’s “My Dream Farm.” Thank you Peter for tipping me off about this. Although we stopped watching telly regularly a few years ago, I can catch up on my laptop – as I’m usually asleep by eight at night! The programme was inspiring and Read More »

  My mum gave up driving some time ago. Now she walks or takes a taxi – there aren’t many buses in her part of Cambridge. She rang me last night to say that she had had a taxi ride with a retired commercial flower grower who had given her a list of the flowers Read More »

  Photo: Copyright Hanna Zabielska Teal – wild duck – is a lot gamier than ordinary duck and far more compact. We occasionally find one on offer at Waitrose and pop it into the freezer for a special occasion. So I was delighted when Duncan sent me this recipe.  “I first cooked it about six Read More »

  The February CS gardening competition was a great success and the entries provided an amazing amount of practical tips. Unlike forum comments these can be hard to find through a search engine. So Ruthdigs has compiled them all in a booklet that is beautifully laid out and the file can be printed on your Read More »

  “What do you think of breakfast?” “It’s not nearly as good as yesterday. Are they the same sausages? They taste cheap.” We’ve had Andrew around for a few weeks now. He always makes us weekend brunch with delicious results. This morning he was busy defrosting a chicken so I had to use the conventional Read More »

  Photo by Agata Urbaniak Unless you live in a country where mangoes grow, making homemade mango chutney can be expensive. We sell a lot of it on the gate side stand and it sells for 50% more than most of the other jars. I found some mangos in the market before Christmas – they were Read More »

  Back in September I received this email. “Hi Fiona I am a freelance garden photographer with features in mostly National Press. I happened across your site and would be very interested in coming down and photographing you, Danny, your animals, vegetables, flowers and other produce…” I was thrilled, Lynn Keddie was interested in photographing Read More »

  The windowsills in the cottage and the greenhouse are already packed with seedlings. I was determined to get everything off to an early start this year. The little electric propagator is working 24/7 and seeds are germinating really fast. Even though the greenhouse is lined with a thick layer of bubble wrap it needs Read More »

  It’s been just over three years since I gave up buying flowers for the cottage. In January 2007  I decided to save a cool £500 a year and not buy those tempting bunches from the supermarket. The first year was quite tough as I didn’t grow many flowers in the garden and I like Read More »