Rocket progress

Rocket progress
The rocket I planted a couple of weeks ago is a couple of inches high on the windowsill. The plan was to put it out in the garden under plastic bottle cloches. I reckon the cold will be too much for them though, so I am going to leave them where they are. If they continue to grow away there they will be handier to reach when they are needed. Might just be fighting with nature to try to grow them at this time of year though.

Beer maturing
The beer has been bottled over a week now. It is sitting in the shed conditioning. Normally I do this in the kitchen, but with a play pen in there, space is just not available. The weather however has not been that cold, so I reckon the residual yeast will be munching away on the added bottling glucose. A put a few litres in plastic drinks bottles (the ones that never became cloches) to kill slugs with and the bottles have pumped up nicely. Reckon I will sample a bottle this weekend.

Last of the courgettes
The last couple of small courgettes are on the plants at the moment. As soon as I pick these I will lift the plants, which are look very past it at this stage. The courgettes produced well as always.

Small sunflowers

A few years ago I kept the seed from a sunflower that I grew in the garden. I wasn't sure what I would do with them, but I let them dry out and then put them in a big pickle jar in the shed. Forgot about them last year and just planted a few from a packet.

Early in the season this year, I planted a few from a packet in individual cells of potting compost. Planted out in the garden they suffered various maladies - slugs and high winds taking a few out. Only one made it to decent sunflower height.

Around the time the first set were a foot or two high I decided to plant some of the saved ones. They germinated well and I planted them on the shady side of the garden. No more room on the sunny side, so I thought I would give them a try. I am not sure if it was the shade or the later planting that did for them, but they didn't flourish as they should have.

Towards the end of the summer when the weather was starting to get windy they were about six feet tall. One gusty night most of them got knocked down. I cut about a foot length of the flowers off and brought them inside. At this stage only one or 2 had bloomed and they were very small. A few weeks later though every one I brought inside had flowered beautifully.

This picture does not do them justice as they are bit beyond their best by now, but they were not such a disappointment after all. I have kept more seed - from the early planted one that got really big and will be sure to plant lots of them next year.

Slug traps baited with beer

I have written about the effectiveness of beer as a slug attractor (and subsequent drowner) before, but this weekend I caught hundreds of the slimy critters with just 3 traps. I didn't even think there were many slugs out there, but obviously I was wrong.
I used home brew, but any beer is fine. The cheaper the better of course, don't reckon slugs and snails are fussy.
To make a trap get a large plastic plant pot saucer. These are for holding the water at the bottom of the plant, but they work fine to make a slug trap. Dig a shallow hole roughly the size of the saucer at the spot where you want to catch the slugs. Press the saucer into the hole until the edges are level with the surrounding soil. Then half fill the saucer with beer.
You need to make sure that the rain is kept off these as a good shower will dilute the beer beyond usefulness. I made a few small table like structures out of some wood I found thrown in a ditch, but a small piece of board sloped over the saucer with a rock under one side to keep it tilted should be fine. The benefit of my little roofs is that they are heavy and so don't blow about when it's windy.
Every few days visit your traps and collect the slugs that are around and especially under the saucer. Top up with beer if necessary, but a single shot should last a week or so.
I plop the slugs into a large jar with some salted water in it. This kills them and I put the lid on and keep the jar in the garden until my next collection. When the jar fills up I just throw it in the bin. I don't like the idea of burying the dead slugs in the garden in case any eggs survive. I am not even sure if this is possible, but better to be safe then sorry. Besides, rotten slug stinks and I don't want it lying around the garden.
After a few weeks of using these the number that you are catching should fall off sharply. This is a much better way than using slug pellets which are pretty toxic.

Tomato harvest

There was some frost last week and the tomatoes are getting black patches. I picked the whole lot of them last night.

Some of them are ripening and will finish off on the windowsill. The rest will be made into chutney. I have a huge stock pot that I use for this. The jars and lids are collected in the shed.

Growing tomatoes outdoors in Ireland is always a balancing act between getting the plants outside as early as possible to let them develop while at the same time avoiding any late frosts - certain death for young tomato plants. If the frost gets the plants there is no time to germinate fresh seeds, so you are not growing any tomatoes that year. If you wait too long before putting the plants outside to be sure of missing the late frosts, you are unlikely to get the fruit ripened before the autumn frosts set in. 

Still the chutney is gorgeous and we are just using up our last jar from last year, so the timing is perfect. 

A vegetable bake with cheese sauce and brown rice

I got this recipe from Complete Cookery Course: Classic Edition. My copy is fraying at the edges at this stage, but I can still rely on it for recipes that work. The full recipe is available here.

I know it looks a bit of a mess, but the photo does not do it justice. There is even rice scattered over the worktop :-) The recipe is supposed to be enough for 4 people, but my wife and I ate the lot. We did not have  a starter or dessert, so this was a perfect fit. The recipe sounds like there is quite a bit of effort involved, but there isn't really. I used normal cabbage instead of Chinese leaves and threw a chopped courgette in with the cabbage and broccoli for sauteing. Courgettes are nearing the end of their season, so I am putting them into everything I can.

The wormery in action

Wormery
The wormery arrived on Monday morning. I only got the chance to set it up this evening. There were 2 bags of tiger worms included in the box along with some bedding compost for them to get started in and some lime pellets - to reduce the ph when necessary.
The kit was very complete and the instructions clear. It is standing outside the back door now with the worms munching on a few handfuls of kitchen waste. Hope my coffee grounds don't poison the little guys.
It needs to be left along for a week now and then fed again. Hopefully everything will be up and running before the weather gets cold and they slow down. Should be some liquid to drain off at the end of November.

Beetroot harvest and saving tomato seed

These are a couple of beetroot that I pulled up yesterday. We had them with mackerel and the horseradish and natural yogurt sauce. Along with some new potatoes from Wexford they made a delicious dinner.

Potatoes for Christmas, saving rocket seeds, slug hunting and sunflower seeds

Potatoes
Going to try to grow some spuds in a container this year for winter. Have always used the excuse that I don't have enough space for potatoes, but I will give a container a go and see how I get on.
Have placed 3 healthy medium sized tubers from a shop bought bag of Wilson's garden potatoes into a cardboard egg box on the windowsill in the kitchen. When they sprout I will plant them in about 15 centimeters of compost and add a layer of compost as the foliage grows.

Rocket seeds
The rocket has gone to seed. Very quick as always, but I left it there to let the pods ripen a bit. Took them all off the stalks today and tidied that bit of the vegetable patch up. This is the seeds after I picked them.

Rocket seeds in their pods

I have put them on newspaper to dry out for a few days before I put them into a jar for storage.

That's rocket to the left and something else leafy on the right

 I have also planted a few of the rocket seeds in a pot for the windowsill. I read that they can be planted in September and should do ok. I am skeptical, but am going to give it a try anyway.
The rocket came in a packet of mixed leaves and I took pods from some of the other leaves and am saving those too. Not sure what they will come up with, but it will probably be fine to eat next summer.

The first few rocket seeds are under there

Slug hunting

We had a relatively slug free summer this year. It is very wet out today and I took a jam jar full of slugs out of the garden. Important to keep them under control and get them out before they get a chance to reproduce. I don't like using slug pellets, so I will use some of the waste beer when I am bottling next week to make some traps. 

Sunflower seeds

I only got one decent sunflower this year. Picked it today and have left it on the bench in the shed to dry. We have plenty of sunflower seeds saved from a few years ago and they germinated very well this year (the problems came with neglect following germination), so I think we will eat this years ones after roasting them. 

First tomatoes from the garden

The first of the tomatoes from the back garden are just ready. Well nearly. We picked these yesterday. They don't have great flavour yet, but they should finish ripening over the next week or two. If we get some more good sunshine we should be sorted.

The courgettes have been growing well for the whole summer, but the tomatoes should be the star of the show. Hopefully we won't be overrun with chutney this year and will get plenty of ripe ones.

Freezing Swiss Chard

This is some of the Swiss Chard from my garden in Celbridge. It has a few slug holes at this stage of the year, but once it is washed well and cooked it is delicious. Most people I mention this vegetable to have not even heard of Chard. I saw it first on a Jamie Oliver programme. He plants a square meter of it and gets enough to feed his family for the whole season. The yield is great alright and its very hardy. 

That said, it is coming to the end of the growing season, so I needed to freeze some to stretch the supply out a little bit. 

First I cut the medium and large sized leaves off with a scissors at the base of the leaf. I did not bother with the stem. They are not as nice to eat as the leaf and I am not sure how well they would freeze. Then I filled the sink with salted cold water and washed the leaves. I did this individually to make sure that there were no garden pests or cocoons anywhere. 

Then I blanched the chard. I got a large pot of water on a rolling boil. I plunged the chard into this and gave it a good stir around. Then I put the lid back on the pot and timed the boil for 2 minutes. Finally I removed all of the chard from this boil and put it into a large bowl of ice water for a few minutes. The drain the chard and put it in freezer boxes. 

I have had bad experience with freezing some other vegetables before (cauliflower is very nasty) and so I did a small test batch earlier this week. We ate that in the borlotti bean minestrone that we had a couple of days ago. It was delicious, so I did the rest and got a good sized freezer box out of it. The chard shrinks a good bit when you process it like this, so that is enough for maybe 10 meals. 

The plants themselves are still in good condition and have plenty of smaller leaves (an inch or two in length). I am going to leave these as they are until we get frost - which will probably kill them fairly quickly. In the meantime I will let them grow and keep eating any that are of sufficient size. That way I can stretch out my frozen chard as long as possible. 

Mackerel, beetroot and horseradish sauce

Jamie Oliver has a recipe for trout with a horseradish sauce. This is very similar, but with mackerel instead of the trout.

The beetroot in the garden is perfect at the moment. A couple of inches across each. We had 2 of these globes each for dinner. Washed them and twisted the leaves off. Then we steamed them for about 30 minutes, checking them with a skewer to see when they were perfect. They are easy to peel by hand under a slowly running cold tap. Just push the skins off with your thumbs and leave the beets aside on a plate until you have the other stuff on the plates. They will retain their heat for about 5 minutes in a warm kitchen as long as you don't slice them before serving.

The mackerel was from a fishmongers in Howth. They had cleaned it already and it was still cheap as chips. When mackerel is fresh there is nothing to touch it. When I got back from the shop I froze this in batches of 2. It defrosted fine at room temperature and then we roasted it for 15 minutes at 180 degreed c with a bit of salt and pepper on top. The skin crisped up nicely.

The sauce was made from equal quantities of natural yogurt and horseradish sauce in a jar. About a tablespoon of lemon juice and a good grind of salt and pepper. Mixed this up well in a bowl and stuck a spoon in it for serving ourselves at the table (or couch in this case).

We steamed some of the father in law's potatoes to go with this. Very tasty and healthy too.

Beetroot and Apple with Horseradish dressing

I got a new book called The Flavour Thesaurus. It gives combinations of foods that go well together. This recipe is based on one of her recommendations on beetroot. The garden is full of it at the moment and we were looking for something to do with the glut. Don't like pickled beetroot particularly, so this was the first thing we tried:

Ingredients:
1 medium sized beetroot
Half of a nice tart apply - leave the skin on
Horseradish sauce (jar stuff is fine)
Natural yogurt


Method:
Wash the muck off the beetroot and twist the leaves and stems off. Steam it for as long as it takes to cook. This depends on size. For tiny beets its about 15 to 20 minutes, for the hefty one I used it was about 35 minutes. Use a skewer to check if it is done. Then hold the cooked beetroot under a running cold tap and rub the skin off. Use a knife to cut out any bits that garden nasties might have taken a chunk from.
Now chop the beet into small cubes. Leave this aside. Cut half an apple (I used a Jazz apple from Aldi) into similar sized chunks.
The dressing is made of 2 teaspoons each of the Horseradish and the yogurt. Mix these well in a bowl big enough to take the chopped beet and apple. Add some salt and pepper. Throw the chopped veg and fruit in and mix it all up. Dish this out on to 2 plates.

I served this with home made brown bread and a tin of mackerel from Aldi. Delicious. The quantities above serve 2 people for lunch.

Herb and flower seeds in pots and the first go at tidying the border

I planted a bunch of herbs and flowers in plastic pots today.
The parsley plant that had been doing its thing well for the last couple of years finally gave up to encroaching grass. I lifted the whole tussock out with the fork. Read here that they only last about two years anyway.
Chives went in a nice earthenware pot for the kitchen windowsill. The rest went into old plastic pots, not display stuff really. I will have to get some nicer earthenware pots to cover those ones up before they are allowed into the kitchen.
Did not bother planting rosemary again. It is a waste of time. Read that the best way to propagate this is vegetatively. Just have to find someone who will let me perch a pot of compost beside their rosemary bush for a couple of weeks :-)
The sage bush is still doing fine, so no need to replant there.
The others were basil, sunflowers, coriander and dill.
Next I need to get the tomato, chard and beetroot seeds and get them planted out.
Had great success with tomatoes last year. Chard is something that we tried a couple of years ago on the advice of Jamie Oliver (not direct advice, he was on the telly!) and have not looked back. It grows like wildfire and is very nice in a lot of different dishes. Beetroot is delicious steamed with a horse radish and creme fraiche dressing and some fish. This is also a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Brown lentil casserole and the first seeds in trays

Brown lentil casserole

Made with loads of vegetables and lentils for protein, this is an excellent main course. It's very tasty and healthy too. The list of ingredients is not hard and fast, this post is more about the general idea of vegetable and lentil based casseroles and how to make them. The list given here is based on what I had in the fridge today. I used the small brown lentils, but the flatter green ones are fine too. This recipe is not ideal for the small orange ones as they tend to dissolve. If you want to use those try this recipe instead. This serves 2 people for dinner.

Ingredients:
3 handfuls of brown lentils
Half a butternut squash(I find that even after halving these keep for ages in the fridge. Same goes for the sweet potato)
A small turnip
3 carrots
Half a sweet potato
3 tsp of marigold vegetable stock powder (you can use regular stock cubes, but you will need to use enough of them for the amount of water that will cover the vegetables. Better to use a measuring jug in this case. Marigold is good stuff with no much in it. Tricky to get though.)
A couple of teaspoons of soy sauce
2 celery sticks
1 Onion
Boiling water to cover
A cup of frozen peas


Sourcing:
The brown lentils are from the health food shop in Liffey Valley shopping centre. You can usually get these in Tesco, when they have them in stock. More often than not our Tesco just has a convenient space on the shelf where they would be if they had any. At least I know to stop looking at that point.
Most of the vegetables were bought in Aldi.
The Marigold stock powder was bought in Sainsbury's in Newry. I normally get it in the health food shop on Liffey Street, but was up north, so picked up a few there instead. Soy sauce is Kikkoman from the Asian Emporium on Abbey street.  They sell it in large bottles there which I then decant into the nicer little serving one. Much cheaper that way.

Method:
Peel and chop all the vegetables into bite sized pieces. Place all of the ingredients except the peas into a large pot. Add the stock powder or cubes and cover with the boiling water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 25 minutes. The add the frozen peas and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes. Check that the lentils are done to your liking.

The first seeds in trays
Raked over the vegetable patches to get them ready for planting. They are looking pretty good if a bit lumpy. I never get them looking like they do on gardeners world. Might try some 'no dig' next year.

Planted courgettes and leeks in mini pots. The seeds are a good bit out of date, so will keep an eye on them to see if they germinate in the next 2 weeks. If not, it's off to the garden centre. Seeds are cheap, so it's not that, but who likes to throw stuff out?

Next things to do are get the rest of the veg into trays (trying to avoid direct seeding into the patch, it does not work out very well for me) and plant the herb trays for the kitchen. I will try to grow rosemary this year, like every year and will probably fail :-( Great crop of tomatoes last year - we still have chutney - so must get some of them sown indoors ready for planting out.

Garden kickoff, last of the leeks and cheddar scones

First vegetable patch work
I finally got out into the garden today. Dug the vegetable patches and spread the years worth of kitchen compost. It was composted very nicely. I tipped the whole lot out and removed the good stuff. Threw the uncomposted recent stuff back into the now almost empty bin. Next up I have to rake the ground to a fine tilth and get the first of the seeds planted indoors.

The last of the leeks needed to be lifted before I could get working on the patch. There were quite a lot of them. Topped and tailed them all and made this soup with 700 grammes of them. The rest are in the fridge at the moment.

Leek and Potato soup
Ingredients:

700g of leeks - cut up finely and washed
2 onions - chopped finely
900g of potatoes - peeled and shopped small
100g of butter - I got some nice country butter in Tesco
Salt and pepper
1.5 litres of chicken stock - I just used decent cubes, real is of course better

Method:

Melt the butter in a large thick bottomed pot. Add all the vegetables and stir to coat them with the butter. Season with plenty of salt and pepper. Leave the mixture on a medium heat for about 15 minutes until the vegetables have all softened. Check it does not burn every few minutes and give it a good stir. I found that the potatoes stuck a bit, but did not burn.
Then add the hot stock and give the whole lot a stir. Cook this for about 40 minutes on a very low heat. Liquidize and stir the milk in. This recipe makes a lot, but it freezes well.

Cheese and herb scones
These have a lovely chewy texture and are yellow in colour from the buttermilk. Like all scones they are very quick and easy to make, so not worth making in bulk for freezing. Just make them up fresh when you need them. Having nice herbs in the garden makes this possible. You won't spend a fortune buying fresh herbs that go off in the bottom of your fridge.


Ingredients:

220g of plain flour
Half a teaspoon of baking soda, sieved
Handful of sage chopped finely - I had this in the garden, but dried is ok
200ml of buttermilk
25g of cheddar cheese grated

Method:

Mix the flour, baking soda and sage in a bowl. Add the buttermilk a little at a time until you have a dough that you can handle. Should be a bit sticky, but not total gunge. Turn it out onto a floured work surface and shape it into a flat disc about a centimeter thick. Cut it up into triangles, or use a cutter. Use a brush to coat the top surface of each scone in some more butter milk. Dip the scone tops into the grated cheese. Place them on a sheet of grease proof paper on a baking sheet.
Bake at gas mark 8 for about 20 minutes. Hollow when tapped.

These went great with the leek soup and some more of the country butter on them.