Plant Garlic now in November

According to Kitchen Gardener's International a whopping seventy-three per cent of garlic in the U.S. is imported from China. I wonder what the U.K. percentage is? Growing your own means you get Chinese cuisine with locally sourced ingredients. Watch this lovely video to brush up on what garlic is and how to plant it.

How to grow peaches

It's been quite a journey. It began with an 'Avalon Pride' peach-leaf curl resistant peach tree, planted in 2006. The peach tree cost about £26.00

I don't know anyone else who has grown a peach tree successfully AND organically outside in the North West of England. In the first year (2007), I spent a good while fretting about frost protection. The peach tree lost it's blooms and succumbed to peach leaf curl, even though it was supposed to be peach leaf curl resistant.

By the second year, I left the tree to it's own devices. The blooms stayed on. I planted garlic round the base (which is supposed to deter fungal diseases) and hoped for the best.

To my delight lots of fruitlets appeared. I made the mistake of thinning them. (We had about twenty originally and I took about a dozen off). Don't follow the advice you get from gardening books too slavishly!

We were left with FIVE fruits, and here is a picture of one of them. They're about half the size of the ones you see in the shops, so here's hoping that in a week or two, with some sun - they might even be ready to eat. Anyone else with a peach tree out there? Let me know via the comments box...

What to plant now

I'm determined not to miss any planting windows this year. So here is a run down of this week's plantings with photos. I've set up a growing system for myself, which I tweak occasionally. Work routines seem to help. So here's what our small courtyard looks like at the moment. Three mini-greenhouses plus a few tables and chairs to raise the pots up a little. We're into our second big phase of planting:

From left to right:

Little gem lettuces in a plug planter, started a month ago. Some of these I'll take to plant out today on the allotment and I'll put a few in the courtyard for the odd sandwich, and in case I can't make it down to the lottie during the week.

1. Wild Rocket ready to plant out - this is a perennial plant so I'm hoping it will save me some work as I won't have to plant it out again every year.
2. Large coir pots with Courgettes (3) to be planted out when they are large enough.
3. Sweetcorn
4. Balconi tomatoes - yellow and red
5. Small pumpkins
6. Lunch box cucumbers (long white paris)
7. Globe Artichokes
8. Two large pots of leeks to plant out in June.
9. Melon
10. Basil
11. Pot of strawberries recovering from their journey through the post.
12. Sugar snap peas
13. Two tomatoes a bit further on
14. Two pots of flowers
15. Pot of calendula
16. Tray of green and gold Orach

In this picture there's calabrese (started off a month ago). Coriander and lettuce seedlings (Lollo Rosso) to be planted out when they are big enough.
Oh, and broad beans in root trainers. They'll go out on the lottie in about ten days, I would think.

Close up of the lettuce seedlings. Best get on down to the lottie. Good weather waits for no man. (Or woman).

Lentil soup

I'm cold. Going to make an easy, steaming lentil soup. I buy the organic ingredients in bulk so they're cheaper and use a breadmaker for home grown garlic bread. It really is a doddle and even with organic ingredients and home made bread works out at around 30p a bowl.

That's crisp courtyard-container-grown gorgeous Giant Winter Spinach thrown (artfully) on the top with a swirl of natural yoghurt (this helps if, like me you sometimes go overboard on the curry powder).

Here's how you make it:

Ingredients:
1. Organic curry powder (more or less depending on how you like it - if there are children in the house you might want to leave it out, or add cardomon pods instead.
2. One packet of organic red lentils (washed well in a sieve)
3. A few onions if you've got them
4. Two cans organic chopped tomatoes
5. Marigold organic (reduced salt) stock powder
(magic stuff - I have been known to make a stock from scratch, but I don't do it often)
6. Pepper (I don't put salt in at all)
7. Some water
8. Home grown garlic (we like lots)

Method:
1.Fry onions lightly
2.Put curry powder in with lentils and fry lightly too
3.Add chopped tomatoes, water, stock powder, pepper, garlic. Heat up well.
4.Turn down and simmer for about an hour and a half. (This isn't as much work as it sounds - buy a simple kitchen timer with a cord to hang around your neck - set it and go away and enjoy yourself)

OR, put the huge pan of soup in a HAY BOX and forget about it for three hours until it is ready. What's that? You may ask? Subscribe to this blog using the box on the right and you won't miss finding out...

The Peach Tree Challenge

Sometimes we do apparently foolish things don't we?

My daughter was just about a year old (remember the hot summer of 2006?) We were in town, she was really thirsty and I was searching for a snack she could easily eat whilst sitting in her push chair. We passed our organic supermarket and I bought two fresh, organic PEACHES for her to eat on the way home. I will never EVER forget the look of delight on her face as she scoffed them. She was so proud to hold the huge fruit in her tiny hands herself and the juice ran down her face, quenching her thirst in the sun.

It was at that moment I made a momentous decision. I was going to BUY, PLANT and GROW peaches for her, and I was going to TRY to do it ORGANICALLY. Planted our peach tree (in the autumn of that year - 2006). Didn't know what I was letting myself in for. Didn't really understand why organic peaches are such a challenge to grow well in this country. You live and learn!

I knew about the fungal disease PEACH LEAF CURL , so I settled on the peach variety AVALON PRIDE - (which is said to have some resistance) thinking it would solve the problem. It didn't. The first picture shows the flowers on the tree in early Spring of 2007. Shortly after they appeared the tree came down with what I thought was Peach Leaf Curl. Leaves started dropping off - and so I sprayed with Bordeaux Mixture at the appropriate times. (Not really recommended as an organic remedy anymore but so far it has sorted that problem).

The tree was now in good heart. But in the early Spring of 2008 I still had the frosts to deal with. The flower buds appear early in the year - if there is a ground or air frost they can be completely destroyed and turn black. That's exactly what happened in 2008.

Why didn't you use FROST PROTECTION you might ask? Well, if I had a back garden, or of the tree were growing against a wall, it might be an easy matter to watch the forecast and pop the fleece or frost bag on and off whenever there was a danger of a freeze. However, my lovely allotment is some distance away, and it's just not possible to be dashing down there in the dark every evening to do the biz. I tried building various structures too (this one is made out of the fleece which comes with a mini-greenhouse)...
...but the winds on our allotment got the better of me, and they never stayed on long enough to do any good.

The good news is, as the tree gets bigger it may be MORE resistant to frost. The persistently cold weather we have been having this year may also help. I haven't been too bothered that the tree didn't fruit in the first two years, as I know it needs to build up strength to do so. But I'm going for the burn this year......so over to you, my (loyal) readers:

Who else has tried growing an AVALON PRIDE or other FREE STANDING peach tree in this challenging British climate of ours and how did you fare? You can send comments via the comments box on this page. Do tell!

Overwintering vegetables

Don't suppose any of you will be braving it out to the garden today. Absolutely freezing here. Stuck my nose out as far as our tiny courtyard though, and found some nice surprises.

The vegetables in this post started life in late OCTOBER 2008 in my three, small plastic greenhouses. True, they've all been neglected over Christmas. But they're holding their own, so this post shows what CAN be done to get a head start on Spring. After all, it's only January.

First up we have broccoli - grown in a blue plastic builders bucket. Used a knitting needle to make holes in the bottom for drainage. Broccoli is my little girl's favourite food (honestly!) and though there isn't a vast amount, there'll be some for a few nutritious snacks for her.

Then there's a new variety of lettuce: WINTER GEM. Specially bred to withstand winter in a cold greenhouse I'm happy to see it looks fresh, crisp and healthy. Won't be too long before that's salad material.

Last but not least there's GIANT WINTER SPINACH(below). A few weeks ago I thought I'd lost these to the heavy frosts but here they are, bouncing back. Soon the leaves will be big enough to add to a creamy, comforting pasta dish with home grown garlic.

Gardening Resolutions

Having just managed to mortally offend a good friend online, I've come to the probably long overdue conclusion I'm not much good at relationships...

Hope my New Year's Gardening resolutions will fare better. Here are some of them:

• To keep learning (and er...to keep making mistakes)
• To write some mind-blowingly-fantastic and useful gardening blog posts this year(I've already got lots lined up)
• Not to throw any lettuces on the compost heap because I've sown too many
• To enjoy myself

Will post again soon.

War and Peace

Two jobs. Taking time out to plan our family's food future. Listening to the world news.

Not many houses come with a pantry these days, Here's a picture of our simple storage space. Just a few shelves in the corner of a cool room.

I'm nearly ready for Spring now...need to find that box with my anti-war campaign kit in it too. It's that time again.

We stashed last year's harvest in those pretty potato baskets. Garlic, onions, apples. Storing your produce properly can help save time and money.

If the bombs aren't dropping on you.

GAZA.
More than 300 dead. See you on the streets at the protests this weekend? FOLLOW THE LINK: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Christmas Day Vegetables

After the lights went out around 8.p.m last night due to a fault (no chance of getting anyone out until Boxing Day) and I woke up to a blocked sink I admit Christmas stress started to get to me...

My three year old daughter and her beautiful smile saved the day. Looking at her I feel humbled, she is still totally happy with quite simple things.

Oh and then there's the prospect of fresh organically grown vegetables for Christmas dinner.

What's on the menu?

- A little home grown Giant Winter Spinach.
- Leeks (we have enough to last until February)
- Brussel Sprouts reared in pots
- Fresh Sage for Sage and Onion Stuffing
- Potato Dauphinoise with plenty of home grown garlic from the store

Didn't grow the carrots in the picture, great colour though. Maybe next year.
Enjoy yours and Happy Christmas all.

Don't Dig!

Every autumn on our site I see fellow allotmenteers stumbling up and down the paths, taking a break from their ritual seasonal digging. Usually they're groaning, if not in some sort of physical pain! The question is...

WHY DO THEY DO IT TO THEMSELVES?

Alright, I understand some people LIKE digging. Good luck to them and if they really need the extra exercise, then fine.

But some of the finest organic gardeners like CHARLES DOWDING
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/ haven't DUG for the past TWENTY FIVE YEARS.

If the NO-DIG approach is good enough for a highly successful organic market gardener like Charles, then it's good enough for me!

Here's how I went about establishing my own no-dig system in brief:

STEP ONE
Using a LOOSEN and LIFT system I removed all the perennial weeds I could find (things like dandelions, nettles and thistles) with a fork.

STEP TWO
I don't intend to DIG OVER my plot ever again now that the majority of these weeds are out. All the evidence I've found (including my own practical experience) tells me that digging can actually INCREASE the rate at which weeds regrow, and it can actually DAMAGE rather than IMPROVE the soil structure. So I now use mulching to keep the weeds down. (I'll come back to this one)

As you can see from previous posts - I'm raising my own plug plants at home to plant out, so I rarely need the 'fine tilth' that mainstream gardening books often speak about. (When the small plants are planted out, they are generally sturdy enough to copy with larger soil particles). In the main I would spend the time having a break - sitting on my deck chair and letting the WORMS do the hard work.

To those who remain sceptics I'd say - spend some time with Charles Dowding's site http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/. Don't knock it until you've tried it and you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble!

Success Story. Winter greens.

American Land Cress. Looks succulent and delicious, doesn't it?

Tastes very similar to water cress but (being land cress) you don't need water to grow it.
I mean - you need some water obviously, to water it - but you don't need to grow it in a stream or anything like that.

I sowed this batch of seeds in my plug planter back in September this year and planted the seedlings out when they were about two inches tall.

Looking forward to using it in salads, (egg?) sandwiches - I'm on the look out for new recipes too. Soup might be good - posh starters for a Christmas dinner perhaps...

Took this picture on one of the coldest days this week - so I know this crop will withstand a frost - in Cheshire at least. Seems like a really useful thing to grow. Especially since a small bag of organically grown water cress will set you back around £2 these days. If you can find it, that is.

This is the second time I've tried sowing land cress this year. The first batch I put in back in March - but those went to seed (bolted) almost immediately and we couldn't eat them. Land cress seems to prefer colder conditions and some shade. So now I know. I'm better off sowing these in September and keeping them for winter and Christmas greens.

Success story!


UPDATE: Just found this link for a watercress soup recipe - using the white parts of leeks and cream. Enjoy!

Red

There are times when a simple surprise blows you away.

On a cold, November day I venture out to the allotment. Cycling through some very large puddles I arrive there. Soaked to the skin.

Decide to pull up some raddichio. Wet, wet, wet clay soil clinging to the leaves - awful. Tatty and awful. Set off home again. It gets dark early - 4. o'clock in the afternoon. Geesh. More rain. Is it all worth it? At home I put the fire on and examine the sad specimens on our kitchen table...
Wait. The roots look long and strong. It doesn't seem to mind our heavy soil..

Peeling off the outside leaves unearths a slug-free gloriously crisp sea of crimson. I'm so glad I bothered. Lovely to see such colour now.

VERDICT:
(I found raddichio very easy to grow and I guess the heads cost us in total about 5p each. I've eaten it before in upmarket Italian restaurants but never so fresh, and never organically grown. So far we've eaten it with goats cheese, olive oil, bacon... - I understand the heads can be stored until Christmas - though I haven't tried this yet. My thinking is - it might make a lovely Christmas day starter...All in all it is a really useful crop to grow and harvest in November. We will definitely grow it again next year).

For more information about raddicchio click this link:

http://www.italianmade.com/