Tag: Onions

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden1 Comment

Sunshine at last

Reclaiming Paradise

I’ve been away for a week or so but returned to the garden in glorious sunshine today. The crocuses all opened up to welcome the sun. Bella got outside in the sunshine to admire the daffodils. I pruned the autumn fruiting raspberries, did a bit of weeding and harvested a tiny garden salad. Lettuce, rocket, rocket flowers and some chives – more tiny signs of spring. Later I got out to the allotment for the first time in weeks, did some more weeding, pruned some more autumn fruiting raspberries and brought home some leeks and sprouts. The plot is looking … Continue reading Sunshine at last

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden2 Comments

Onions and an advent update

Reclaiming Paradise

This week has turned out to be rather oniony, the result of two impulse onion buys which were probably a mistake. The first lot of onions were actually flowers – alliums – but onions really. They were an impulse buy from my local garden centre, which was selling off all sorts of boxes of overpriced and overpackaged bulbs at 70% off. I bought these because I felt sorry for them and was worried they would just be dumped if nobody bought them. So I’ve filled a big pot with flowering onions and another one with tulips – something to look … Continue reading Onions and an advent update

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden6 Comments

Autumn delights

Reclaiming Paradise

It’s been a glorious autumn day, with a slight nip in the air but lovely sunshine and leaves beginning to fall from the trees. As I cycled to the allotment this afternoon, leaves blew in my face and conkers fell from trees. It felt a little scary but also quite exciting. I dread the end of summer but when autumn really comes, it brings its own joys. One of these joys is planning next year’s crop. At the allotment, I got down on my hands and knees and hauled strings of couch grass from the soil. We’ve had a bit … Continue reading Autumn delights

Cooking and eating from the garden, Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I gardenLeave a comment

Six foxgloves, six peas and a lettuce glut

Reclaiming Paradise

Once again I failed to do a #SixonSaturday post but I did submit these rather lovely foxgloves via twitter. These are all growing along the back hedge and the new fence at the side of the garden, some transplanted from the raspberry bed during a weeding session back in January – for more see here – they have come out rather well, I think. I had wondered about doing a six for my six varieties of peas, but didn’t quite get round to it. So here they are for you, rather late on Sunday instead: I’ve already forgotten which one … Continue reading Six foxgloves, six peas and a lettuce glut

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers9 Comments

October joys

Reclaiming Paradise

On this grim November day, here is something to cheer you. I brought in the last of the tomatoes from the seed palace to ripen inside. Aren’t they beautiful? Here are some more of the colourful things that were happening in my garden as October came to a close: Apples, rowan berries, nasturtiums and pyracantha berries, all looking very orange for Halloween. October is apple month and birthday month in this house. What with local lockdowns in Scotland we couldn’t really celebrate the birthdays properly though I did manage to deliver cakes, pumpkins (well squashes) and apples to my birthday … Continue reading October joys

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers7 Comments

Planning

Reclaiming Paradise

Here’s a bee on a phacelia flower to cheer your day. It’s been lovely and sunny here and I’ve been out in the garden, hacking things back, harvesting and sowing some more seeds of hope. It’s six months since I wrote my seeds of hope post, at the beginning of lockdown, when we had no idea what would happen next. Well here we are again with few clues to the future but we have to keep on keeping on and the garden will sometimes just grow things for us. For today’s #SixOnSaturday here are six things self-seeding in the garden … Continue reading Planning

Cooking and eating from the gardenLeave a comment

Catching up

Reclaiming Paradise

Tonight I’ve been making chutney: This is mostly plum, with some windfall apples, some red onions, one green tomato (it was showing some signs of blight so I picked it from the plant to save the others and cut the brown bits out) and some radish seed pods. The recipe is based on something like this. The plums are nearly, but not quite, ready for eating so it seemed like a good idea to start processing some of them before we are overwhelmed. The onions are from the allotment: The radish seed pods – well the radishes as always are … Continue reading Catching up

Cooking and eating from the garden, Why I garden, Wildlife5 Comments

A little domestic wildness

Reclaiming Paradise

It’s June so it’s time for #30DaysWild , the campaign run by the Wildlife Trusts to get everyone to spot a little bit of wildness every day in June. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years and most years I treasure the chance to stop for a few minutes before or after work or over lunch to notice the wildness in the city around me. This year it’s a little different, with the wildness restricted to my daily walks or my own garden. Working from home, I can nip out with a cup of coffee or over lunch … Continue reading A little domestic wildness

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden8 Comments

Garden joys

Reclaiming Paradise

Two months ago I started my main seed sowing of the season: tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies, peas and some flowers. I said I was ‘sowing seeds of hope‘. I didn’t know then that we would still all be in lockdown two months later, but I looked forward to a summer of vegetables. Today, I’ve sowed some more seeds but mainly I’ve been planting things out in the garden and being thankful for all that grows there. I posted six of my favourite flowers for #SixOnSaturday on Twitter Clockwise from top left: The roses are starting to come out in the garden, … Continue reading Garden joys

Cooking and eating from the garden7 Comments

Strange white flowers and a rhubarb cake

Reclaiming Paradise

Last weekend I spotted some strange white flowers among the daffodils. I looked closer and saw that they were not some exciting new spring bulbs. They were bits of plastic that had fallen off a lampshade. They had been picked up and redeployed in the garden by the transportation of a giant umbrella tree on its journey from the house out on to the patio. The reason for this mass transportation was to repot this beauty, which is nearly forty years old. I acquired it as a student and it has moved around with us ever since. Seen here from … Continue reading Strange white flowers and a rhubarb cake