The sweet taste of success...

Well here we have it. The first sweet taste in 2012 of homegrown sweetcorn..

It was absolutely delicious! We served with plenty of butter and I have to say it was a) the sweetest and b) the biggest I have ever grown it. It was simply perfect, and I can't wait to harvest plenty more of the coming weeks!

Today we also picked kale, cabbage, runner beans, borlotti beans, strawberries and raspberries. The beans and brassicas were taken to my grandparent's house and the strawberries and raspberries are waiting to be devoured as soon as I publish this post. Amy has been down to the allotment three times this week to pick strawberries and we have picked over 50 each time. We also have raspberries by the bucket load too...

 



 

You might already know if you have seen our live twitter feed on the right, but at the weekend we visited Ryton Organic Gardens near Coventry. We had scheduled to visit West Midland's Safari Park because we HAD some free tickets, emphasis on the HAD because as we about to step out the door we noticed that they expired the week before! Typical!

Anyway we ended up at Ryton. Amy had never been before and I hadn't been in a couple of years. I love the idea of growing heritage varieties and this is something they really promote. We obviously paid most attention to the vegetable growing side of things.

This would be idyllic wouldn't it...

They also had a greenhouse full of interesting tomatoes. This tomato really caught the eye. They didn't seem to form on 'trusses' like normal tomatoes do...

They were actually dangling on their own. They were absolutely huge and almost pepper like. Here is the placard with the variety name on...

The amount of tomatoes growing perfectly was very enviable. So many fellow bloggers (ourselves included) have reported about the widespread blight problem that we've had in this country this year. A real shame. For all of us who forgot what home grown tomatoes look like, here is a reminder...

 

 

Right, I'm now off to enjoy those strawberries and raspberries. Don't forget to follow us on twitter @ourgoodlifeblog ! I am slowly making it around everybody elses blogs leaving comments. Thanks again for reading. We hope you have a plentiful harvest this week! I have another blog post planned for later this week, so keep your eyes peeled.

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

September Strawberries and other musings...

Well, at least it's now official! The craziest growing season that we have ever had!

We had literally a couple of strawberries to harvest during the sunny spring, nothing all summer and now....

 

 

I think this picture taken only a couple of days ago really sums up the rollercoaster that all of us growers have been on this year. Many, many downs but thankfully some ups too!! It's been really exciting seeing what has coped but also dissapointing to see what has flopped. The strawberries are still on a resurgence and there are plenty more to pick in the coming days.

 

Other recent picking have offered...

 

...plenty of beans....

 

 

...and GIANT MARROWS!!

 

 

 



 

The last week or so has been pretty good weather wise, but due to the new job the allotment is a little bit more neglected than I would like. We are also going out for the day on Friday so there will be little time to visit the plot then. Thankfully Amy has agreed to come to the allotment to give me a hand tomorrow evening, so it will give us some chance to catch up.

 

 

So hopefully we'll get the weeds under control at some point and we'll be ready to put the beds we used for potatoes and onions to bed this week by raking in some new compost and covering them over until next year. I have been so busy elsewhere that I haven't even sown any Spring Cabbage seeds despite having the packet sat on my bedside table to remind me. I might have to buy some plugs in a few weeks or sow some in the next couple of days and really hope for the best. Never mind. We're still eating a plentiful supply of summer cabbage, but we are definately going to suffer come the hungry gap!

 

I must remember that this is our first year on this plot, so we are still learning all about what grows well on this site and we are always thinking of things we can do better. Despite having the allotment for only 7 months we have already been hit twice by mindless thugs. You might remember that our mini greenhouse was stolen a couple of weeks after we 'moved in' and last week some thieving scum bags broke in to a whole host of sheds on the plot. Thankfully they didn't manage to get in to ours but they did have a very good go and there is noticeable damage to some of the shed panels and to the lock which is obscurely bent and now difficult to close.

 

 

Thankfully there is nothing in there worth stealing......

We opened the door, it wasn't ajar when we discovered the failed break in attempt.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well! It is depressing, but at least they didn't damage any plants or steal any veg! That's the main thing!

 

Well. I hope to bring you more updates here soon. I would also just like to clarify that WE ARE NOT moving to facebook permanently. It will just be a subsidary of this blog and will make it easier to communicate with a large pool of our followers and we also hope that our 'min updates' will  feaure here too. Please don't worry, we aren't going anywhere and we are here to stay.

 

Thanks again for reading. I am hoping to get some pictures of my new work place on here before too long. We have 6 acres of beautiful gardens including a kitchen garden!

 

Keep smiling, it's almost Christmas!

 

Sorry!

 

Martin :0)



August

It's a funny month. After all your hard work some vegetables growth comes to end like the potatoes and the onions and others really just start to kick in like th runner beans and courgettes.

We currently have courgettes and marrows coming out of our ears. My favourite thing to do with them at the moment is to make mediterranean style vegetables using red onion, courgettes and pepers. Simply delicious! We will be having that tonight with some burgers.

Like I've just said the runner beans are starting to come on leaps and bounds and due to them being so late this year we have only just picked our first of the year today. I would normally expect them by mid July at the latest, but rather late than never as they say. Here''s a picture of today's harvest anyway...

The Maris Piper gave us a really good crop of potatoes. The charlotte first earlies were sensational and our maincrop aren't bad. Blight was quickly spreading over many fellow allotment holders crops so I thought it was best to get them out of the ground straight away. It might have been better to give them another couple of weeks to bulk up but overall we have about 25kg which will suit us perfectly.

So now there are no potatoes there is a huge empty bed on the left and on the right is another where the onions took up residence. The onions were pretty poor and out of the 40 or so maincrop onions we planted only about a dozen are worth keeping. The shallots we planted in May were'nt too bad so this is something to remember for next time! All of the alliums we are harvested are currently hanging on the washing line at Amy's house..

The onions are on the line in the foregrounds and the shallots are hanging on the line in the background!

The produce keeps coming and we are eating fresh vegetables daily. The first cabbage has turned in to the second, third, fourth and fifth so we are doing very well.

I would like to catch up on my blog reading, but with starting a new job next week it is very difficult to do as much as I would like and that does include getting up to the allotment. As you can see in the next picture some areas look like a pit of weeds. Never mind...

Although I must add that a lot of the plots on our site are 'occupied' but people have done a little bit and then let the weeds completly takeover so it is an absolute constant battle. The two allotments to our left were 5ft high with weeds before he came and strimmed the lot (including the veg he had planted) last weekend. There are about 7 allotments which are completly covered with weeds on our site. I wish the council would do something about it!

There is plenty to do when I do get some time, I need to plant the Christmas new potatoes and sow some spring cabbage seeds too! Plenty to be done in preperation for winter in August, so I better get shifting and that includes shifting horse manure on to the two empty beds which will be occupied by beans and pumpkins next year, so the more manure the better!!

Thankyou as always for reading. I hope your harvest is as good as ours. Will do some reading of your blogs before bedtime too, I promise!!

Martin

Ooohh and I almost forgot. We have grapes forming too...

Gold! Gold! Gold! Even a GOLD Post Box!

Well Gold is definately this month's colour. With the unprecendeted number of olympic gold medals being won by Team Gb, and also the prospect of Golden Sunshine this week things are starting to look good again. We've also been digging up some Gold treasure down the allotment in the form of our maincrop potatoes. We took advantage of the mid-day sunshine to dig up a row of our main crop Maris Piper's. I was expecting them to be a good size for Jacket Potatoes and also for mashing but in reality the size varied greatly with small to medium potatoes and then the occasional whopper. We decided to only harvest the one row and have left the other 5 for next week!

We easily got 5-6kg off the small row. Our rows are only about 1/3 of the size of the allotment's width so it was a very good haul indeed.

The rain in recent weeks has ruined crops such as onions and shallots, but it seems to be doing the majority of the cucurbit family a world of good. We've had Golden Yellow courgettes to pick daily and the monstrous marrows keep coming too. Here's a picture of our marrow and courgette harvest from one day last week. This was a particularly bumper day but we are picking at least 3 courgettes per day...

The Pumpkin patch is also looking great too. We have at least 6 pumpkins which have set and are forming nicely. A couple of the hundredweight variety are already past an acceptable size for a jack o'lantern at halloween and seein as they have the best part of 2 months left to grow then we shall see what they are going to do. It could all be very exciting...



After 6 years of trying, this week brought me one of my greatest triumphs as a vegetable grower. I finally managed to grow, harvest and eat one of my own cabbages. I had told Amy that for years I have failed to get my cabbages to heart properly, they have always ended up with open leaves and not tight hearts. Well this year I changed my growing method slightly and I now have 2 rows of perfectly hearted cabbages and delicious they are too. I bet you think I can't keep up my gold theme now, well I kid you not but this variety of cabbage is called 'Golden Acre'..

I am very pleased with the final results. I had said that if they didn't grow properly this year then I might give up on brassicas next year. However, this delicacy has given me some hope at least. Sods law indicates that they will not heart properly next year, but I will try!

The allotment is abundent with growing produce and plenty of weeds too. The forecast is good for the rest of the week so I shall be going up to tidy everything up. As we harvest these cabbages it is a good reminder that it is time to sow some for spring time. I will be doing that in the next week or so, as I continue to plan for next years 'hungry gap' already.

On my way back from the allotment today, I popped by my town's new golden glory...



With 3 bags of produce in tow, I think they probably thought I was coming to sell it to passers by, but in reality I was only getting a picture for my loyal followers, who keep coming back to read my blog even when my posts are slightly infrequent.

The post box outside our post office has been painted Gold as a result of the success of local equestrian rider Nick Skelton who won a Gold medal in the team event at the London 2012 olympics.

Well done Nick and thanks to everyone else for reading.

I am way behind on blog reading but I hope your harvest are as good as ours.

Enjoy the sun,

Martin

Food, Glorious Food

Hot crumble and custard!

( Not the original words, but more appropriate in our circumstances!)

Well the produce keeps coming. It's a daily battle with the soft fruit bushes to keep on top of picking. We have huge amounts of Raspberries and Blackcurrants. I've actually got a blackcurrant and apple crumble in the oven right now, so it is an ideal time to sit down and write a blog post.

The rain hasn't stopped in recent weeks but admitedly the weather is starting to ease and believe it or not they are predicting that we might have a week long summer next week. I'll certainly be getting my shorts and wellies on to get up to the allotment. Due to the weather the only visits we are making is to harvest fruit and vegetables for dinner. The weeds keep growing, but there is little chance to do anything about it until we get a break in the rain. We had planned to have a whole day down at the plot on Friday but due to the weather it turned in to a solitary hour, but we managed to weed the onion bed in that time.

Aside from soft fruit, we've been harvesting lots of vegetables too. We are harvesting potatoes every other day and each plant is giving us a good amount and is plenty for just the two of us. We are getting between 7-10 potatoes off each plant and they range from golf ball size to just under the size of a tennis ball. Some of them are the biggest charlotte potatoes I have ever seen. When I have grown them in the past they have been small and kidney shaped, but these have completly dwarfed all of my previous efforts.

The courgettes keep coming and you could say we are beginning to enter the glut period. One of my favourite times of year! The other cucurbits doing well are the pumpkins, their plants are almost 10ft long now. They are running away from their patch and encroaching on paths and other beds. We're really hoping for a giant pumpkin this year but at the moment we'll settle for a giant marrow and giant lettuce. The rain must be good for something. Although this marrow isn't a giant, I read that you shouldn't let the first one get too big and then pick it and this will encourage more growth. We're not growing for the show bench, but for the dinner table so this is a very good size.

I was about to sow some lettuce seeds about 10 weeks ago when a fellow plot holder came over to me offering me some of his spare lettuce seedlings, not only did it save me a job then but it has also provided us with lettuce in the kitchen. We have had it in salads, in sandwiches and on top of big juicy burgers in a bun and it has been great. He didn't know what variety it was and I still don't know exactly either. It looks like a cos, but what variety, who knows? I've decided to call it Jumbo Gem and you'll see why...

Other things we are picking include broad beans, strawberries and other varieties of lettuce. The runner beans and dwarf beans are flowering now so it can't be long until those. I must remember to take pictures of the allotment. You can just about see it behind Amy, but the weather never really does it any justice when we take pictures of the whole plot. I'll try it tonight after dinner, we'll be making a flying dash to pick some more soft fruit and courgettes to top our pizza for tomorrow night.

It's an absolute delight being back on the allotment site after a 2 year absence due to studying. It's fantastic to be picking and eating delicious food again, and great to see Amy's enthusiasm continue to rise every time we pick something new.

If you're lucky I might upload some more pictures tomorrow. I was busy at a job intereview today for next year's placement year at university, I was amazed to see their fantastic grounds and gardens. It is located in Selly Oak and the manor was owned by George Cadbury who was of course the founder of the iconic chocolate brand. They also had an allotment area and polytunnel and ran gardening courses. I would be deligthed to get the job there and contribute not only to the business function side of it but also get in and amongst the gardens too! Paradise!

Will be setting time aside tomorrow to catch up on my favourite blogs, have not had time to read them for well over a week.

Hope the sun shines for you!

Martin



Plenty to pick and much to eat!

Well, we are about a 1/3  of the way through our new potato harvests, and the rest of this years crop should see us up and onwards until the maincrop are ready at the beginning of August.

We have been really impressed with the potatoes, it is so nice forking them up and seeing golden balls of luxury gleaming back at you. They are a great size for new potatoes too, we bought them as 'Charlotte' seed potatoes, but I don't think they are. They don't share many of the main characteristics of that variety, so I am adamant they were marked up wrong or either we provided such a fantastic growing medium and quantity of fertiliser that we really have encouraged them to bulk up greatly.

It's not just the potatoes that are ready. We've been picking plenty of blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries. We enjoyed some raspberries with meringue and cream on Thursday evening, it was heavenly! There is a punnet of blackcurrants in the fridge ready to make a pie or crumble tomorrow afternoon.

The lettuce are still growing well, but like quite a few of the leafy vegetables and plants they are looking a little bit scorched. Over the last few days we have had torrential rain in the mornings and baking heat in the late afternoon. It's doing the pumpkins and the rest of the cucurbits the world of good, but a lot of the other veg aren't too fond at all.

The shallots were one example of vegetables that hated the diverse weather. They really struggled when the weather changed from scorching hot in late May to wet, wet, wet in June. The leaves died back and I've decided to pull them out, because a few of them were showing signs of re-growing and dividing again. The shed currently smells like and onion factory (if such a thing exists) they are spread over newspaper on the potting table whilst they dry off. They are all a good size for pickled onions. We did actually plant some shallots in mid May when the sets were reduced at a garden centre, they have thrived and have already exceeded the size of most of the March planted shallots. It definately is a case to illustrate the case for staggering planting and sowing of vegetable crops.

Anyway, here is a picture of what we harvested this evening...



Plenty to look forward to tomorrow dinner time.

Weather permitting Amy is coming down to the allotment tomorrow to help to do the weeding which is a real God send. Knowing my luck it will definately rain.

Fingers crossed!

Martin 

A note to the sky..

I have had enough of this weather! Have you? Yesterday morning we were sat in the living room being deafened by rain pelting against the windows, the whole road was flooded and there was no sign of it letting up. Then came the thunder and lightening, what a great insight in to summer time this was.

However, cometh the afternoon it was blazing sun with temperatures at 25 degrees celcius. I made my way to the allotment and came back in the evening with blackcurrants, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries and a tickle of SUNBURN!

Absolutely unbelievable. It is so hard to plan days at the allotment when the weather is so varied. Thankfully yesterday afternoon was good enough for me to get a lot of weeding done and also plant out the carrots we had started off in old loo rolls. We also planted some lettuces which we bought from a large food retailer that I work for. They were those cut and come again 'living lettuces' that are quite fashionable in the high end supermarkets. They had apparently exceded their sell by date and thus were destined for the bin (how a living thing can exceed it's sell by date is beyond me!), but I did manage to get them via a friend for 8p each from the staff waste sale. We had 15 so they are all now planted up and should in theory give us lettuce throughout the summer. We've picked some leaves from all of them to encourage them to produce new growth!

They are a gorgeous colour and I will be letting them go to seed at the end of summer to save seeds to plant again for next year!



We've planted 12 out in between the broad beans and dwarf french beans to fill a gap from the second lot of broad beans that failed to get going due to mice/bird problems. I don't normally use slug pellets but I've had to give in. We were losing a lettuce per day last week due to the wet conditions. We had tried using 100% natural organic pellets but they made no difference. So we have reverted back to the blue pellets but they are supposedly repellant and non toxic to domestic wildlife so that is good.

There are plenty more weeds to remove over the coming week, and I also want to get straw down at the top half of the plot to keep weeds down. The top area was awash with couch grass and the only way to get rid of it/to reduce it is to cover the area for 6 months or more. Obviously it would be suicidal to cover 1/3 of the allotment and not grow on it so we have dug over it several times and have planted it up with pumpkins, sweetcorn and some brassicas, so now I can cover around them with straw to keep the weeds at bay but also retain moisture for the vegetables if we do get a warm patch. Unlikely I know..

Anyway, I'm going to be catching up with other blogs today if I can. However, I do need to get up to the allotment and weed around the strawberries. I'll try and take lots more pictures to give you an idea of how the plot is doing.

Have a great weekend!

Martin

First Earlies, First Strawberries, First Courgettes and a lot more firsts...

Wow! Things are really picking up on the plot now. I won't do a full allotment update because I am saving that for Wednesday or Thursday's post.

Anyway I just wanted to share the joy we have had over the last few days. We have harvested some first early potatoes, the first strawberries, first courgette, first raspberries, first blackcurrants and MORE LETTUCE!

I was waiting for our potatoes to bulk up a bit, all of the first earlies have been flowering for between 1 and 2 weeks now which means they are ok to harvest, but for a bigger yield you can wait longer. Seeing Monty failing to resist temptation on Gardener's World last Friday, I went down to the allotment this morning to dig up a plant and see what was beneath...

I rushed home after picking a courgette and lettuce before I left, and quickly boiled up a pan of water for the potatoes, put some local sausages in the oven, and made a ratatouille using the courgette, the last of the bought onions (before we harvest ours) and an aubergeine we bought at gardener's world. I then smothered the new potatoes with butter and mmmmm mmmmm mmmm!

Let's put it this way, we didn't need to wash our plates afterwards.. they were spotless!! The tastiest potatoes I've ever tasted, they really were, I'm not just saying that because we planted them ourselves, if you can find me a shop bought potato that tasted that good I wouldn't bother, but until then I will continue to grow my own! Truth is you will never find a shop bought potato that was in the ground 1 hour before I put it in to my mouth. That's a fact!

It has also been satisfying to pick the first few strawberries over the last couple of days because that only means one thing, Wimbledon starts today! You know where to find me for the next few weeks.. In front of the telly, or down the plot in between the big matches!

Thanks for visiting the blog, I hope you are harvesting lots of tasty fresh produce too!

Martin

Flaming (wet) June

Well, I'm glad exams are out the way and a long, luxurious period of time on the allotment is now upon me! Poor Amy still has another 2 weeks to go until she put her feet up for a short time and join me on plot 114.

It makes me chuckle that the last time I made a post on this blog I entitled it 'Cost Del Allotment' referring to the scorching temperatures we had at the end of May. Almost 2 weeks on and the allotment is full of puddles and I haven't had to water for at least a week which is great in a way!

The courgettes and pumpkins are loving it, but the weather has stressed the onions and many of them are starting to bolt which is highly frustrating! These things happen though.

I was hoping to get down to the allotment to take some pictures to show you but the weather and bad light doesn't make them worth posting in all fairness. So you'll have to wait for the sunshine before you see the pictures of the plot now.

The good thing to tell you is that we are now eating fresh produce off the plot. We've had raddish but now we're harvesting a couple of lettuce per week which is ideal. Here's a few of our perfectly formed and delicious little gems....

 I see the strawberries are tinged with red too! Can't be long now, when's Wimbledon??

Everything is growing really well, especially the brasicas which look like they are already beyond the stage my brassicas usually get to, so fingers crossed there.

Off to Gardener's World Live on Friday so will do a report like last year. Last year's report had hundreds of hits from around the web so it was obviously popular.

I haven't logged in to the blog for a few weeks and our number of followers has jumped up so welcome all, I hope you enjoy reading.

Enjoy the rest of the week, sun or no sun!

Martin

In the summer..

Seeing as I am not a first time vegetable grower, I can take huge quantities of optimism from freshly dug soil and the increasing daylight hours we are getting at the moment. But if you are a first time vegetable grower it can be difficult to generate such high hopes so early on. I think this is why a lot of people who take on allotments don't last even the first year. The first few months are a lot of hard work, the hardest work you will ever have to do on your plot and there is almost zero reward apart from dull, brown, soil. If it's going to be this hard, then why bother, especially when it comes to April and all it seems to do is rain, rain and well.. rain!

Amy had a little bit of experience with growing vegetables last year, but we did start late and we did buy plants from garden centres, so after planting our courgettes out we were harvesting them in 4 weeks. When you have to plant the seeds yourself in February, March and April and drag yourself up to the allotment on the rainiest of rainy days to water the seedlings in the greenhouse it can be quite a chore to focus on the long term goals.

The most frequently uttered phrase when we are at the allotment is 'in the summer...'. I have to remind Amy that in the summer we won't be looking at patches of bare earth and puddles on the patio, but in fact there will be runner bean plants towering over us, potatoes being earthed up weekly, pumpkins enjoying the beer and sun as much as we are, and sausages sizzling away on the mini barbeque. But snap out of it Martin! We are still looking at bare patches of land right now. But wait, should that be we were looking at bare patches of earth yesterday, but today something has changed. Yep, there is another weed, but what is this? The emergence of the first pea shoot, the onions have started to grow, wait that rhubarb can be picked today. Bring on the custard!

The vegetable section of the allotment (80% of the whole allotment) has been split up in to 4 large beds for alliums, potatoes, legumes and brassicas which will work on a classic rotational basis (sort of). There are also smaller beds for courgettes, sweetcorn, root vegetables, asparagus and pumpkins.

Approaching from the shed the bed on the right is for courgettes and is covered by carpet to keep the weeds off until we need the area,(I'll be doing a post sharing my courgette growing secrets in a week or so). Next the bed on the left is covered with fleece and has potatoes underneath, none have poked through yet, but I'm sure it won't be long, we planted them on Good Friday. On the right the allium bed is really taking off with 2 rows of shallots, 3 rows of red onions, 2 rows of brown onions, 1 row of perpetual onions and 2 rows of garlic...

Moving on up the lottie, the next bed on the right is currently covered in very well rotted horse muck which I need to dig in ready for the brassicas. I was in such a dilemma regards how to prepare my brassica bed, every book and every website conflicts with one another, so I trusted the oldest book I had, so fingers crossed!

The bed on the left is for the legumes. We started some broad beans off in an old grow bag at my Grandad's house and we have transfered them up to the allotment now they are big enough. We've planted a second lot of broad beans directly in to the soil to offer a successional crop..

The new bamboo structure for the runner beans is a big sign that good things are ahead...

Peas have also gone in to the ground and I've put the pea sticks in all ready to hide emerging pea shoots from pigeons, penguins and mice.

At the top of the allotment is one big wide bed, which is going to be 3 smaller beds for sweetcorn, pumpkins and root crops respectively. I just need to source some wood to make the bed divides, but that might not be done until the end of May or the beginning of June. It looks a bit messy, plenty more preperation needed before the end of the month..

So, although I keep saying 'in the summer..' the first rewarding signs of growth and the first harvest of raddish are already upon us. Looking back, there is life all over the plot. Broad beans, peas, potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic are all growing well in the ground. I can't wait for Amy to see what the allotment will look like in the summer, it's going to be spectacular. I promise!

Visit us again soon to see our amazing new soft fruit area!

Thanks again!

Martin

A taste of things to come...

It is with absolute pleasure that I am able to announce that we are back online!

We now have 2 fully functional laptops between us after a period of time with only our phones to use as internet access and therefore there has been no blog posts for a while.

The allotment has transformed superbly over the last few weeks and we can not believe how well things are going. You would not recognise it from the day we took over to now. We are so proud of our achievements and we are so pleased to have a small taste of things to come.

We had planted raddish seeds in a raised bed planter days after getting the plot, and it was very rewarding to have a nibble on the first few a couple of days ago.

I'm going to do a bumper pack of blog updates over the coming days and week so check back for more pictures and blog entries.

As a teaser, here is the picture of the first raddish out of the ground. You can see some of what the allotment look like now in the background.

It was delicious!!!

Speak soon,

Martin

100

Since this blog started out in April we have now made a stagerring 100 posts. Don't ask us how, but we have quickly reached such a great milestone. We have already broke the record number of visitiors to our blog in a month in July and we still have just under a week left.

It is so suitable that the 100th post is a celebration of the harvests we have had from our own garden.

We are having home made lasagne for tea and to accompany it we have some of our delicious home grown potatoes, two lovely courgettes. We also have some broad beans and mange tout waiting for tomorrow's dinner.

How exciting.

We have really enjoyed the journey on our blog so far and we can't wait to write the next 100 posts too.

Enjoy the delightful sun. May this be the start of a great week.

Martin

Time

Where the heck does it go? I've been working most of this week so I have not had much time to blog, so I am writing a few posts up now to keep me going over the weekend. I have not had anywhere near enough time to read the blogs I follow, I will be catching up with these from Monday. This weekend is such a busy one, my brother's birthday is tomorrow and we are having a family barbeque, so that should be fun anyway.

In the veg garden, everything is going pretty well. Apart from the fact I knocked a big terrocotta pot full of lettuce leaf seelings over when I caught naughty Margot eating all the tops on the carrots, everything else is good.

This week we will be eating so much homegrown produce. There are broad beans, mange tout, lettuce, raddish, courgettes and...

POTATOES!

Our first decent batch out of the filled up compost bags. Most of them are a good size fornew potatoes, there are a few mini potatoes and a few silly potatoes where the potato is no bigger than a drawing pin.

I can't wait to show Amy when she gets home. I had been leaving and resisting temptation to pull up these potatoes earlier, but the leaves had died back and were starting to go yello and the flowers had fell off over a week ago.

These should be delicious. I fancy a a few of them just plain with some butter and a sprig of mint, and then I think the others are destined to accompany a quiche.

I promise I will catch up with the blogs I follow next week, looks like a lot of reading.

Have a superb weekend!

Martin

The Jubilance of July

July. Probably the best month for being a veg gardener. All of your hard work during the previous months have lead up to this point. Over there the tomatoes are doing well, over there the potatoes are almost ready, over there the courgettes continue to come, over there the lettuces get bigger, over there the pak choi has bolted. Everything seems to be doing well (there is always one exception, stupid pak choi!!), and there is little maintenance to carry out.

In fact, it is very nice to pour a glass of homemade lemonade, sit back and look at what we have done. We have turned an old fenced off chicken run into a small producing plot, with plans to make it even better next year! (Hopefully)

We have enjoyed a few completly home grown meals. We used the saveable pak choi leaves in a stir fry last night, with some courgette, spinach, mange tout and some very hot chilli peppers. It was delicious. We've had a nice salad, and a vegetable fritatta, with some courgettes and mange tout in an omelette. It's been great.

We are just waiting on a few other things to mature and then there will be plenty more meals like that to come.

I said there was no maintenance on the plot. Well that is a lie. There are jobs to do, but there is nothing major really. If you afford yourself fifteen minutes a day then it is easy to keep on top of things. Although everything is going well, we need to be vigilant. At any moment, we could see blight overtake the tomatoes and potatoes, cabbage fly wip out the cabbages etc. If we keep a good look out for these things then we will definately be in a good place. Picking the odd weed from between the rows of veg is not particularly stenuous on our small plot.

Yesterday I spent a little while doing some of the simple jobs.

I've given the sunflowers and sweetcorn some support. The sweetcorn are planted in a triangle to aid pollination, but they were all leaning in to the centre and it looked a bit of a mess. So some bamboo canes have been added and I've loosely tied the sweetcorn to them.

 The sunflowers are not in the sunniest spot in the garden, so they have decided to start leaning towards the sun, although they would benefit from a bit more sun, they are not in the world's worst position so these were staked back too. My Grandma and Grandad gave me the seeds for the sunflowers so I gave them three plants in return and these are now planted too..

Since the pak choi plan went bottom side up, there is a bit more space at the end of the plot furthest away from the shed. We have had our cabbage growing in pots in the greenhouse ready for transportation when some more space becomes available. I planted out three of the cabbage plants we planted a few months ago. They are in a good spot by the damson tree.

There is still time to sow some more salad leaves and lettuce so I did that to give us some late summer salad greens. We will definately appreciate them come late August and early September.

We are really looking forward to the sweet peppers we are growing in the mini greenhouse. I placed them more centrally in the greenhouse as they seem to be growing well. The middle of the top shelf in the greenhouse is the highest point.

 I have always had fantastic luck with chilli peppers but not so much with sweet peppers. We have 4 sweet pepper plants and 5 chilli pepper plants this year, so hopefully there will be plenty of peppers of different shapes, colours and sizes over the next couple of months.

The flowers are going wild in those hanging baskets too..

I had to pick out a few dead heads, but nothing major. I am really pleased with these!

We are both really enjoying reading everybody's blogs and seeing what you are picking from your own gardens, allotments, window containers, greenhouses, polytunnels, smallholdings and farms. It is amazing that all of us bloggers have different sized growing area.  From Rachel with her small city balcony to  Mo and Steve and of course Sue with her much larger site. It is superb to see how we all grow things, both similarly and differently.

Have a great day, don't forget to check out some of the other blogs on the right hand side toolbar, and see what everybody else is doing this wonderful summer's day.

Martin

Pak (of rubbish) Choi

I am really dissapointed with our pak choi.

It has bolted...

Some of you may not be surprised to hear this as you are a lot wiser than me, but if I knew that they were so sensitive I wouldn't have consumed our valuable growing space with 2 whole rows of this crop. I wish I had grown more lettuce instead!

I have now read that they are extemly sensitive to a real mix of weather conditions. So with the the days of drought followed by periods of sogging wetness, the pak choi did not approve and decided to run to flower.

I was really looking forward to a good crop of this. The good news is that we can still eat the leaves despite it bolting so a nice homegrown stirfry is on the cards tonight. Courgette, pak choi leaves, spinach, mange tout, maybe one of the fillius blue chillies to liven it up a bit. Delicieux!

We are both really enjoying our really healthy home grown meals.

Have a great day!

Martin

Raddish

I've never really had much luck with raddish. It always looks promising, but the root never seems to swell to a decent size. This year we are growing raddish in a plastic trough. We divided it into three sections and sprinkled some seed in each section at two week intervals. So we should have 6 weeks worth of raddishes.

The first lot of seeds are now a congregation of bushy leaves with the smallest pin head roots, seeing as this variety is supposed to mature in 21 days, it is almost 6 weeks now and nothing. Do I have a raddish curse? The third sowing are only 2 weeks old so are at the most basic stage of forming. However, the second sowing seem to be as far ahead if not further head than the first sowing, they have caught up nicely and really are beginning to overtake.

When inspecting them earlier today I spotted this thing..

A RADDISH!!

I couldn't believe it. I remember that even when I had the allotment I had little luck with raddishes, so to have one worth eating is a real bonus.

Amy loves raddish so this went down a treat.!! She could quite easily eat a whole bag full if they were in front of her, I always thought it was very strange because(..cough!) I don't really like raddish. But then again the feelings are reversed regards Beetroot!

We had a few more smaller raddishes, some salad leaves we have grown in a tub, some mange tout which we gently boiled, a few more small courgettes and some young spinach. With a freshly laid boiled egg, we had a nice homegrown salad yesterday night.

Delicious!
Enjoy the rest of your day!

Martin

P.S Don't forget that the first ever Our-Good-Life prize giveaway started yesterday. Work out the clues on the blog as they appear and you could win a gardening hamper worth over £20. You have to be in it to win it.

Click here for more details

Plot to plate..

In just under 30 minutes. We picked our own veg to accompany our dinner tonight. We are pleased to say that the mange tout is now ready for picking, and they looked extremly scrumptious last night. Such a divine tasting vegetable..

The mange tout seeds were the first seeds we planted this year. We planted out the courgettes on the same day, but we bought those from plants. In fact one of the first posts on this blog outlines what we did. (click here)

To see how far we've come when we simply look back on blog posts from a couple of months ago is very exciting! This whole journey started with a few pots and seeds and now we have tons of stuff that is growing at a rapid pace.

Mange tout alone would have been a dissapointing side to go with our lovely pork loin, so a few courgettes freshly picked from the flourishing bushes was a bonus too. They were delicious too, so both were a real success.

We had to cheat with the potatoes by buying them, our first 'harvest' resulted in a solitary potato but we are optimistic about the next lot of bags nonetheless.

Finally..We are going camping today! I cleaned out the car last night, and loaded in all of the things we needed such as sleeping bags,food, stove, folding chairs etc.

We are staying in Bourton on the Water for a single night tonight, and returning later tomorrow because Amy has work in the evening. Bourton is a gorgeous place to visit, and almost two full days will give us plenty of time to explore the quiet village.

Have a good day and happy harvesting!

Martin

Summer is here!

Well, today has been absolutely delightful. The sun has been beaming down on us all afternoon and the temperature has reached 29 celcius.

I was unsure whether the good weather we had been promised all week would actually reach us when the sky was filled with grey all throughout Saturday. There was quite a blowing wind too, which added to our doubts.

We had been searching for somewhere to go strawberry picking in the local vicinity. Like I said in a previous post, the biggest ones in the area had shut down, so we were less than optimistic of finding somewhere really local. However, it was nice to see a sign for a ‘PYO’ in Dunnington, a very small village about 3 miles from us. We went yesterday and picked a bucket load of delicious, juicy strawberries. We enjoyed some yesterday with some scones and cream, and we are going to have some tonight after a barbeque at Amy’s house. The rest will be frozen for use at a later date.

You can see in this picture why I was quite doubtful about the gorgeous weather reaching us..

The wind was ripping through the open field!

Here is Amy with her ‘champion’ strawberry...

It was massive, and the perfect shape too!

Here is the final pickings...

Cost us £9 in total. But compared to buying the supermarket you can’t beat the flavour, freshness and the support to the local producers. When you work it out that Marks and Spencer’s strawberries cost £4.40 a kilogram, these were a bargain because we got almost 4 kilos.

The afternoon was very pleasant despite the grey skies. Picking your own is great fun, and gives you a real sense of getting back to nature.

I’m off now to enjoy the rest of this baking heat , and fill my face with some lovely barbeque food.

Enjoy the rest of your day, please think of me when I start work at 5am.

Martin



Hedgerow Heaven

Well. My grandma and grandad have lived in their current home for almost twenty years, and yesterday I saw something for the first time that I had previously failed to notice.

Across the road, is a hedgerow with a mixture of different bushes, and in the middle were...

Raspberries!

What a delightful find. I am used to helping myself to plentiful blackberries and elderflowers but I have never come across Raspberries like this before. I am always keen to make the most of free food wherever I can.

Why not?

We are going to tuck in to these ones tonight, we also had one off our measly raspberry bushes/canes.

Talking of elderflowers I picked over 20 heads, to make some elderflower cordial. It's quite late in to the elderflower season, in fact I struggled to find 20 good quality, healthy heads. But I did. I've made elderflower cordial before and it was absolutely delicious. I read on the River Cottage forum that the best way to store it is in plastic water bottles (we have plenty of these lying around) and then you should keep 1 in the fridge for current use, and then pop the rest in the freezer until they are required, then you don't have any odd tasting stuff in a couple of weeks. We bought some cordial at Gardener's World/ The Good Food Show, if it tastes anything like it then I will be very, very pleased.

I'll update you with how it went as soon as possible. I know I still haven't posted about the candles we made, but be sure to find it here in the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Martin

It's all down hill from here..

Well, today marks the beginning of summer.

Every day now until the 23rd December we will gradually get less and less sunlight. I've really been enjoying the long late nights in the garden, I recon we've still got a month or so of late nights though. It's not going to get really dark, really quickly now is it!

I don't think vegetables get the credit they deserve, they are much cleverer than you think. The 21st June is a significant day for the likes of leeks, beetroot and many other root carrots. Apparently, these delicious vegetables clock on to the fact that the amount of daylight is gradually reducing and therefore they begin to in take more and more water and nutrients in order to prepare themselves for winter. (Obviously, they won't see the winter in the garden, but they don't know that) With the increased intake of goodness the vegetables begin to swell up and then when they are at their prime we take them in to the kitchen to eat.

Following yesterday's post about the lack of strawberries, we've been searching for locations to go and pick our own from local strawberry fields. I remember that when I was a kid we used to pick our own all the time. But these days it is difficult to find any where to do it. It seems that the health and safety brigade have forced many small businesses to shut up shop. The strawberries still grow, but you can't pick your own. It's very sad really. I am going to do a bit of search tonight and see what I can find, but in the meantime I've found something that is equally delicious and free in the hedgerows, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them. I'll tell you a bit more about them tomorrow.

I couldn't post a blog post without a picture.

So I thought this picture sums up my day...

...tiring!

I took this picture at the Royal Show in 2007. Why did they have to cancel it, it was such good fun.

Have a great day one and all. I still have the candle post and hedgerow post to go up in the next few days so be sure to check back.

Thanks for visiting,

Martin