Fresh Garden Salad

We have been harvesting fresh leaves from the greenhouse for a few months now. With the small glimpses of sunshine we have had recently and the slightly less arctic temperatures, we now have more salad than ever and I am battling to stop some things bolting. In the picture, going clockwise from top left, we have a mix of mini gem and all the year round lettuce, wild rocket, radishes and right at the front you can just see some coriander (which started to bolt almost before it got any real leaves). In another greenhouse bed I have more rocket, mizuna and corn salad (I think it's corn salad, the label disappeared and I threw the empty packet away). I regularly patrol the beds for slugs and snails, I don't think I've ever seen as many as I have this year. I love taking my trug and a pair of scissors up to the greenhouse and snipping away until I have the right mix of leaves for dinner that night. The mizuna is very spicy with a mustardy flavour, while the rocket is peppery and the little gem leaves are refreshing. I have also been adding fresh garden herbs to my salad mixes. I really like the freshness and lightness of produce seasonal to this time of year. Add my salad mixes and herbs to the broad beans and baby new potatoes we have been harvesting and you have a pretty perfect dinner. Next time it stops raining I must dash out and sow the next lot of salads to keep the supply coming - and to mix up the ingredients of my salads!

First Broad Bean Harvest

I don't know about you, but I am a pretty impatient gardener. I plant something and then obsessively check it on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis to see whether it is growing, producing a crop or flowering. So it was a rather pleasant surprise when my first broad bean crop of the season kind of snuck up on me. I would throw them a cursory glance and note that they were getting taller (but not nearly as tall as Monty Don's) as I made my way to somewhere else in the garden but didn't see the appearance of bean pods. Then last weekend (before the deluge of wind and rain) I was helping Sam put our decking together (to be the subject of a separate post) right next to the veg patch and there they were, gleaming green pods of ready-to-pick broad beans. I immediately fetched my trug and eagerly collected up the fattest pods and there were loads!

I love the contrast in the second picture of the bright green beans against the red bowl, the beans look so fresh and appetising. Sam cooked them up by blanching them for a couple of minutes and then adding them to a pan with some strips of streaky bacon and garlic. He finished it off with parley and mint - both from the garden and they were lovely. There really is nothing like eating something a few minutes after you've picked it from the garden, knowing exactly how it was grown and how much love and care was put into the growing. I am savouring these moments when I get them because I think with the difficult weather we have been having, I may have some disappointing harvests, or rather non-harvests this summer.

Lavender Hedge

Last year I decided that I would like a lavender hedge to go up the sides of the steps up to the house. I love the idea of a garden being about scents as well as visuals and something like a hedge being beautiful and insect friendly as well as functional.
I began looking around for lavender plants to build my hedge and quickly realised that to have enough plants to create a hedge on both sides (probably about 7-8 metres in total) would cost a fortune. I set about propagating my existing lavender plants with varying success (mostly not very much!) but soon realised that this still wouldn't give me the numbers of plants I needed.
Then, early this year, I was flicking through a plant catalogue which was an insert in a magazine (Van Meuwen). They were offering 48 lavender mini plugs for about £8. This is the best price I have seen this many lavender plants so I ordered some and they finally arrived today (hurrah!).

They really are teeny tiny, I'm hoping they grow nice and quickly so I can plant them out once the threat of frost has passed. I can't wait to brush past them as I come home and smell wafts of lavender on warm days. I know I probably won't be able to class it as a hedge for quite a while but it should at least attract plenty of bees and other insects to the garden over the summer.

 I have potted the plugs up into modules of damp compost. I carefully pulled each plant out of the plastic plug holders and teased the roots out a bit to help them grow into the new pot. I will leave them indoors for a couple of days to settle down after being in to the post and then I will put them out into the mini greenhouse and eventually into the polytunnel to grow on.

Wild Garlic

These are my wild garlic plants, I bought them at Seedy Sunday in Hove back in February from a specialist nursery called Edulis. They specialise in growing rare fruit, veg and herb plants. I bought five bulbs, bought them home and kept them in a plastic bag with enough water inside to keep them moist. Ideally you would plant them out to their final growing spot straight away but I bought them on the weekend when we had lots of snow. Once shoots began to grow, I planted them up into this seed tray while I try to find a suitable spot for them to go permanently.

Previously I tried growing wild garlic from seed but after a germination success rate of zero, when I saw these bulbs at the seed swap, I just had to have some.

The great thing about wild garlic is that you can eat and cook with all parts of the plant - bulbs, leaves and flowers. We recently got some green garlic in our organic veg box which seems to be pretty similar (if not the same) as wild garlic and according to the helpful instructions we got with it, you can use it in salads like you would spring onions, or fry it off and use it as you would ordinary garlic.

Also known as ramsons or bear garlic, it can be quite invasive and can colonise an area pretty quickly in the right conditions. In the wild, it grows in woodland areas so prefers shade and damp conditions. I have one side of my garden which is completely in the shade most of the time but due to huge fir trees, I think it is more dry shade than damp so I am unsure whether to plant them here.

If their growth and vigour so far despite my lack of attention is anything to go by, I'm sure they will do pretty well, and best of all, they will keep me in garlic long after my normal garlic reserves have been used up.