Purple sprouting broccoli

Finally, our purple sprouting broccoli is ready to be consumed! We sowed it in March last year and were getting pretty desperate to:

1) eat it
2) get the space ready to prepare the vegetable patch for this year's crop


One thing is sure is that the taste is DIVINE. It is unbelievable how tasty and good it is. For a start, I ecould smell the broccoli whilst picking and cooking it. Then the cooking water was bright green, as if grass juice, which probably means that there are millions more nutrients and goodness in these than the ones we buy from the greengrocer.


I really recommend growing purple sprouting broccoli. It sure takes a lot of space (over 1 m2 per plant) and it does take up your space for at least a year, but it is well worth it if you have the space. We will be growing them again this year for sure!

Spring is approaching...slowly

The bulbs we planted back in October are growing very well, and I am looking forward to seeing some flower buds. We did not do much in the border at the front of the house last year, but hopefully we should have various types of flowers blooming from the end of February till the middle of summer.


So, to complement the yellow rosebush, lupin, grassbush and heathers that we planted last year, we have planted:

- snowdrops
- crocuses
- tulips
- irises
- anemones
- mixed aliums (nigrum, purple sensation, sphaerocephalon, chrisophii, bulgaricum)



And this is how it looked two days later:


And on Thursday 5th Feb:
Ironically, the only bulbs which haven't sprung yet are the snowdrops!

Gardening

The weather has been very kind to us in the past few weeks and it has been perfect for clearing out the garden before winter. Trave has removed a big tree and a bush which were at the far left corner at the bottom of the lawn, which we will convert to an additional vegetable patch. He has also mowed the lawn probably for the last time this year, and trimmed the hedges.

The only things left growing in the garden are the raspberries, the apple, and the purple sprouting broccoli which should be ready to harvest in March.

For my part, I have weeded the front border and planted various bulbs which should flower at different times between February and August: snowdrops, crocuses, tulips, irises, anemones, and alliums. They should be sprouting amongst a grassy type plant, a yellow rose bush, a lupin, and two heathers. Let's hope it looks pretty and colourful!

100% home-grown veg meal

I was very proud of producing this meal as ALL the vegetables and herbs came from the garden. If we had chickens then we would have our own eggs too, but I don't think that a chicken would be a good friend for Chatouille, the mischieveous cat of ours.

What did we have in the garden then? Courgettes, French beans, potatoes.
+ a variety of herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, lemon balm).

So, using a recipe recommended by my friend from Bonn, Germany, I made some courgette patties/fritters served with boiled potatoes and beans. Very easy and extremely lean and healthy!

Serves 4:

2-3 medium size courgettes, grated
3 eggs
200g feta cheese, diced in small cubes
60g bread crumbs
2 tsp thyme, chopped
black pepper


1. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl.

2. Make golf-ball size balls in the palm of your hands and place onto a baking sheet.

3. Flatten the balls with a spatula and place into a 200C pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with side-dish vegetables. Here, new potatoes and French beans from the garden.

(sorry to go on and on about the vegetables from the garden, but this is extremely satisfying!)

Merci Annie, pour m'avoir recommendé cette délicieuse recette !

Garden update!

Our garden is coming up nicely with plenty of vegetables and even the raspberries are starting to give us some fruit.

Raspberries:

Courgettes and broccolis are over 1m high!We've had several meals of French beans already:

We've had our first cherry tomatoes last week:

Look at these potatoes! AND they taste delicious.

Our first-ever carrot!!!
(Odd shape, I must admit, but the taste was good)

More carrots picked on 6th August:

Garden update

With the weather we have been having here, showers and sun spells, the garden has been doing very well. We just need to keep an eye on slugs :(

Our tomatoes are not quite ready yet, but providing we get some decent sunshine soon (I have not given up yet) they should ripen and be perfect with our wild rocket.

Below are our potatoes. We are very tempted to have a look at them, but we are not sure they are ready yet.


Here is an overview of our vegetable patch, which has become quite crowded! We are quite impressed with the broccoli, which we have grown from seeds.

The French beans are looking great too, which is quite surprising because the day after we planted them out, we had very high winds and strong gales, and most of the leaves had been blown away.
Here is the row of wild rocket, which we seem to be eating in any shape and form at the moment!

This courgette will be ready to be picked very soon now, and there are another 4-5 which should follow in the next few days.

We also have some carrots and leeks. We will have to wait quite a while to eat these.

And against the wall of the shed, we have 6 plants of raspberries, which are starting to show their fruits. They should last us until the autumn, which would be nice!

Garden update

A lot has happened in our garden since the extensive cutting back of the hedge.

The potato plants which we are growing in planters on the patio look almost as big as the apple tree. However, I am a bit worried that some might being attacked by potato blight. As it is the first time we have grown potatoes, we don't really know. I hope I am wrong...

The courgettes and purple sprouting broccolis are looking very healthy, thanks to our daily slug-hunting sessions.

There are 2 small French beans on our plants. That's great, but I am looking forward to more!

We have planted the wild rocket and carrots only 2 weeks ago, but they are sprouting slowly. The leeks are looking healthy too, although one of them (the tiny weeny one) is missing somehow.

The apples are the size of something between pistachios and walnuts. Our only worry is caterpillars, who seem to have established themselves in the apple tree, gggrrr...

The raspberries now have a few flowers on. Only one plant has not sprung. They are of an autumn variety so we will have to wait until October to eat them.

We have had our first strawberries today. I am waiting for Trave to come home to share them with him: he better be quick!

Also looking healthy are the aromatic plants: rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage (overgrown!), hidden oregano, lemon balm, and lavender.

I have weeded and dug the front border last weekend, and have planted the following: some grassy-looking plant, lupins, heather, and marigolds. At the far corner, I wanted to plant another lavender but maybe it will be a bush of yellow roses, to remind us of our wedding ;-) I am also planning to plant in the front borders: lilly-in-the-valley, crocuses, and the tulip bulbs I have brought back from Amsterdam last Friday.

The garden is ready for winter

I have sawn, chopped, and dug all Saturday last week. (Trave did the big root at the bottom of the garden. I had killed my back cutting all the trunk and branches)

So, here are the 'before' pictures:


I have cleared the back of the shed so that we can plant raspberries next spring. I have chopped the old honeysuckle. I love honeysuckle but this tree was quite old and did not produce many flowers. I will most certainly replace it. And I also cut a tree whose leaves looked like nettles and was not very attractive, taking space and blocking the sunlight.

Now we have a good part of the patio covered with branches and roots, waiting to be taken to the tip, as we are the only neighbourhood in town without green wheelie bins.

The garden wildlife defensers will not be too impressed with me chopping trees, but it is our garden and we wanted raspberries. (ok. I wanted raspberries, but Trave likes them too!)

Here is the garden 5 or 6 hours later:



Now, our garden is almost ready for winter. We still need to trim the hedges and prune the apple tree, in order to get more of and bigger pixie apples next year!