Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers2 Comments

Novembery

Reclaiming Paradise

After all the unseasonalness of the last couple of weeks, today felt proper Novembery. The forecast is for the temperature to dip below freezing tonight so I got out in the garden to do some tidying up and harvest a few bits and pieces. The Wonder of Four Seasons lettuces are living up to their name, with a few juicy looking plants still growing nicely: I harvested one and covered the others with some plastic sheeting in the hope that this will keep them going for a bit longer. the lettuces were already covered with freezer baskets to keep Bella … Continue reading Novembery

Why I garden4 Comments

Freebies

Reclaiming Paradise

Who can resist a freebie? I try not to be consumerist but free stuff is always hard to resist. After this year’s bumper apple harvest, several neighbours and people at the allotment having been offering free apples. Although my harvest has been pretty good I can always find uses for more. So I’ve picked a few from the boxes in the street, now waiting to be cooked and eaten for breakfast, baked into cakes or stored in the freezer: These all claim to be cooking apples. I don’t have a cooker in the garden (although the Howgate Wonder is supposed … Continue reading Freebies

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers4 Comments

Unseasonal

Reclaiming Paradise

I was at the allotment for the first time in a couple of weeks. It is beginning to settle down for the winter but there is still quite a lot growing and still some veg to harvest. We have leeks, kale, potatoes, broccoli and sprouts still in the ground which will do us well over the winter. The runner beans have practically finished but I’ve left the poles up as they are supporting the sweet peas which seem to have had a burst of growth in the last week or so. It is quite usual for the sweet peas to … Continue reading Unseasonal

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers6 Comments

I had a little pear tree…

Reclaiming Paradise

… and nothing would it bear, but silver blossom and a golden pear: Just one – but a pear never-the-less! It fell gracefully into the clover yesterday morning. It’s not ripe yet but I’m ever hopeful. This prodigal pear tree has taken three years to do anything at all, producing tantalising blossom in April this year and then just this one beautiful pear. To celebrate I’ve ordered another tree to keep it company. Apparently you need two and I don’t know why I didn’t check this before. So hopefully in years to come there will be many pairs of pears. … Continue reading I had a little pear tree…

Cooking and eating from the garden4 Comments

Green and red tomato salsa

Reclaiming Paradise

Tonight’s impromptu use of garden produce turned out rather good. I was getting impatient waiting for the green tomatoes to ripen, so mixed together some green ones with some nearly red ones, making a rather nice salsa: Green and Red Tomato Salsa If you are very lucky, as we were tonight, add a chopped cucumber – This was the complete crop of crystal lemon cucumbers this year. It tasted good but was disappointingly small and lonely. Oh well, time to start planning next year’s crop. Continue reading Green and red tomato salsa

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers10 Comments

Sixtyish on Saturday

Reclaiming Paradise

In a small departure from the Six on Saturday rules, today’s post celebrates my challenge to harvest sixty different edible plants from my garden and allotment this year. Last week I hit my target, with the wondrous Howgate Wonder apples coming in at number sixty. I’ve now gone over the target and you can read all about what I’ve harvested since January here This year the Howgate Wonders are bigger than ever. I weighed one and it was 1lb! Not all are quite that big but there have been about thirty of these lovelies on the tree. So far they’ve … Continue reading Sixtyish on Saturday

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers6 Comments

Disappointments and monsters: Six on Saturday

Reclaiming Paradise

I don’t know how everyone else does their #SixonSaturday posts? I often struggle to find time to blog every Saturday but I do try and post six nice things on the twitter hashtag. My process is to go out into the garden and see what strikes me as interesting, beautiful or particularly photogenic. I’m often in a bit of rush and some weeks’ photos are better than others. Anyway, today I followed my usual process: wandered round the front garden, looking to see what was there, while hauling up a few weeds, deadheading some roses and chatting to my neighbour … Continue reading Disappointments and monsters: Six on Saturday