I find autumn to be a very satisfying season. You quite literally can enjoy the fruits of your labour, or even just enjoy the fruits that you didn’t necessarily labour over! Have you tried Quince? It’s been a great year for quince, a forgotten fruit that is enjoying a bit of a revival. We are lucky enough to have a tree in our communal allotment … Continue reading Autumn fruitfulness and an unwelcome visitor…
It’s been a great year for many fruits, and grapes seem to be no exception. I’m lucky enough to have a grapevine in my garden which I inherited, and it produces sweet red grapes. These are good enough to eat as they are (and the hornets certainly seem to be enjoying them!) but we could never get through that many, so I make grape juice. … Continue reading How to make grape juice in 5 easy steps
…is sometimes dreary, grey, a little drab. Let’s be honest, unless you have a garden stuffed with artfully placed, tightly clipped evergreens, that look good no matter the weather, this is just par for the course. Plants die, colours fade, the light is low and weak, the sun becomes a stranger, and it rains. And rains. And rains. And yet…gardeners can always can find little … Continue reading The garden in winter
Am having a bit of a slow day today. Is it maybe related to the time of year? August is a month of relaxing holidays, balmy evenings and that niggling almost back-to-school feeling that summer is slipping through one’s fingers. Something about all of these things begets slowness. Luckily, from a gardening perspective, there’s still plenty going on with the veg harvests coming in thick … Continue reading August harvests and sowings (Six on Saturday)
It looks like this is going to go down as one of the driest summers in Europe – so far, I say with trepidation. Despite the lack of rain, the allotment harvests have been incredible. I can hardly keep up with processing all this food in the kitchen. It’s hard work, of the old-fashioned sort, but I haven’t had to go out and buy fruit … Continue reading Vegtastic Six on Saturday
I remember first becoming aware of the diminutive little weed, Cardamine hirsuta, on another gardening blogger’s post around this time last year. It was part of his gardening to do list: this enthusiastic ephemeral needs to be weeded out quickly, he said, before it sets seed and takes over your garden. Being an ephemeral, it doesn’t waste its time, growing, flowering and then dispersing its … Continue reading Cardamine hirsuta: a weedy make-over for tasty salads
A little departure from Six on Saturday this week to tell you about my autumnal foraging! I’ve always loved the berries that adorn the trees and shrubs at this time of year, dripping from branches or twinkling on bare stems like little red, orange or yellow jewels. For a few years now, I’ve been eyeing the rosehips that appear on a large shrub rose by … Continue reading A berry nice time
I love growing all kinds of veg, from the humble radish to the stately sweetcorn, but for me there is always something special about tomatoes. While it’s only recently that I’ve had the opportunity to grow a wider array of vegetables, I’ve been growing tomatoes since we bought our first shared-garden flat in south London in my mid 20’s, and it would now be an … Continue reading The comforting rituals of growing tomatoes
During our first lockdown in Belgium, in the spring of 2020, seeking to stay at home as much as possible, I picked up a new skill: bread baking. I’d never done it before, and had assumed it must be difficult and time-consuming. Of course, it’s no such thing – after all, bread-baking is one of humanity’s most universal and basic skills. If you can mix … Continue reading A loaf and well
January is a miserable month, in my opinion, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the month of my birthday, so I need to make an effort to stay positive. It’s now getting too cold for gardening – we are hovering at zero degrees C or just below, without the upside of actual snow. To compensate, there is reading and eating, both essential for … Continue reading January calls for comfort food
