Tag: Plums

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

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers6 Comments

Harvest

Reclaiming Paradise

I’ve been away from home for a week or so, walking and swimming in the rain. We had a bit of a plum glut just before we left, so we took the plums with us. I also made an emergency supply of plum jam the night before we left, rather than doing any packing, getting my priorities right, as I was worried they wouldn’t survive till we got home. Some of the tomato crop also joined us on our holiday, including a double Costoluto Fiorentino and the first of the impressively coloured but decidedly small ‘Indigo Blue Berry’ and a … Continue reading Harvest

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden2 Comments

Falling behind

Reclaiming Paradise

Apologies that I’ve fallen behind on blogging – life has got in the way a bit – but exciting things are happening in the garden. Here’s a snapshot from last week’s glorious sunshine. Plum blossom, crocuses, a tiny self-sown nasturtium in beside the tulips, the wild primroses all coming up. Now it’s all rainy and cold and nasty, but my cucumbers have germinated, so life is good: Continue reading Falling behind

Cooking and eating from the garden8 Comments

Start of the preserving season

Reclaiming Paradise

The jam making season has started here at Reclaiming Paradise. I’ve got a glut of green tomatoes, plums, runner beans, courgettes, a couple of marrows, apples on their way and one giant cucumber Where to to start? Some of the tomatoes are ripening but a few of the others have blight so I reckoned I need to pick some and start the preserving season. Whether to make plum jam and green tomato chutney, or green tomato marmalade and plum chutney? I decided on the marmalade first – it’s simmering away as I write: See here for the recipe – green … Continue reading Start of the preserving season

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden5 Comments

Weighed down with apples

Reclaiming Paradise

The apple trees in the garden are collapsing with the weight of fruit – it looks like it’s going to be a good apple year. Well most years are but this one looks exceptional. The Howgate Wonder is looking particularly impressive. I had to prop it up with some sticks and remove a few apples to prevent the whole thing collapsing. The Red Falstaff is also looking quite prolific though not very red yet. And the Sunsets are having a good year too. The plums are coming along rather nicely, though not so overladen as the apple trees. I harvested … Continue reading Weighed down with apples

Why I garden8 Comments

A frosty Six on Saturday

Reclaiming Paradise

A rather late and rather quick contribution to #SixonSaturday. Despite waking up horribly early this morning it has taken until late evening to write this. The tiny advantage of waking up at 5.30am was that I got to see the garden emerging from the dark, listen to the dawn chorus and with still a sprinkle of frost everywhere. So here’s my six: Frost covered snakeshead fritillary – beautiful flower at the best of times, enhanced by frost 2. A slightly frosty daffodil – they are looking their very best at the moment 3. Another daffodil – I’m afraid I don’t … Continue reading A frosty Six on Saturday

Cooking and eating from the garden, Why I gardenLeave a comment

Holidays: hills, wildlife, vegetables

Reclaiming Paradise

I’ve been away for a short holiday, recharging the batteries in the English Lake District. Much as I love my garden, it was nice to get out into the wide open, climb some hills, row on a lake, look at 5000 years of history, spend some time with family, watch the wildlife and go for a very quick cold water swim: From top left: sunset over Derwent Water, a grasshopper settling on my leg, halfway up a mountain, Castlerigg Stone Circle, a very fluffy caterpillar, a lone duck, waiting for me to join it for a coldwater swim, yet more … Continue reading Holidays: hills, wildlife, vegetables

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden3 Comments

Seasons

Reclaiming Paradise

I’ve spent most of the day in the garden today, harvesting, cutting things back, attending to the overgrown lawn, and musing on the eternal verities. My main thought was the way in which gardening, and particularly growing your own fruit and vegetables, links you to the seasons. This has been the most strange year but actually the seasonal garden rituals have stayed much the same: starting with the dark days of winter, the spring bulbs, the all important spring seed sowing, the fruit blossom, the first vegetable harvest, the early summer peas and soft fruit, and now the first of … Continue reading Seasons

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

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers4 Comments

Seedlings and potatoes

Reclaiming Paradise

This weekend the vegetable growing really got going. First of all, though, please admire this amaryllis which has been sitting on the bathroom windowsill for about ten years, doing absolutely nothing. Well that’s not entirely true. It has produced green leaves every year but no flowers for a very long time. This was the year it chose to flower. We may have to wait another ten years for the next flower but I am patient. Back to the vegetables. The seedlings on my windowsill have been romping away Cucumbers, tomatoes and huge mass of out of date basil seeds which … Continue reading Seedlings and potatoes