Moving On

The break in my blogging was due to experiencing the worst growing season I have known. I will admit my experience is limited but even so the weather statistics for this year's summer in the UK tell a sorry story. I pretty well gave up on my plot and so did most of my vegetables. It pretty well was a write off leaving me with little to write about.

The only semblance of success came from my runner beans and mangetout although this was the first time I had grown both. Even though I had nothing to judge them against I was pleased and surprised by the crop. It certainly gave me enough of a lift to start clearing the beds in September.

Looking for some inspiration and advice I watched this video by Alys Fowler on Winter Gardening and discovered "Hard-necked garlic" that although it has a shorter storage life than "soft-necked" is regarded as being superior for cooking. Alys explains more starting a 6 mins 20 secs in should you want to skip the rest.


So I ordered some "Lautrec Wight" garlic described as the king of garlic for the kitchen that I will be planting out in the next week. This will mark the start of a new gardening year for me with my fingers crossed that next year's weather will be better.
  

Imperial Horseradish

Although Horseradish was cultivated in antiquity by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans there is no certainty when it was introduced into Britain. Recently I was told it was brought here by the Romans and was lead on a foraging trip along an old Roman road. The Fosse Way ran from Exeter to Lincoln, a distance of 182 miles and in my county of Warwickshire its route is now followed by the B4455. According to my guide the Romans planted it alongside their roads and it still grows there in abundance today. I can certainly imagine some poor cold Roman legionnaire using its heat to cheer himself up.

After quite a bit of research on Google I am none the wiser whether this is fact or fiction. I prefer to believe it and now view my transplanted roots as a direct descendant of those Roman plantings and thus, Imperial Horseradish.

Time for Plan B?

The dismal weather that made April a wash out has continued well into May forcing a revision of my plans for my vegetable plot. 

The location of the plot seems almost ideal placed besides an old barn and bordered by two walls with the opening facing south. However appearances can be deceptive and judging from the amount of broken tiles and masonry in the soil it was mainly used as a rubbish tip. Part of the reason for this is the soil is naturally stony and in parts thick clay.

I started this year with two beds fully cleared and planned to clear two more this Spring. With four beds I could then start a crop rotation system and start on improving the soil. Although I have dug the two beds over and raked out some of the debris and larger stones the soil has been too wet to sieve. The temptation is to simply plant them with non-root vegetables and wait until next year. The other option is to take a longer view and concentrate less on growing and more on working on improving my plot.

It will be the weather over the next few weeks that will make the decision for me. If it does not improve and I am faced with a short growing season my efforts will turn towards to improving the soil and to finalise a layout for the plot.

It all started so well

There are two main factors that govern the time I spend gardening, the first is the balance between my work and spare time, it is a bit of a juggling act in busy periods but usually I will make time get out to enjoy a bit of gardening. The second is the weather although again with a bit of schedule shifting I usually manage to keep reasonably on top of keeping up with my gardening.


This year's Spring seemed slow coming or was that just me being impatient? Once into March there was a wonderful period of sunny warm days, perfect weather to tidy the beds with winter crops and prepare the others for planting out and sowing.

With rows of shallots planted out and shooting (photo above) and the broccoli in the winter bed coming into flower (photo below) the plot was beginning to take shape.

Little did I know as I bathed in the warmth of Spring sunshine and the satisfaction of being up to date with my gardening schedule that it was all going to change.


As the whole country seems to have endured a cold wet April I will not harp on about it. I am surely not the only one who is now having to amend their garden schedules. Besides which as I walked around my plot this morning I saw that some of rows of seeds I did manage to sow are now starting to come up. With May starting next week my fingers are firmly crossed we will have a change in the weather and hopefully after a few intensive days of catching up I will back on schedule.


During the wonderful weather in March I made a short video at Ryton Gardens, home of Garden Organic. It is only a partial glimpse of the gardens set to music, hopefully it will be part of a series filmed during the Spring and Summer.

Desert Island Vegetables 8

In the UK there is a long-running radio show where a guest chooses eight records/compact discs to take with them to an imaginary desert island. I have adapted this idea and in seven previous posts have chosen vegetables to take with me on a desert island. This is my eighth and final choice as I decide from all the possible vegetables left which one to take.

To aid me in this difficult decision I have consulted my copy of “Amaranth to Zucchini” by Elizabeth Schneider. This is an American book that is packed full of interesting information on 350 different vegetables together with various recipes and tips to cook them. In the end though my choice is not in the book because of the difficulty in deciding what is a vegetable or a fruit. So while various fungi are listed in the book, sweet peppers are not.

As with my previous choice of tomatoes I am going to use the culinary definitions of fruits and vegetables that place peppers in the vegetable category; botanically both are fruits.

Although my decision was based purely on culinary reasoning a bit of further research shows there are many health benefits to include peppers in my list. For example they are rich in Vitamin C and contain more (by weight) than citrus fruits.

With my list of eight vegetables for my desert island completed and the arrival of Spring marked by the equinox today my next post will be from my vegetable plot.

Photo Selection - the arrival of Spring

The weather has suddenly warmed and the garden is coming alive. At the moment I divide my time in the garden between gardening and taking photographs. Wonderful to see the cherries and plums start to blossom.

Desert Island Vegetables 7

Growing my own vegetables was stimulated by my love of cooking and the idea of using just picked ingredients. At the time I thought of myself as a pretty good cook but growing my own vegetables has revealed how little I actually knew about my ingredients. I have already mentioned being surprised by how long some vegetables take to grow. Also with many vegetables being on the Supermarket shelves all year round it is difficult to develop a sense of the seasons.

Another big education has been discovering different varieties in vegetables that I previously thought of generically. My next choice of vegetable to take to a fantasy island is a good example of this. Previously I thought of Garlic as being just Garlic although some bulbs seemed purpler. This assumption was reinforced by cookbooks that list garlic as a general ingredient.

Looking into growing my own I discovered that there is much more to garlic than I imagined. Not only can you choose between varieties for autumn or spring planting but also there are two main types, softneck and hardneck. Because softneck garlic stores better it is the one you will almost certainly buy from a Supermarket. Also with China growing 75% of the world’s garlic it could have travelled quite some distance.

Each type taste differently with each having advocates that consider theirs to taste better. To add more choice there is ranges of varieties within each type that together offer over six hundred cultivated garlic varieties worldwide.

If having all these varieties isn’t enough another often under considered fact is that where you grow your vegetables will also influence it’s growth and taste. This influence of geography, geology, climate and horticultural practice is often known by the French word Terrior or sense of place. Although widely used in discussing attributes of vineyards and their wines every plant to some degree responds to it’s environment.

Discovering varieties that thrive in your garden is either a case of trial and error or research – asking nearby growers for their experience is a good way to gain knowledge.

There are many benefits to growing your own vegetables but this widening of my knowledge and appreciation for ingredients I use in my cooking has been a welcome surprise.