Sunshine on a rainy day

Hello all, I hope you've all been enjoying the start to summer.  There has been some sun in there between the rain and wind!

The veggies have been enjoying it anyway, perhaps not so much the wind, but the change between sun and rain has everything going bonkers.  I haven't been planting much out lately, hence no how-to blogs being posted lately,  I've just been impatiently waiting for things to harvest until recently.  My impatience is being rewarded though, I am starting to get things out of the garden to eat now, hooray! 

Someone else is living my dream / rampant radishes

I had a lovely trip over to Central Otago this weekend to visit friends, got to sit in the sunshine too, fantastic!  I also got to visit their mum, a lady who is currently living my dream and came back to Dunedin full of envy and determination.

A weekend with Annabel Langbein

Well not really, but it felt like it :)   After entering my details on Annabel Langbein’s website I was lucky enough to be chosen to be a free range foodie panel member and receive a free advance copy of her new recipe book, a Free Range Life Summer Annual.

A free range life - summer annual

Potatoes Part 2 – Planting out

If, like me, you started chitting your potatoes last month (potatoes part 1), then your seed potatoes are probably starting to look a little bit ugly, all wrinkled with alien like sprouts. If you haven’t got started yet then it isn’t too late, you may have missed the boat for Christmas dinner but you’ll still have a lovely crop later in the summer.

Wrinkly Alien seed potatoes

Faster than the speed of light!

I'm liking this new trend for rain during the week and sunshine at the weekend.  It is very much the opposite of what I am used to!  I've been taking full advantage and the garden looks amazing at the moment.

However, I am getting VERY impatient, I want to start eating things out of the garden again!! At the moment all that it is producing is lettuce and the herbs, which is great because I did miss these over winter, but still lettuce doesn't get you very far.

Tomatoes and sunburn

I had an awesome weekend in the garden, had a good tidy up and got a lot of weeding done … I also got my first sunburn of the 2013/2014 summer, whoops!  The carrot and radish seeds are in the garden finally and I’ve evicted the spare tomato seedlings to make room for more up and coming seedlings.  The handy husband has also been busy, jerry rigging a plastic tray as a shelf in the greenhouse for seedlings to keep the out of the way and building this awesome vertical herb garden on the fence for lettuces and annual herbs.  The cat is not being so helpful, a new game appears to be digging up the non-frilly lettuces or biting and shredding the frilly ones, hence the vertical herb garden and a liberal sprinkling of skunk pellets.

A vertical herb garden

Strawberries = summer in a mouthful!

Imagine this, you wake up and have some strawberries scattered on your morning cereal, or perhaps some home-made strawberry jam on your toast, you’ve then got some strawberries tucked in to your lunchbox for a healthy snack, and maybe for dessert you’ve got a strawberry tart or some strawberries and other fruit mixed with yoghurt and honey, or maybe it’s the weekend and you can add some strawberries to your sparkling wine or pimms.   These are proper strawberries too mind you, not those hothouse grown, hard, strawberry flavoured bullets, but proper sun-warmed, luscious, juicy fruit with maximum strawberry taste!  Sounds good? Then get growing!

Quietly growing in the background

Hi all, did you miss me?  I was a bit shocked to realise that I haven't posted in nearly a month!  I think the blog and I have just been waiting quietly and impatiently for seeds to grow.  Also we have been doing more mundane things around the garden like repairing the lawn, shifting dirt piles, weeding, chopping down trees, and re-organising the front garden flower bed, so I haven't been too lazy, honest!

You may remember the seed packet bonanza that I mentioned in a previous post ... well I planted them out in seed trays shortly after they arrived and have been hovering over them like a broody hen ever since ... maybe that has more to do with the reason I haven't blogged, I've been too busy running to the greenhouse every 5 mins to see if anything has grown yet!  

Have you got yer spuds on? – Potatoes part 1

I think potatoes were the most satisfying thing I grew last year, so easy to grow and when they are ready it is like digging for treasure. The only thing I did wrong with these last year is to not grow nearly enough.

It’s time to get the seed potatoes ready, it’s called ‘chitting’, but all that involves is keeping them in a warm (but not hot), dry, airy place so they start sprouting … so basically what happens when you leave your eating potatoes in the cupboard too long! I keep mine in a tray in the bottom of the pantry, it seems to work well enough on my bag of supermarket spuds so why not. Other suggestions are an egg carton on a windowsill, they need a bit of light but not too hot. It is important that the resting spot you choose is dry otherwise you will end up with mouldy potatatoes. 



Chitting the potatoes before planting

Do try and buy properly certified seed potatoes rather than using potatoes from the supermarket, as they will be treated for diseases etc and be a bit stronger for producing lots of potato babies. I’ve got some Jersey Bennes and Agrias going at the moment for new potatoes and everyday potatoes. I might try and get another couple of more interesting varieties to go in a bit later on.

Place potatoes in a single layer on your tray/egg carton and try and get them eye side up (eyes are those little knobbly bits). After a couple of weeks they will start sprouting, you want three good strong sprouts of about an inch long. If the potato has any more than three sprouts you can just rub off the extras.

Don’t have a veggie patch? They sell growing towers and plastic tubs that work well for potatoes, especially the new potato varieties. When we were living in a flat in London we had a tiny outdoor space which was basically the roof of an extension on the flat below that was overlooked by the tube tracks. My husband grew a lovely lot of potatoes in one of those plastic tubs with some holes poked in the bottom.  Potatoes grown in containers tend to be a bit paler and thinner skinned for some reason, which is probably why it suits new potatoes better.  They are still great to eat though.

Posing with the London potatoes shortly before harvesting,
the wall at the back is the tube line.  And below is some of the harvest! 

My only warning is, that if you are planting them in the garden, choose a spot where you won’t mind potato plants appearing the following year! We were finding potato plants EVERYWHERE in the garden last year, even in flower beds and the front garden. I left a couple to grow and got a great harvest from those so that was a bonus, but unless you thoroughly dig down and out you are pretty much guaranteed to find a plant growing there next year.
To be continued ...

Halloumi - Brunch of Champions

We made Halloumi yesterday.  We've made it a few times now and it's the easiest and least time consuming of all the cheeses we've made so far.  It is very similar to making Feta (see here), but seems to take less time and less attention.  The best thing is that it can be made and ready to eat in an evening, hooray!

Spring - the promise of good times ahead

My plans for a weekend in the garden have been rained off, it's a bit yuck out there.  Can't say I'm really complaining about a rainy Sunday on the sofa though. 

There are signs that Spring is on the way though ...

The Magnolia is blooming

The Onion Patch

For someone that is not that keen on onions, I’m sure growing a lot of them!  I do use them in cooking a lot, but as more of a hidden vegetable in things like Bolognese or Chili.  It’s not the flavour I don’t like, more the texture!  I could never eat a raw onion slice or bite in to a chunky bit of cooked onion, blech!  The milder spring onions on the other hand I’m quite keen on.

I spent this Sunday afternoon planting out the onion patch in the sunshine, I’ve now got Spring Onions, Shallots, Red Onions and the everyday Pukekohe longkeepers (brown onions) in the ground.  Onion seedlings are good to plant out now in August, and then again in April  (make a start in Feb or Jun if you are going to try from seed).

Garden design – planning ahead for a vegetable bounty

Happy New Year!! Well gardener's New Year that is. I've got a couple of gardening books that are basically my bibles for telling me what to plant when, they both start in August and today is 1st August! I certainly have that feeling of being about to start a brand new year of veggie growing, I'm excited!!



The blank canvas

I deliberately didn’t plant many winter crops, I wanted to reach the end of winter with more or less a blank canvas to start on.  We moved in to the house in June last year and by the time we’d unpacked and settled in, it was time to start planting and I kind of panicked and threw a load of seedlings at the veggie patch and hoped they’d stick, then I got given more plants and it just ended up a bit of a jumble and I kind of ran out of room.  Having said that most things turned out great, well perhaps except for the no-show parsnip and feeble cauliflower.

High Tea Perfection

Still not much news on the gardening front … the pre-spring tidy up continues but it is still too early to do much, the weeds do seem to be starting to grow again and the bulbs I've planted are coming through so it must be spring soon.  I still haven't quite got the hang of the up side down seasons here.  If the weather is nice this weekend I am going to try and plant some shallots, spring onions and peas/mangetouts.  I can’t wait!  Then when mid-autumn rolls around I am going to go nuts planting a whole lotta stuff, watch this space!

Messing with the natural order of the Universe

Well in my last blog post I was wishing for Spring, and for a few glorious days it looked like I got my wish, so much so that I was a bit worried that I had messed with the natural order of things!  The sun was shining, it was warm enough to brunch outside without a coat and one of my roses is flowering, whoops, hang on, I’m not that ready for Spring after all!  It’s OK though the big duvet was back on the bed last night and it is back to being rather chilly, still got some beautiful blue skies though.

Hurry up Spring – Recovering from the wild weather

I miss lettuce. I’ve spoilt myself for supermarket lettuce, I bought a couple of bags after it got too cold to grow in the garden and didn’t like it, it just smelled weird. The broccoli has been fantastic but I miss lettuce in my sandwiches and summer salads … hurry up Spring!!

Monster broccoli, my pride and joy!

Pinterest Sunday - Mason Jars, sofa & duvet and Cushions for Katie

Pinterest Sunday is a very close relation to Lazy Sunday and Hungover Sunday.  All three Sunday varieties start the same way with me looking out of the window and thinking 'hell no, I am not going out there'!  

far too rainy to think about gardening

A pumpkin hunting holiday

I’m a bit late with my blog post for this week, I’ve been on holiday, hooray for me … a two day week at work is just the way it should be!  However, I haven’t been slacking, I’ve been hunting pumpkins!  Please excuse the grey photos, it was a rather grey rainy day!

Peirce Orchard - Central Otago

Glorious Garlic - definitely no vampires round here

It finally stopped raining! FINALLY!  I was afraid that I was going to miss my date for planting out the garlic.  

I put garlic in nearly everything, I love it.  I reckon it goes in about 80% of my evening meals.  My favourite meals all have garlic in there somewhere!  I planted some last year and was only moderately successful, it looked like garlic and tasted like garlic but in miniature.  It was about half the size that it should have been.  I think it may have been because I planted it a bit too late, or perhaps because our spring/summer was so dry this year and they didn't get quite enough water to plump out?  

Leeks - the ghetto vegetable

I saw something as I was walking through Dunedin a couple of days ago that perfectly proves the point I was trying to make with this blog.  It was a great example of not needing a lifestyle block or even a veggie patch to grow vegetables.

OK so admittedly a main street in central Dunedin isn't exactly the ghetto but it was still the last place I was expecting to see vegetables growing!  In the window boxes of what I assumed was an office building were some very healthy looking leeks and celery, I had to cross the road to make sure I wasn't imagining it :)

A perfect recipe for a rainy Sunday

A soggy Sunday after an already saturated Saturday ... It's been raining for two days solidly. I'm unusually happy about this as I needed an excuse to hunker down indoors all weekend.  It's far too wet to get out in the garden even if I wanted to!  I've spent all day in the kitchen today (well apart from the hours I have spent on the sofa) and it's been wonderful.

Making Feta – feeling smug

I made Feta at the weekend … I am AWEsome!!! Ha, it’s actually not that hard to make but I have this massive sense of achievement like I have just climbed Mount Everest or something J  I’m not normally so self-congratulatory, honest, but I am just that impressed with myself.  The best bit is that it tastes like Feta cheese too, not sure what I expecting it to taste like?!

Autumn - My Favourite Season

Our beautiful chestnut tree, the main provider of lawn leaves

I love autumn, as sad as it is to see summer go I do love that cosy feeling that autumn brings.  I really missed autumn when we lived in Wellington which is surrounded by evergreen trees so you didn’t get that sense of the change of seasons.  Of course in England autumn is the best season as there is Halloween, Bonfire Night and the exciting run up to Christmas, not so much to look forward to here but I still get that feeling of anticipation.


Apples – Autumn Comfort Cooking

Apples ... great all year round eating for snacks and lunchboxes, but I am talking about apples for cooking with.  The evenings are getting darker and it’s getting a bit colder so that is driving me to thoughts of warm comfort food in the form of apple crumbles and apple pies mmmmmm!  I’m not a sweet treat fan generally but I do love apple desserts, and they’ve got to be healthier for you because they’ve got fruit in, right? … right?!?

Beetroot – Surprise, not as bad as I thought it was!

What a thing to have as my first proper blog post, I always thought I HATED beetroot, but it is so easy to grow!! When we bought the house and moved in at the start of winter, there were just a few things left over in the veggie patch and beetroot was one of them. It seemed a shame to waste it so I found that it wasn’t too bad roasted up with a mixture of other vegetables like carrots and parsnips. Still not a huge fan though.

 Then, despite my rule of not growing anything I don’t like, some more beetroot found its way in to the patch thanks to seedling gifts from a fellow veggie grower, aaaargh! So I thought, right, I actually have to find a use for beetroot that I like. I did a bit of googling and then adapted a recipe that a friend suggested and lo and behold, it was amazing, light fresh and tasty! Beetroot will now be a constant in the garden just for this one recipe! J And what’s more, it involves raw beetroot!! Who’d a thunk it, it got rave reviews and plate licking from husband too even though he is of a similar mind-set to me on the beetroot front. Recipe at the bottom of the blog.

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog, thanks for coming along. I thought I would start with a little introduction on who we are, and where the blog thoughts came from, before getting down to the real stuff in later blog posts. J

As mentioned in the blog description, the dream would be to have a lifestyle block with room for chickens, dogs, a couple of cows or sheep for the freezer, big veggie patches and orchards ... well that’s the dream for us. The reality is a decent size back garden and a cat in the middle of Dunedin suburbia, this in itself is pretty amazing for us. We were lucky enough to buy our first house and first garden (no more flats!) in the winter of 2012. The garden came with a well-established veggie patch so we were straight out there putting in our first veggie seedlings and generally enjoying having our first bit of outdoor space!

This blog came about as, whilst we are by no means self-sufficient, we have been amazed at how much we have been able to get out of a garden with one veggie patch in our first year and thought we would share some of our stories, just to show that you don’t need the big lifestyle block in order to start leading a little bit of the Good Life. The fresh produce from the garden also leads to great cooking and recipes arising from vegetable gluts (I’m looking at you tomatoes), and without getting too little house on the prairie about it, I might throw in some blog posts on my rainy day activity of quilting.

So in case you think that we might be a bit too hippy dippy about it all, rest assured we are very much creatures of the modern age (one poker-playing IT consultant and one gadget loving administrator) and both work full time. I do try and spend a couple of hours each weekend out in the garden but more often than not I won’t quite find the time, luckily the garden does seem to forgive me even if the weeds do threaten to take over sometimes. Also, in case you think we might be experts, we are most definitely not! I am fully expecting this blog to chronicle failures along with the successes. However, I am originally from a small village in Kent, England, and my parents have always been veggie growers but as a teenager I didn’t appreciate the wonders of a fresh vegetable, I couldn’t wait to escape to the bright lights of my Uni town and then London in my 20s. It was only in my 30s after moving to New Zealand and settling down a wee bit that my ambitions started to turn towards the domestic, it seems some of the parental green thumb has rubbed off on me and husband in particular has been impressed at how much I seem to have remembered from ‘enforced’ childhood gardening! Mum and Dad are also very surprised J

So if you think you don’t have enough space or time for the vegetable growing and home-making, that might not be true. Hopefully we might be able to inspire a few others not to wait for the lifestyle block dream and to turn a flower bed in to a veggie plot. There is nothing like the proud achievement of a home-grown vegetable and eating something yummy put together with things from the garden. Husband, with an avid (sometimes rabid) interest in politics and economics particularly enjoys the element of ‘sticking it to the man’, that being almost self-sufficient in the veggie department brings! We've even made our own cheese and bread, admittedly not every loaf or block of cheese but enough to make us feel like we have our own little slice of the good life here in suburbia.

I hope you will enjoy the posts to follow, I’m abuzz with good intentions of blogging regularly. If you have any topics you would like to hear from me on, then do get in touch or leave me a comment.