How to make a cheap and elegant cloche
I spent a lot of the weekend searching for cloches on the internet. I’ve sown peas and carrots for an early crop in the spring and even though we have a lot of cloches I need the smaller ones to protect salad and stir fry leaves. I did find some ‘cheap’ fleece cloches for under fifteen quid but I would need five of these – out of the question at the moment. On one of my searches for “cheap cloches” I was drawn onto a gardening forum where several members had made cloches using blue water pipe as a frame. And then covering...
read moreStill laid up – a typical day
As I go to bed very early I tend to wake up earlier too. Now the clocks have gone back it’s about 05:00 when I creep downstairs to make a giant mug of tea. Back in bed with the dogs I fire up the laptop and potter onto the blog to see what’s happened when I was asleep. For the next couple of hours I check the stats, answer emails and comments and review the articles that are coming up from past years. Then I start to write the post for the day. It’s a quiet, gentle time. The window is open so I can hear the occasional car but...
read morePamela’s perfect pumpkin soup recipe
“Don’t you just love the look of abject fear that appears on the faces of shop girls or fellow shoppers, when they ask if you are making a lantern for Hallow’een and you reply that you are, in fact, going to eat it!” Wrote my friend Pamela. “I made soup with half of mine and will be making more with the other half this evening. Using what I had in – i.e. what was reduced for a quick sale or from the Somerfield basics range – I used spring onions, chilli, garlic, a green pepper, celery salt (which I love in a cheese butty)...
read moreSeeds and seed packets
Following the excitement of last weeks visitor and staying up for two whole days without a rest, I feel completely shattered today and spent most of the day in bed. The laptop was working overtime as I was researching buying vegetable seeds on the internet and comparing prices. This was prompted by finding a pack of Heritage and Heirloom seeds that I bought from the Pennard Plants stand at Hampton Court Flower Show this summer. It was the illustration on the pack that attracted me. Surely it’s Great Aunt Daisy Beatyl wearing a long...
read moreCooking in advance
We had someone special coming for supper last night and as it was going to be a busy day I decided to cook everything in advance except the vegetables. I managed to get my hands on a wild rabbit and made a bone in casserole in the slow cooker the day before. I used this recipe to get the correct balance of ingredients to the weight of the rabbit. I rolled the rabbit portions in flour and put all the ingredients in the slow cooker. I set the knob to high and after about an hour – when it was starting to simmer – I switched it to low...
read moreAutumn leaves
I’m going to throw fruit nets over our vegetable borders next year when the leaves begin to fall. I spent most of the afternoon raking up leaves and testing out my new leaf collectors. They are really good for picking up leaves on the paths. In fact it’s quite fun seeing how many you can pick up at a time. But getting the leaves from between the rows of vegetables was a bit of a nightmare. They had to be shifted as with the recent rain they create a slug haven. Our vegetables are packed in pretty tight. As I ranged between the rows I...
read moreDanny’s potatoes have slug damage
So Magic Cochin was right after all. Danny’s potatoes are infested with little black slugs. Yesterday I decided to get the spuds for supper early so that I could replace any ropey ones without having to trail down to the shed after dark. When I opened the potato sack I spotted several little black slugs chomping heavily. In fact it was quite hard to pull them off. When I cut the potatoes open I found a few smaller ones in residence and little grey black eggs. We’ve never seen them before. Or the eggs. Just the tiny white worms – about a...
read moreWrap up your greenhouse to retain more heat
I love our greenhouse. It’s a real haven for pottering. It’s 8’x6’ so it doesn’t have a lot of space but this also means that it can be heated very economically especially if I insulate it with bubble wrap. During the first year of greenhouse buying/building frenzy. I spotted that a client’s green house was insulated with bubble wrap. “It has a dramatic effect on the temperature in the greenhouse. In fact we don’t need a heater apart from the frostiest days.” So I did the same. I found that Homebase sells biodegradable...
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