Showing posts with label cucumber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cucumber. Show all posts

Monday, 9 August 2010

Allotment 9/8/10


I love this time of year. All the hard work that you have put in is literally bearing fruit (and veg). Just yesterday, for instance (and I use it as an example because it was a really good day) we bought home onions, peas, mange tout, 3 types of bean, radishes, lettuces, cucumber, courgette (anyone want a courgette by the way?) beetroot, carrots and my special prize, more on that later. Basically at this time of the year we can feed ourselves with vegetables. It is a joy to behold. Yes, you have to keep weeding and looking after things but it is so much more rewarding when come home with a bag full of things.
 And now back to my special prize. When I was looking on a seed selling website at the beginning of the year for tomatoes that don’t get blight (I bought a bush variety called Koralik and so far so good, fingers crossed though) I noticed some melon seeds that the website claimed would grow outside in the UK, I think I have mentioned this before. Anyway the seed were 99p so I thought I would loose less then £1 if they didn’t grow. I can confirm that my investment of 99p was well worth it,

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To be honest I was a little inpatient. Some websites said that I would know when the fruit was ripe because it would smell of melon; well I think I may have detected the slight whiff of melon ness but that was probably wishful thinking. It has been looking the same for several weeks and I just wanted to pick it and see. Yes it is childish but I do have another 7 fruit to be more patient with if this one really isn’t ripe. We are giving a couple of days in the fruit bowl to see if we can make it smell melony. I tell you how it goes.

Monday, 29 March 2010

Allotment 29/3/10

One of the things I like about this time of year is the appearance of wild garlic or Ramsons. When the flowers come out you will know about it because of the overwhelming smell of garlic when you wonder through the woods.

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 If you don’t like garlic I would ignore this next bit. The leaves of this plant taste fantastic (good mixed with salad leaves or chopped into a risotto) and you can eat the flowers as well (they are also great sprinkled on a salad). For many other recipes you can click here.
 As usual I am quite lucky with living where I live as I have wild garlic growing just up the road from me so I can pick it fresh when I want to. It does have a season so I recommend that if you see some pick it and give it a go.


You may remember that in the last post I made a bit of a fuss about the over complicating of germinating seeds.  It is only fair that I put my money where my mouth is and show you how my seeds are getting on.

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Here we have cucumber, melon, courgette, and chillies but you will note that the squash seeds are yet to show,

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And here are cabbages, cauliflowers, chard but no celery yet.

Is it going to be cold again because I want to get my potatoes in?