Baby tomato plants longing for the greenhouse

Look at these cute little tomato babies, starting to look a bit straggly and longing for the greenhouse.

But they're going to have to wait, 'cause this is what it looks like at the moment...

With this year's mild autumn/early winter I took advantage of all the
cheap tulip bulbs on sale. My little Holland project :) I've also sown
some early rocket, spinach & lettuce mix while I'm waiting...

Spring clean - lots of bonfires & nice white(green)house

What a magical spring weekend!

Having spent three whole days building and burning bonfires, trudging around with barrowloads of branches, sticks, twigs and half-rotten logs, getting torn to shreds by brambles, being singed by all the embers and on top of that feeling like a bit of kipper with all the smoke, we're finally rid of almost all the ugly piles of wood and left-overs after this winter's tree felling. Hooray! Just one left (out of seven), which we're saving for Easter.

We started up this one at 3pm on Friday afternoon, and it's still warm...
on Sunday evening!

We sat guard over it until about 9 o'clock and were forced
indoors when the temp dropped to 2oC... Brrrr

Luckily the others weren't as intense, this one was over
in just a few hours.

Looking delightful :O in my bonfire kit...

Sunday afternoon, and the hubby wiped this one out all
by himself... while just a few meters away I...

...got on with a job I've been dreading.

But what a satisfying job, it really was a very green house!

Now all the tough jobs are over, I've got lots of wonderful 'easy' gardening to look forward to.

LOVE SPRING!!

This year's chillies

I'm really late with my chillies and tomatoes this year, having sowed the majority of them just last week (13th March).

Slow progress....

There is however some sign of life :) Look what popped up during the night.

Maskotka bush tomato babies.

Luckily I had the foresight to at least sow a few chillies in January.

Two Jalastar & One (surviving of two sowed) Chiluacle Negro capsicum annums.

My list of chillies and toms sown this year is:

2 Jalastar capsicum annum - after the heat of last year, I'm opting for milder varieties this year
2 Chiluacle Negro capsicum annum - only one germinated
2 Aji Colorado capsicum baccatum - our absolute favourite to date
1 Cayenne capsicum annum - after the heat of last year, I'm opting for milder varieties this year
1 Trinidad Scorpion capsicum chinense - sown for a curious family member - hope it survives the postal journey :/

2 Maskotka bush tomatoes
2 Supersweet 100 F1 cherry tomatoes
2 'supermarket' baby plum tomatoes - shop-bought favourite that I saved some seeds from - experiment

Looking back...

...it wasn't all that bad actually.

Funny isn't it how we gardeners perceive things to have been so much worse than they really were...

Here are some pictures I found of 2011's successes.

A selection of chillies for my mum: Trinidad Scorpion, Fatalii, Congo Black,
Aurora, Purple Tiger, Hot Paper Lantern, Cayenne, Aji & Bih Jolokia - hot stuff!!

Aji Colorado chillies - our favourite.

Cucumbers

Parador courgettes - seeds from Annett Crane

Raspberries

One of my few potato harvests

Sunflower from a forgotten birdseed

The butterflies LOVE the globe thistles

These were thinnings, and one of my only harvests
as the rest were attacked by carrot fly :'(

...it wasn't as bad as I remember...

Big funky heavy tomatoes - unknown sort

Trinidad Scorpion - one of my few mega successes.

Can't remember the name of these, but they were delicious!

Fatalii, another satisfactory result.

Blauhilde beans - seeds from Annett Crane

Don't know if you could call this a success exactly. Harvest-wise it produced
millions of these little cucumbers, but they were :P Sour and watery.

I always have my Stargazer lilies to cheer me up. Planted these
in the greenhouse in spring 2009 and they come back just as strong
& beautiful every year.

I will succeed this year!!

Last year was a bit of a wash out, as you may have noticed from the lack of boastful entries, but that wasn't really my fault. We suffered a long, harsh winter, followed by a baking hot May, rounded off with a short, wet summer. Not the best growing conditions for a kitchen garden.

I cannot blame my failures entirely on the weather, however. I guess I could have done better, I didn't give my veg the love and attention they deserved, but gardening is supposed be a pleasure, not a burden. 

This year, though, I am determined to succeed in areas I failed miserably in 2011. 

Firstly, we (read: chainsaw-weilding husband) have chopped down 11 (!!) birch trees that were not only shading the vegetables, but dumping all manner of bleugh on them. Secondly, I am directing all my energy into growing stuff this year, instead of building. Last year I extended the kitchen garden with 5 new raised beds, more gravel and erected a deer fence; and turned the old veg patch into lawn. Plus we had major wild boar damage last winter, which we've been spared repairing this year.

Any finally, I'm not taking any chances this year. I'm giving all of my 2012 veg the best possible start. This includes my peas & beans. I've just sowed some mange tout, in toilet rolls :) because I've read that's what everyone else does...

Peas getting a sweeter start this year

I've also set up a nice little spot for them. No panic-supports this year! They're getting a proper, sturdy pea-wall!

Place for ma peas

I'm also going to try and train some sweet peas up the sides. It's going to pretty this year too!!

Fingers crossed...

I'm back...

If you are one my very very few loyal readers, I apologise for my ever-so-very long hibernation.

But I am back and desperately ready for the spring!

I have just spent a couple of hours getting the raised beds sorted out and tidying up the herb garden. What inspiring work!

xxx

Yummy beetroot recipe

I have a lot of everso small beetroots this year and it's quite hard finding different ways to serve them. But I found this really yummy recipe in NK's STIL magazine, baby beets in balsam, sage & olive oil:

5 baby beets per person, 1 small onion, a handful of thyme (I used oregano),
1 bay leaf, a few peppercorns, 2 tbspns salt. 2 tbspns extra virgin olive oil,
3 tbspns mature balsam, 10-15 sage leaves, 1 tspn dark syrup, salt & pepper.

Bring the water to the boil, then add the beets, onion, thyme, bay,
peppercorns & salt. Boil for 15 mins. Pour off the water and leave
to cool for 5 mins. Rub the skin off the beets and leave in room temp.

Sauté the beets in olive oil and sage. Add the balsam and reduce.
Allow the beets to absorb all of the liquid. Finish with the syrup,
and add salt & pepper to taste.

Served with some beef I had roasted the day before.

Enjoy!

Weird tomatoes

This year I sowed quite a few different varieties and I'm so glad I did, but I never expected such weird and wonderfulness! o.O

The pen is there to give you an idea of the size. They are
ridiculously heavy too, note the string to support them...

These are the size of beefsteak tomatoes, but I was
expecting relatively medium sized pear-shaped things, the
packet said Lemon Bay...

Lemon Bay up close, not exactly pear-shaped...

These were supposed to be yellow/orange and
they're already turning red...

The Snow Whites are turning yellow...

This lot are upside down...

...and have twins...

...and triplets!!

As you can see, we've already started eating them,
but this lot are growing in all manner of shapes
and sizes, from heart-shaped to pear-shaped to almost oblong...

And we're not exactly going to get rich from these
outdoor Money Makers...

He he he.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment. It makes my day =)

Habanero Chocolate & Hot Paper Lantern

We've been harvesting chillies for a while now, but we recently tested the Habanero Chocolate and the Hot Paper Lantern for the first time. And Oh. My. God. Hot hot hot hot hot! :O

Because they are approx. 425,000 and 350,000 Scovilles respectively, we decided to play it safe and scrape out all the insidey bits and then bake them in the oven with a little olive oil.

We (my husband because he does all the chilli chopping) then finely chopped them up and sprinkled them on a fresh tuna Asian sallad. Luckily I sprinkled mine AROUND the plate, rather than over the tuna... The Habanero was just too hot for me, but the Hot Paper Lantern was fabulous! :D

Tomato update

These (nameless yellow/orange cherry sort) are just mad!!
I have a few twins/triplets growing on this plant too, will
to get a few decent photos and post them.

These (Trijbuline) are just plain weird!!

These are Lemon Bay (full size) tomatoes and they're
doing soooo well!! :)