Turnip Oasis: a review
Last year Danny was surprised how much he enjoyed raw home grown cauliflower and raw courgette (zucchini) in salads. This year I thought I’d tickled his taste buds further by introducing him to raw home grown turnip. I’m not a big fan of turnips – they are fine in a winter stew but I’d been seduced by the description of turnip Oasis on the Thompson and Morgan site. Turnip Oasis is a new variety of turnip and when eaten raw has the taste of a melon. Danny was dubious about it. “Why would I want my turnips to taste of melon? I want...
read moreHow to clean your gardening tools with ease
What do you think this is? Well it’s not a bucket going to a fancy dress party dressed as a cardinal. This old metal bucket with the broad lid from a rainproof chicken feeder has transformed the dull process of cleaning my new gardening tools at the end of the day. In the past mud clung to the hand forged tools. An oily rag worked 90% if I was not too impatient for my supper. But my cleaning process wasn’t efficient. When you are tired a quick clear up/clean up is an essential part of garden happiness. Then Paula, who writes the...
read moreForum temporarily unavailable
Hi everybody – Danny here. After installing the up-to-date versions of software early this morning, some problems developed around noon and our server was out of action for about two hours. In order to identify the element that is causing trouble, we have temporarily shut down the forum and other more minor features. We will observe the health of the system over the next 24 hours and gradually reinstate each disabled element in turn. Apologies for the interruption to normal service.
read moreHaddock baked with lemon and Greek basil served with pickled nasturtium seed butter recipe
“Do you remember we used to use Jamie Oliver’s method of cooking fish in aluminium parcels? Let’s do that for supper tonight.” We used to use this method a lot a few years ago. It’s simple and quick and the foil seals in the flavours. Danny had found some CFC haddock marked down to a third of the original price so he snapped it up. All afternoon I played mentally with combinations of flavours and eventually ran them past Danny as he lay on the swing seat enjoying the sun. “Haddock with black butter and pickled nasturtium...
read moreUpdate on Baby: tackling bullying in our flock of chickens
Baby our diminutive cockerel is still very small. He has a sweet nature but his brain seems to match his size. The only time that I’ve seen him trying to take a dust bath was on a rainy day – no wonder he looks very tatty compared to the rest of the flock. This tattyness set off alarm bells with me. Why wasn’t he grooming like the other chickens? Was he depressed? The swing seat is within earshot of the chicken run. Tempers can flare in the flock and this is to be expected every now and then. Baby is not even on the first rung of the...
read moreHardy orange trees: Calamondin
We are trying to become less dependant on imports to the UK. One key ingredient that we lack at the cottage are easily grown citrus fruits. We have a greenhouse which is chock-a-block in the winter so an ordinary citrus tree would have to live in the cottage for the winter months. We reckoned that our tiny windows and poor light would make a citrus tree suffer and go straggly. Ages ago I bought what can only be described as an expensive lemon twig on Ebay. It was given the affection that only a proper bountiful tree deserves. Kept in the...
read moreLamb mince burger recipe with chips in our halogen oven by Danny
Lamb can be greasy but these were delicious and not at all fatty. If our friend KC is reading this, then you can skip the rest, K! She hates lamb. We did not know this when we invited K and JP for Sunday lunch of roast lamb and dauphinoise potatoes. Poor K was too polite to say anything when she arrived and heard the menu but she really cheered up when the big dish of potatoes was placed on the table. One bite later she realised that, as a special treat, the lamb was roasted on a rack directly over the potatoes so that all the juices would add...
read moreHow to make a temporary vase for cut flowers
I invested in Sarah Raven’s The Cutting Garden: Growing and Arranging Garden Flowers a while ago. It’s a brilliant inspirational book if you are raising flowers to cut for the house or to sell. A perfect reference guide. Recently I also bought her later book Grow Your Own Cut Flowers. This is a much simpler book than The Cutting Garden, listing just her favourite flowers and bulbs. But there are new tips and tricks and I’ve enjoyed lolling on the swing seat with the Min Pins and immersing myself in its pages. If I was going to...
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