Carrots and Kids

My Library #2 - Tender

I was lucky enough to receive Nigel Slater's hefty tome Tender v.1 A Cook and His Vegetable Patch at Christmas and I am so thankful that I did. I love this book.

It's not so much a gardening book, more of a "look what I grew in the garden and am now cooking with it" book. I can't wait for harvest time at the plot and the allotment now.

Of course, I may have just put a jinx on my growing season. I may now just harvest a handful of raspberries and a few broad beans.

But ever the optimist, I am going to dream about all the lovely dishes I am going to make with my many aubergines I shall pick. Ho yes. And I shall forget that last time I tried to grow aubergines, it wasn't exactly what you'd call a success.

I am also taking Nigel's advice and generally copying his seed selections. I figure he would go for the tastiest and, well, if it's good enough for him....

This book is more inspirational than Jamie At Home (another favourite of mine) mainly because Nigel's garden is a lot smaller and he appears to do all the work himself.

And he doesn't seem to set himself up as a Veggie Growing Perfectionist (after all, why would you waste precious growing space by edging your veg beds with box hedges?) which makes him easy to relate to. One this non-perfect veggie grower can relate to.

This books accompanies a television series of the same name which I seemed to have been clever enough to have missed but which I'm hoping will come out on DVD. The programmes sound every bit as wonderful as this book is.

Today I am....

:: Excited as I sense spring in the air and wait for my new seeds (hurry up postie).

:: Inspired by an obituary of an amazing woman - Vera Rich -  I read in the Times this week. Sounds a bit morbid but I'm going to keep this as the start of an Amazing Women scrapbook for my girls. I want them to know there are truly inspirational women out there, as well as the...um...more visible but possibly less inspiring women out there.

:: Thinking a lot about the school gardening club. What I want to do, whether I need or want help, plans, why I love it so much.

:: Loving my hyacinths. I bought only white, just so my kitchen looks vaguely cohesive. I don't think it makes much difference but I'm enjoying them just the same. 

:: Exasperated by the antics of one three-year-old. I'm trying to put a positive spin on this and think that maybe this is nature's way of making me miss him when he goes to school in September but not be totally inconsolable.

:: Enjoying a new Yogi black chi tea I bought this week. Ah....bliss in a tea cup.

:: Reconnecting with some old, long forgotten parts of me. No, I don't mean my stomach muscles but rather the slightly alternative, creative, home-educating part of me. That doesn't mean I'm going to pull the children out of school either. Sadly.

What are you thinking/enjoying/feeling/doing today?

Hens in the Garden?

For years we kept hens at the bottom of the garden. At first they started off as a home-education project. A friend brought round a broody hen we named Gladys and some fertilised eggs and Bob's your uncle, we had chicks. Ah, those were the days....

We kept three of them but Elizabeth Ist  had a run in with the dog who, being a gun dog, was a bit over enthusiastic and thought that she ought to pick up anything with feathers.

She has a gentle mouth, pretty essential for gun dogs apparently, and can carry an egg in it without breaking it. Hens, it would appear, are a bit more fragile than eggs and ours died from shock.

So along came Elizabeth II, from the same friend, and more eggs and chicks and so it went on, with us only ever keeping three chickens.

The children loved them, going down the slide clutching their hen. And, of course, we had eggs. Only the chickens laid them everywhere so it was always a bit of a hunt before the dog found them.

Eventually, we moved them (the chickens not the children) into rather more palatial quarters (ie the bottom corner was fenced off for them) because they did like to dig up the garden. The lawn has never recovered. And sometimes they escaped.

It wasn't until we moved a shed in the opposite corner that we had problems in the shape of a fox who cottoned onto what we had in the garden and took them all, including the broody that had hatched a clutch of partridge chicks (I know, clever these chickens).

Do we miss them? Yes. And the eggs of course. Anyone who has chickens knows the eggs are far superior to shop bought. They are a deeper yellow. Eggs I buy now are quite anemic.

The extra space in the garden now we've dismantled their home is a bonus though. And of course not treading on chicken pooh, one of which was enormous because she was a chicken not a bantam.

I'm not sure our garden is really big enough for chickens and I'm glad, at this stage of my life, not to have the responsibility of them. But if we moved into a large house (with five/six bedrooms) and at least half an acre (please), would I get some more? Definitely.

Autumn

It's here. They're gone. Along with my blogging mojo. Sigh. Not sure what's up with me but I've not been feeling the lurve for a wee while. Sigh.

So. So what am I going to do with my longed-for time? Here's a list (always helpful if not feeling it, to make a list)....

• Order some seeds/bulbs from Sarah Raven. I know. But I have a voucher. Criminal not to spend it. Plus, her sweet peas were so good. Well, they're mine but you know what I mean.
• Get some onion and garlic for lottie. I know I should grow my own from seed. But you know what? I can't be bothered.
• Finish off the apple and blackberry crumble made with yesterday's harvest. Find other blackberry recipes.
• Sow some flower seeds (sweet peas, calendula, Bishop's flower and others) in vacated onion bed at the allotment and in pots in the greenhouse.
• Sow some salad and carrots, winter radish, winter spinach and some swiss chard at the allotment.
• Go up to the allotment. Admire pumpkin. Step away from the computer.........

Elderflower Froth

I am not an organised person. Nope. I shatter everyone's Mum-of-Big-Family illusions. A friend of one of my daughter's said on her first visit here "my mum says you must be super organised". She went quiet when she walked into the house. Yeah, your mum was wrong sweetie.

So it came as no surprise to anyone, not least myself, to find I couldn't go to bed (even though I was desperate) the other night because a huge pan of water was heating on the Aga. And I had to stir 1kg of sugar into it.

Yes, I had decided to make elderflower champagne. Oh, and elderflower cordial. I've always wanted to make these and completely missed the boat last year. But not this year, oh no.

On the way back from a celebratory family meal for the new teenager, I kept spotting huge bunches of elderflowers frothing on the trees. Luckily for us, or perhaps not, we live in the country and it is everywhere.

Hubby obligingly pulled into a lay-by off the road and picked and picked and picked bunch after bunch far from any car fumes. And so we drove home with the car full of elderflower scent. It made my kitchen smell nice too.

Of course I didn't have the millions of lemons I needed, nor the kilos of unrefined caster sugar or the white wine vinegar so it was another late dash to the supermarket. And then home to chop, squeeze and stir.

Hubby gave up half-way through but I had to use the flowers then and so there was nothing to it but stay up. It didn't take long. The hardest part was finding an airy and cool place to store the pans while the elderflower worked its magic. I managed though and climbed into bed thinking that maybe the champagne might be ready for my fortieth.....

Dawn Chorus Digging

I did it! I actually got up at about 6.30ish and was at the allotment by 7am on Saturday (admittedly with uncombed hair and grubby trousers). But oh my, it was so utterly blissful.

And the thought of those two wonderful hours with nothing but pigeons, pheasants and birdsong for company is something that has sustained me through toddler tantrums, domestic tedium and tiredness (yes, was a bit tired).

I didn't go great guns, I gently pottered. The early hour called for that I think. I was also rather pleased that I remembered to make a flask of hot chocolate.

One bed was dug but without my iPod I was slower than usual. That's ok because it's quite an isolated spot and at such an early hour I didn't want to be unaware. Plus the sounds of the birds greeting another day surpassed any music I had downloaded.

My untidy area (every plot has one) was given a bit of a makeover, broad beans were sown, a bed was tucked up under an old carpet and a large armful of daffodils were proudly borne home. Their yellow bobbing heads greeting me as I turned the corner to my plot was joyful.

As I picked them, just before heading back, I did have a pang about how naked my patch would now look. Then I got a grip. It's an allotment, meant to serve and produce, and not my front garden.

That early morning trip to the allotment set the tone for the whole weekend really. One in which I immersed myself in gardening. I don't think I could have been any more immersed if I stuck my feet in a bag of compost and tried to take root.

Instead ideas for the back garden (yep, that old chestnut) swirled around me. Even a quick trip into town and a gingerbread latte was set to a backdrop of gardening books (Caroline Tilston's Garden Makeovers).

Sunday was spent talking and drawing ideas, sticking sticks in the ground, talking some more, amassing all the garden design books I have (might have been cheaper to go on a course), thinking, and plenty of seed sowing (accompanied sometimes by a four-year-old).

The other children got wet and muddy (the two-year-old), played out with friends (the big three) and built bridges over streams and had adventures in fields (the big three again). It doesn't matter that they didn't help, gardening ebbs and flows with them (more ebbing I think as they get older). That's ok, we'll always be here, my seeds and I, waiting for when the gardening bug bites.

As for me, I didn't get to do a repeat Dawn Chorus Dig on Sunday, waking as I did feeling queasy and off-colour. But I do plan to incorporate it more into my weekend routine. If only I could squeeze it into the week too....