It is now utterly dark when I wake up, here in Middle England. The happy side effect of this is that I can watch the sunrise as I eat my porridge. A few days ago, the first frosts arrived. I love the early morning crisp whiteness, and the eery, soft, pre-dawn light. Our Savoy cabbages…
Tag: Self Sufficiency
Potager Garden: Summer days and the first raspberry harvest
We were so happy when our little bare root stock gave us delicious raspberries in its first growing year … … and then the slow-growing cabbages, that had braved late winter weather, flooding and fended off greedy slugs, were finally ready to harvest. I planted successions of spring onions, so we are still picking those…
Potager Garden: Strawberries, flowers and the slow-growing winter harvest
Today we are busy building another two raised beds, which will be just in time for quick-growing summer vegetables this year – but will provide us with lots more space for next year’s growing season. The best news is that we have had our first strawberry harvest, and some are even making it from the…
Potager Garden: Beetroot, chives, carrots, onions and a helpful ladybird
We spent Sunday building our second large raised bed, which involved moving a lot of bedding plants around to create the space, and then we started to transplant the larger of our seedlings into pots and borders. This is when having a big family of enthusiastic children really helps! Just two more raised beds…
Potager Garden: Cabbages, Sunflowers and Fuchsia … the start of May in the garden
We spent our bank holiday hiking in Staffordshire in search of wild garlic, however we are now back and tending to the garden. We have been getting all of our late winter and early spring baby plants settled outside, and making room for lots of new seedling trays in the kitchen. Any sudden frosts and I’ll move…
Potager Garden: Baby mushrooms finally visible …
I had the idea, because a mushroom fairy ring used to pop up, seemingly overnight, every year in our old garden, that mushrooms grow exceedingly quickly. This certainly does appear to be the case as now that three weeks have gone by since planting and the little caps of our homegrown mushrooms are showing, they…
Potager Garden: mushrooms, recycled planters, seedlings and a birthday
Here in England we have had the most perfect spring week of bright sunshine, so we have been away from our blog getting lots of work done on converting the garden into a potager. Here’s a little update on how it’s going… With thanks to our online friends, we have our slug problem humanely under control…
Seasonal Recipes: Maple and Chilli Pickled Shallots
In previous years, we have focused on growing mainly salad veg, which we have harvested as they grow and have eaten straight away. This year we are expanding our garden, and looking at growing foods that can be preserved and used over many months. I’ve broken down this recipe so that you can make a simple…
Potager Garden: Raised bed building, courgette flower buds and maple-pickled shallots
News from our garden is that yesterday the weather was beautiful so my husband and children built our first raised bed for the garden, ready to be put in place this weekend… … the parsnips have all germinated this morning, the carrot seedlings are just starting to show and the peppers continue to thrive. Our…
Tiny Potager 