Grow Red Brandy Wine tomatoes for flavour and great returns
We’ve grown a wonderful new (to us) tomato this year. Taking Tamar’s advice – she writes the sparky Starving off the Land blog – I invested in an American variety of tomato seed called Red Brandy Wine. This variety has some resistance to blight. I spotted biodynamic seed in the Lunar Organics online catalogue . Following biodynamic principles, I sowed the seed on a fruit day. Then pricked out and planted on the relevant day. Incidentally I found the Lunar Organics biodynamic calendar much easier to use than Maria Thum’s...
read moreApricot and peach jam recipe
“Would you like wild plum, greengage, Victoria plum or apricot and peach?” “Greengage I think. Well actually I’d like to try the peachy one. Can I have both?” For years Danny and I weren’t jam sort of people. Until we started foraging, found wild cherry plums and decided to make our own. I can still remember the shock of the taste of the jam, the intense flavour with a slightly bitter sweet twist. This year we have been making jam in earnest. It’s easy to make jam and a good jam is real comfort food of the first order. For...
read moreHow to cook puffballs recipe
“I want Mrs Boss to have a memorial. She deserves it.” Danny was warming his hands over the wood burning stove. He had just finished burying her in the garden. It was March 2009. “They have some nice Willowstone chickens at the garden centre. I’ll get one. I know that they are well under £20.” But when I visited the garden centre there were no chickens on display. In fact it has taken me all this time to discover that the stone garden ornaments had been moved to a different area. Last week I chose the chicken that looked most...
read moreExamine your tools carefully before you proceed
Years ago Seraphina and I visited Hampton Court. A day trip – as we were living in London at the time. We decided to hire a traditional rowing boat and swish up and down the river. Being a wooden toymaker at the time I had the strongest arms so was assigned to the rowing. We climbed gingerly into the boat and I took the oars. It was incredibly hard work. We got a lot of strange looks which we struggled to understand. It was only when I was turning the boat at the debarkation point – doing a sort of nautical three point turn – that I...
read moreGreen bullace jam recipe
If you missed the greengages a few weeks ago don’t panic. The wild greengages (green bullaces) are ready to pick now. These are not green cherry plums, which will now be yellow through to deep red when ripe. Green bullaces are green, fall into your hands when you touch them and taste just like a a mini version of our modern greengage. They are the tiny ancient ancestors of our cultivated greengages. I like to imagine cave families going out to forage for them. Now, as way back then, they are free. For years I’ve visited a small stretch...
read moreGrowing strawberries from seed. It’s well worth it in the end.
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 large, redundant hanging basket. Not expecting great results. I used ericaceous compost as I discovered last year that strawberries prefer a more acidic soil than mine. They immediately began to thrive – clearly they hated...
read moreThe Polytunnel conundrum solved by The Polytunnel Handbook
Oh the power of words. Jackie who writes the inspirational blog Chestnuts Farm mentioned in a comment on my blog. “Perhaps Fiona should get a polytunnel for her birthday.” With a whir and a click I thought YES! Lynn Keddie had also suggested that it would be a good move. Our garden gave us plentiful supplies of Kale last winter but wouldn’t it be good to grow baby carrots and winter peas. The greenhouse is always chock a block with delicate plants. This would give us freedom. Last Christmas I bought Eliot Coleman’s book...
read moreDelicious fried leftover potatoes recipe
The potato King always cooks too many spuds. He loves to see a decent sized pan of home grown potatoes – he can have some for supper and then graze – overnight and if he has cooked lots, a pre breakfast snack. I don’t eat loads of spuds so his ears switch into Spud Protective Mode if I want some more – he knows how to cook seriously good spuds so this does happen quite a lot these days. There’s always a little jump of surprise, followed by, “Help yourself to as much as you want.” I always leave second helpings for D. Years...
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