Summer Onion Harvest

Very chuffed with the two rows of Radar onions that I planted in the autumn. I harvested them in the third week of June and am drying them now on racks before storing.

I dug them up very carefully so as not to bruise them and was delighted with the size of them - there were some huge ones amongst them.

I filled a barrow with them and brought them in for drying as the weather is still very unsettled. I can dry them under the cover of an open barn and just drag them out into the sun when it is shining (not often at the moment!)

I used the metal shelves of the old plastic greenhouse that I used to grow seedlings in last year before I put in our permanent greenhouse - good to find such a good use for it. 

 Radar will store well for about three months..just into the autumn. They are beautifully filling a gap...just when the leeks and last years onions have run out and the winter stores are low. Perfect timing. 

Aren't they beautiful? Can't wait to string them up and hang them in the shed!

The English strawberries are the sweetest!

Despite the dreadful wind and rain that we have been having my strawberry patch has survived and produced lots of sweet tasting fruit amongst the mouldy berries hanging forlornly on the vines. I reckon I have picked and enjoyed the same amount as I have had to chuck on the compost heap, even when they were hanging off the ground they have gone brown and soft in the wet. 

However there have been enough to make a Sunday teatime treat and a few pots of jam!

This is a simple recipe which can be made in a few minutes and is perfect for freshly picked strawberries or raspberries and currants. I have made it in the winter with frozen raspberries too and it works very well if you defrost the raspberries on kitchen paper first to soak up the juices. 

I use a fatless sponge recipe ( we add the fat later with ladles of freshly whipped double cream!) which is so easy and light. It needs to be eaten the day you make it or the one after as it doesn't store. It takes five minutes to prepare - all the same numbers so you can make any size you want. This cake is 4 oz caster sugar, 4 large eggs, 4 oz self raising flour. You whisk the eggs with the sugar until fluffy, sift and fold in the flour and pour into a greased and lined tin (the egg makes it stick) and put in a medium oven until the cake is firm in the middle when you press your finger gently on the surface - usually about half an hour. When it is cooled on a rack I spread home made jam over it and place on the fruit and sprinkle with icing sugar. It works really well with different jams - blackcurrant jam or jelly is delicious with raspberries for example... a stand by pud which never fails to have the wow factor!

A few of my Alpine strawberries self seeded into the strawberry bed - I moved them out last year as they were taking over and put them in pots. I think I love these little semi wild fruit the best - their flavour after a day in the sun is just fantastic, almost the taste of flowers, perfumed and sweet. They are delicious in salads, on their own with lemon and sugar or in any strawberry jam or icecream. 

Here is a small gathering I made to put in my yogurt for breakfast. I made this little pottery collander too - it makes gathering and washing small quantities of fruit such a pleasure. A quick rinse under the tap and then let them stand whilst you shower - such a delicious breakfast!

Spring flowers

I put these irises into pots in the autumn and we were delighted with them. They filled such an empty gap from end of the first spring bulbs (daffs and crocus)  to the baby annuals I planted into the containers on our deck. They co-incided with glorious spring weather too and formed a lovely screen where we sit to observe the countryside. I will definitely put more in this year. 

 The dark blue Irises are my favourite...I want a whole bank of them next year!

You can see the sweet peas using the tall stalks to begin their climb - the two together were very statuesque - there is something lovely about sitting next to a wall of flowers...and the smell was gorgeous!

At last the blue perennial geraniums have flowered! I put them in last year and the growth seemed so slow but they were worth waiting for....

Sweet peas that I grew from seed.  I sowed them late summer last year and kept them in the greenhouse over the winter and planted them out in March into containers on the deck. The smell has been wonderful and we have had loads of them - I'm trying to remember to pick them before the pods form so that they continue...

The light coming through the pinks and mauves is stunning...

Such an elegant shape and I think these two tone ones are my favourites....

Cosmos Antiquity is so pretty - its a dwarf plant for containers and the rose pinks and burgundy's are like the velvet of a Venetian velvet - it is aptly named.

 I always grow the little viola heartsease. I love its simplicity and bravery flowering in the cold - I am hoping that these will continue to flower through the autumn. Their little heart shaped faces are so cute.

And lastly I wanted to show you the new apples on our fruit trees. Planted in the autumn, Fiesta (shown here) James Grieve and Bramley seedling are all doing well. As are the Merryweather damson, the Oullins Gage Greengage and the Pear tree Comice de Doyenne. There are blueberries on the bushes, the Autumn Bliss raspberries are coming up well and there should be black and red currants.....more of that later! I love this time of year. 

Zucchini, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes - I love June!

 The Patch is full, everything is loving the rain and growing on well. The asparagus ferns are waving in the wind ( I am looking forward to cutting more than two weeks worth next year when they will be grown up!) and the chard, carrots, beetroot, parsnips and fennel are healthy and getting big. We have eaten broad beans and peas, masses of chard and spinach, salad of every sort and french and runner beans, second crop of broad beans and peas are coming up for harvest and meanwhile flowers are appearing out in the potato patch, the onions are swelling and the leeks are fattening....

Here is zucchini Soleil looking twice the size it was a week ago! The rain has got these off to a good start and you can see the first yellow courgettes appearing...I was relieved that the yellowing of the leaves is just the variety - I thought it was overwatering for a moment. 

This Gem Rolet squash is already beginning to climb the steep bank behind its bed - it will have plenty of room there to go mad! It already has a round dark green fruit on it (see photo below) - its a summer squash and I am really looking forward to baking and stuffing these and eating them roasted whole with garlic and butter....

 And here is the round di Nizza (below)- one of the zucchini which didn't do so well last year due to overcrowding I think. Now it has plenty of space and is being the first variety to show its fruit! I hope we have lots...the few we did have were delicious, very sweet. 

 Can't wait to eat the flowers of the zucchini - so very delicious with stamens removed, dipped in flour and fizzy water and salt and then deep fried. It was one of the highlights of last summer sitting in the sun sipping Prosecco and munching on the crunchy flowers....

 Am so thrilled with the Borage! It struggled to begin with with the cold and the rain but it has grown eighteen inches now and borders the path into the greenhouse. The blue of the flowers is so dramatic and the bees love it. The flowers are edible too and so I am decorating with them, salad, cheese platters, fruit salad, new potatoes.....looks so pretty. 

Once inside the greenhouse it is warm and calm. The cucumbers have grown hugely and are covered in flower and tiny cucumbers. I have them in  two pots (and one outside as an experiment which is also doing ok though nothing like as fast as the indoor ones) and staked them to go up to wires which will run along the ceiling of the greenhouse - I am hoping it will be dripping with cucumbers!

Cumber Burpless Flower - so pretty, so delicate and such a lovely colour on a grey June day!

The indoor tomatoes are doing well too - this is Costeluto Fiorentino above and Black Krim below. They are planted in with aubergines and peppers with purple and green basil in between. I am pinching out the sideshoots every day at the moment and the results are that they are about three feet tall already and you can just see the first fruit forming...always a miracle to me. 

 And back outside the runner beans are beginning to flower too!

And climb up their bamboo and string supports - very obliging of them and very satisfying for the builder!

After all the hard work of the spring we are beginning to see the fruit of our labours...and eat it.....and....its well worth it!

Supersonic Salad

One of the delights of an English summer is the salad. Lettuces of all types thrive in a cooler climate and June is the perfect month to sample different sorts of leaves and make them into creative combinations. It is wonderful to trade soups for salads at lunch time here on the farm - I tend to pick and wash the leaves in the morning and put them in a plastic bag in the fridge. This helps them crisp up before we toss them with a little wine vinegar and the best olive oil I can get my hands on - Bertoli's extra virgin is my favourite at the moment. It's hard to get hold of but worth it if you can (Amazon do it) as it is so fragrant. It makes home grown salad even more of a treat. 

 This bowlful was made with green noisette crispy batavian leaves, lobjoits cos,  red veined sorrel, danyelle red oakleaf,  rosemoor batavian deep red, rocket, white lisbon spring onions and a couple of handfuls of fresh douce de provence peas.

I added hard boiled eggs and a handful of capers - I often add a couple of forkfuls of tuna from a jar (so much more tasty than the tins) and sprinkle with rock salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. An economical lunch fit for a king!

 Above is the row showing three of my favourite cut and come again leaf varieties of lettuce. These were the ones which fed us in the winter from the greenhouse beds and they are doing very well outside too. From the back they are Cocarde, Danyelle, and green oak leaf.......

and above the last of the four favourites...Black Seeded Simpson. I love its fleshy crunchy leaves.

Here is a close up of Cocarde ...the leaves are highly prolific and so pretty as well as being delicious. The tips of the leaves are a lot redder now it is outside - a brilliant cut and come again lettuce. 

Green Oakleaf is a staple leaf for our salads - again it has done well outside and inside during the winter. 

 This gentle and frilly leaved lettuce is called Danyelle and I love its delicate copper tinged crispy leaves. 

 Another red leaf is red salad bowl - soft and gentle and prolific. 

When lettuces get too big and tough like the cos lettuce above( I usually sow more than we can eat!) I pick them and wash them and then cook them. Lettuces make very good soup and I remember when I stayed with my grandparents in Ireland as a little girl we would often have 'cooked lettuce' as a vegetable. I tried this the other day -  sweat some chopped spring onions ( I grow White Lisbon) in some olive oil and when they are softened add some broad beans, peas and young green beans. When they are softened too add the lettuce cut into strips and wilt it down as you would spinach. Add several handfuls of chopped mint and when it is all soft a tablespoon of wine vinegar and a small teaspoon of caster sugar - go gently and taste as you add so you don't over do it. Remember fresh mint sauce? this has echoes of it....its absolutely scrummy!

Thinking of what to do with bolted and flowering rocket and mustard green streaks too! I still pick the young leaves for our salads and stir fries but they didn't do this in the greenhouse in winter! Definitely more of a winter variety when they keep their huge green leaves and shoots much better. But a salad without rocket? Not the same. So I am allowing them to flower and sprout and taking small leaves when I can. 

We have both decided that we do like a good heart to a lettuce as well as the lovely loose leaves! We like a bit of body and crunch. Valdor provides it in the spring and overwinters beautifully and now as you can see above Tom Thumb is taking over...lovely heart and fits in a tiny space. Here it is growing with the sorrel which adds its lovely lemony flavour to a mixed salad. 

You can't rest up with salad. More needs to be sown all the time for cutting whole. The loose-leaved varieties in the beds will last most of the summer but above you can see two whole trays of little gems o give us the crunch and the heart. Lobjoits has been a great cos lettuce (I like Pinokkio too which I grew last year) and green noisette and rosemoor (red variety) have been lovely curly crispy whole lettuces but I think Little Gem will give us the heart we crave!

I love growing salad! So satisfying and such fun trying all the varieties and there is always something fresh in the fridge as a result. The flavourless lettuces in the shops are nothing like as interesting and besides cost so much money whereas when you have a patch of earth and a handful of seed you can eat for almost free for months!