And We're Off!

I don't feel quite right these days when I'm not actively growing things; in winter my green fingers begin to itch, and boredom and frustration creep in, and it's a huge relief when February arrives and I can justify getting a few early seeds started. I used to wait until mid-Feb - Charles Dowding recommends this as there are ten hours of daylight or more from this time and seedlings are less likely to get leggy - but I sometimes feel that my chillies and things are a bit behind, so this year I started sowing slightly earlier; at Imbolc, which marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

So here we are; my first (slightly leggy) seedlings are tucked up in the heated propagator, the seed potatoes are chitting, and I've even treated myself to a nice new cloche to get some things started early outside in the raised bed.

Last year I vowed not to bother with peppers and chillies this year and concentrate on plants that would actually crop for me instead; they're a lovely idea but without a polytunnel or greenhouse they just don't seem to be worth it here, and end up a waste of space. Of course, when I actually got round to sowing it was hard to stick to that decision  - I just wanted to sow as many things as I could get away with, and I had to remind myself of those past failures! But I did allow myself two varieties: 'Basket of Fire' chillies, which I'll grow under a bell cloche to see if that helps them along, and some 'Ancho' chillies which I did really well with a couple of years ago. I also started some 'Bonica F1' aubergines, and two each of three early tomato varieties; 'Latah', 'Stupice' and 'Jen's Tangerine'. I'll sow some more when I sow the other tomatoes in March, and see if the early start really made any difference... Germination has been excellent, except from the 'Ancho' chilli seeds which are a bit old. I'll set the seedlings deeper when I pot them up, to counter the legginess.

I've also started some 'Monarch' celeriac, and some 'Golden Spartan' celery - a variety we saw looking particularly impressive at Wisley last autumn. (It's no guarantee we'll be able to replicate the success of the Wisley gardeners, of course!) We've never succeeded with celeriac yet, so let's hope it's third time lucky... These seeds are in an unheated propagator indoors on a windowsill.

Potato varieties chosen this year include 'Pentland Crown' and 'King Edward' which both did well for us previously, plus 'Desiree' on the recommendation of several Twitter friends. I've always steered clear of red-skinned potatoes, mostly due to a memory of eating them weirdly soaked in vinegar at a French friend's house as a child... But they've gotta be worth a try, right? For earlies to grow at home, I really wanted 'Accent' - we grow them at FoodSmiles and they produce extremely well and taste delicious - but couldn't seem to find them except by mail order, with a £5 delivery fee of course! So I settled on 'Home Guard'. Then, at Seedy Sunday in Brighton last weekend, there they were; I picked up not only six 'Accent' but six 'Yukon Gold' to try too! We certainly won't be short of potatoes this summer...

My new cloche is from Harrod Horticultural; a rigid plastic thing that slots together in sections, so I can extend it in future if I want, and it seems very sturdy indeed. It has indentations in the roof to collect rainwater and let it drip through tiny holes to water the plants, so it shouldn't dry out beneath and is easy to water, and it's so much simpler to handle than faffing about with fleece, which I detest. As soon as I've cleared space (the right space) on the raised bed, I'll get it in place, let the soil warm for a week or so, and then start sowing early carrots, spinach, lettuce, radishes, rocket and spring onions under it.

So off we go! Another growing season begins. Isn't it funny how every one is just as exciting as the last? :-)

Stevia and Oysterleaf

After my chillies, peppers, aubergines and leeks, next on the list to sow this month were two unusual leaf crops; stevia and oysterleaf.

Stevia (stevia rebaudiana) is an extremely sweet-tasting leaf that can be used as a natural sweetener, 150 times sweeter than sugar. I was given some seeds last year but failed to get any to germinate - but ended up buying a small plant at a nursery later on in the summer. It didn't get very big and I didn't harvest more than a few leaves from it, but after its tiny white flowers faded I made sure to save some seeds for another attempt this year.

(Whole stevia leaf isn't approved by the Food Standards Agency as a food for human consumption - even though it's been eaten for centuries in South America and in Asia since the seventies - so it can't be marketed as food in its natural form. You can buy approved stevia extracts (you might have noticed the new Coca Cola 'Life' is part sweetened with a stevia derivative) but watch out for their purity. Truvia, the 'big brand' option marketed as a natural stevia-derived sweetener, has as its main component erythritol, a sugar alcohol similar to sorbitol, mannitol and xylitol, which is fermented from dextrose, a sugar made from corn.)

I haven't managed to find much out about how to sow the seeds, except that it's tricky and they need a lot of light. The seeds are very tiny, so I have sown some under a light sprinkling of soil and some on the surface. It's very easy for surface-sown seeds to dry out, so I've put the whole pot in a plastic bag to retain moisture, and I'm keeping them on a bright windowsill and crossing my fingers... If I have any success, I hope to experiment more with my harvest this year and find some good ways to use it! I'll also try to overwinter a plant (like I should have done last year!) to avoid the tricky germination game next year - I think they grow as perennials in warmer climates...

Oysterleaf (mertensia maritima) or 'sea bluebells' is another edible leaf crop, with round, blueish, fleshy leaves supposed to taste like - you guessed it - oysters. It's not to be confused with salsify - a root crop sometimes known as oysterplant! It's a perennial (you know I'm a sucker for perennial edibles!) and it has really pretty edible purple and blue flowers, similar to borage - it's in the same family. Again, I was given some seeds last year but failed to grow them successfully (I think a snail got them!) so it's round two this year, with seeds purchased from Pennard Plants. There were only five seeds in the pack, so again I'm having to be careful with them! The seeds are relatively big so I've sown them a few millimetres deep and I'm keeping a close eye on them to make sure they don't dry out. They're not going in a plastic bag, as they grow wild in the Hebrides so I don't think they want to be too warm. But I will be keeping them safely indoors, away from snails, this time! (Until they're bigger, anyway.)

In other seedy news, I've also now sown some stock and snapdragon seeds for my new flower patch, and my first aubergine seedlings popped up on Thursday, just five days after sowing, closely followed by the chillies and the leeks after seven days. It's all go!

Seed Sowing!

At last! The day is here! I've been itching to get starting with this season's seeds since, ooooh, about the second of January, but there's really not much point starting that early and seedlings grown when days are short can end up leggy and weak. Instead, I've taken on board a tip from veg-growing guru Charles Dowding, who advises waiting until there are ten hours of daylight each day before sowing seeds. This happens in mid February, and I've certainly noticed the evenings lengthening these last two weeks so hopefully it will make all the difference.

I like a good clear rule like this - it means no umming and aahing about whether or not it's the right time, no 'well I'll do a few now and a few later and see if there's any difference', no worrying.

Setting myself a clear day to get started - and making it a bit later than perhaps I'd like - has also meant I was far more organised than usual beforehand. I'd cleaned and tested the electric propagator in advance. I'd sorted out all my pots, and I've got a big bag of surplus ready to give away. I'd even written out my plant labels - I usually put the seeds in first then find myself writing labels with grubby fingers while trying to remember which pot's which - not clever!

I've also written up a sowing and planting plan for the whole year, which I'll use to keep records of the dates I actually sow as well. I can see at-a-glance what needs to be sown and where each month, so there'll be no forgetting things or puzzling over when to sow things for winter. I'm sure it'll get tweaked a bit along the way, but you can see it here if you like.

I sow all my seeds in peat-free compost - usually New Horizon organic peat-free. Peat-free seems to have a bad rap in the press - they'll tell you it's not suitable for seed-sowing, or that you have to sieve it and add vermiculite and water more, as if it's somehow more complex or more dangerous - but I've never, ever had any trouble with it; it's really very good stuff. And digging up peat is destructive, unsustainable, and totally unnecessary.

So here they all are. Tucked up in the electric propagator are three sweet peppers (Marconi Rossa, Lipstick and Kaibi Round), three chillies (Ancho Grande, Jalapeno and Big Jim Numex), and one aubergine (Bonica F1). They all need a bit of extra warmth to germinate well, so the electric propagator is really helpful, and I hope to be able to pot them up just in time to sow my tomatoes in the same propagator sometime around mid-March. On the windowsill are cape gooseberries, two pots of leeks (Autumn Giant Porvite and Lyon 2 Prizetaker) and some celeriac (Monarch). I've sown these things first as they are all slow-growing crops that need an early start in order to crop in good time, or to reach a good size.

Hooray! Getting these seeds started is a really good feeling and makes the spring feel that much closer. There's nothing else quite like the promise of big beautiful plants and tasty harvests just from putting a seed in the soil.

Winter catch-up!

By the end of October our garden beds were looking good, full of pak choi, turnips, kale, radishes, winter lettuces, perpetual spinach, kai lan, lamb's lettuce, purple sprouting broccoli and carrots, not to mention self-seeded claytonia everywhere.

The greenhouse was full of pots of rocket, mustard, pak choi, lettuce and spring cabbages.

The saffron came up but didn't flower, which was disappointing. I've been feeding it all winter to try to build it up for next year. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be this floppy...

On the plot, we had a few leeks doing well, and our over-winter onions and garlic got off to a great start. We even managed to pick a couple of big bags of chickweed for the dinner table, and turned them into a creamy green sauce to serve with rostis and poached eggs with lots of parmesan.

In November, I was given a mushroom growing kit for my birthday, and proceeded to grow lots of lovely pearl oyster mushrooms. The kit, from Fungi Futures, is easy to grow indoors and produces three flushes of mushrooms over a couple of months.

Good, huh? Growing mushrooms like this is fun and a great experience, and it's amazing to watch how fast they grow! This kit makes a great gift, but it's a rather expensive way to get your mushrooms and there must be more cost-effective alternatives to grow them long term... I've always been a bit put-off by 'gourmet' mushrooms as I find some varieties rather rubbery and weird, but now I can safely say I like oyster mushrooms so maybe I'll see what I can do about growing some more...

In December I discovered this wonderful recipe for Seville orange cheesecake - the best orange cheesecake you're ever likely to taste and possibly the bestest ever cheesecake ever. And, being someone who doesn't like traditional fruity spicy Christmas desserts, I made this equally awesome choc-and-nut Christmas pudding for the big day. The recipe is adapted from a Delicious Magazine recipe, but after a trial run I decided there was plenty of room for improvement, so here's my version.

Choc-and-nut Christmas Pudding

• Grease a 1.5 litre pudding basin and dust with cocoa powder to prevent sticking.
• Beat together 175g unsalted butter (at room temp), 100g caster sugar and 60g soft brown sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat three medium eggs into the mix, a little at a time.
• Stir in then sift in 100g plain flour, 45g cocoa powder, 2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda and fold in thoroughly.
• Fold in 50g chopped hazelnuts and 50g ground almonds, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp mixed spice, 75ml full-fat milk, the zest of one large orange, and 150g chopped dark chocolate (or dark chocolate chips).
• Pour into the pudding basin and seal with greaseproof paper, foil and string - Lesley Waters shows how here. Then put the pudding basin in a large pan with a lid, add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the basin, cover, and simmer for two hours. Make sure the pan doesn't dry out.
• For the sauce, place 125g dark chocolate (broken up) in a jug with 2 tbsp golden syrup and a good splash of brandy. Heat 250ml double cream and 150ml full-fat milk in a pan until almost boiling, then pour over the chocolate and stir until it makes a smooth, glossy sauce. (If it doesn't come together, transfer to a bain marie and keep stirring, or microwave it for a few seconds at a time, stirring in between, until it does.)
• Unwrap the pudding, run a knife carefully round the edge, and turn it out onto a serving plate. Dust with icing sugar or add other decoration as desired, and serve hot with the chocolate sauce.

It's dense and crumbly and rich, just like a Christmas pud should be, and full of chocolatey goodness with lots of nutty crunch and just a touch of spice to keep things festive. It's best served hot, and don't forget the brandy and chocolate sauce!

In January, during a mild spell, we harvested our Jerusalem artichokes. The crop was smaller than I was expecting - I don't know if they didn't do very well (I didn't notice them flower) or if we just missed them in the heavy clay soil! I read somewhere that they were good for breaking up heavy soils but they were extremely hard to dig and even harder to find, caked in clay! I'll soon find out how many we missed when those we left behind start growing in spring...

I picked a few more bits and pieces from the garden, and was delighted to find I could put a whole meal together with homegrown ingredients - in January!

I slow-roasted some pork shoulder with herbs and red wine til it was fall-apart tender, and served it up with pureed Jerusalem artichokes, fresh patio-grown new potatoes, braised turnips and baby onions (stored from summer), and garlicky kale and chard. It was a fab meal and so satisfying to be able to do that in January, even if it was just the once! The Jerusalem artichokes were a new one on us and we were both very pleasantly surprised by their sweetness and flavour. I do hope we get more next year!

I've had three chilli plants overwintering on my windowsill, all full of fruit which I seem to use up terribly slowly (I'm too used to just chucking some powder in), so I picked them all, strung thread through their stalks and hung them up to dry.

We're in February now and the garden's looking a bit sorry for itself, having spent several weeks under snow recently. My remaining radishes are rotten, the pak choi is bolting (already??), and the outdoor winter lettuces have vanished. The carrots are doing about as well as they always do for me - I might as well give up sowing carrots altogether! The greenhouse lettuces are doing really well, but a late family of caterpillars ate most of the rocket and the rest has now bolted. The broccoli is not really big enough in its containers - I'm getting the feeling it really needs to go in open ground.

I've had quite a few pickings from my winter garden - kale has probably fed me most, and the Jerusalem artichokes and winter potatoes (fleeced on the patio) were definitely worthwhile. There are still quite a few turnips, winter lettuces, lamb's lettuce and pak choi to be eaten, claytonia as always, and some very small spring cabbages which I hope will reach a useful size as spring comes on. The perpetual spinach and chard are just starting to get going again and signs of new growth are everywhere. Hurrah!

And of course, the sowing has begun for the new season, with leeks in pots outside, and slow-growing chillies, peppers and aubergines on the windowsill. I started them early this month - later than last year, as they got a bit much to cope with before planting out, but still early enough, I hope, to give them a decent head start and an earlier crop.

Writing this, I've just remembered I started my first early potatoes about this time last year, and this year I haven't even bought my seed potatoes yet! I must get a move on! The plastic greenhouse is on its last legs, poor thing, and needs replacing, and I must find a pot for the plum tree I've ordered too. I haven't even thought about broad beans yet and I dread to think what the allotment is looking like right now! February 21st? It's practically March!

Amazing Green Tomato Chilli!

*Sigh* My blog has been neglected for nearly a month now! Well who wants to read about this growing season? I certainly have little motivation to write about it. And after a summer-so-far of rotting roots, weather damage, poor growth and slug wars, I've now fought and lost the blight battle too.

Since I started growing tomatoes in my home garden instead of the allotment I've had much better results and much less blight - being able to keep a closer eye on them means catching it earlier, and they're less exposed to the elements. Last year, I was fairly convinced blight didn't even matter to my favourite Angelle tomatoes, which suffered lightly all summer - a few brown leaves here and there, and just one or two small patches on the stems which didn't spread - but didn't start losing fruit until right at the end of the season. This year, after holding off through the whole rainy period, as soon as the sun came out three or four weeks ago it struck hard. Is it all down to the endless rain and high humidity, I wonder, or has the fact I've ditched Levington's seaweed-enriched-but-not-peat-free growbags in favour of homemade compost made a difference too? Seaweed is supposed to provide a measure of disease protection after all. I can only speculate. I managed to pick about three handfuls of good tomatoes, but the rest have been blackening before they ripened, and this weekend I gave in and pulled the lot up. A heartbreaking waste.

I saved some of the best-looking green tomatoes and put them on a sunny windowsill to ripen, but my faith in them turning red rather than black was low so I started to look at other options. Last year I made green tomato chutney, which was very tasty, but I don't eat all that much chutney... Then I received a tip via Twitter from Nate at AFK (thanks Nate!) - green tomatoes can be used in place of tomatillos in dishes such as green chilli. (Tomatillos resemble green tomatoes, but are actually more closely related to cape gooseberries, and have a similar papery husk and a slightly citrussy flavour.) It sounded better than chutney to me, so off to Google I went to investigate.

Green chilli, or Chili Verde, is a Mexican/American dish of pork stewed with chillies, peppers and tomatillos. Having never, to my knowledge, had either tomatillos or green chilli before, I didn't really have a clue what the difference would be or what I was in for, but in light of my love for slow-cooked melt-in-your-mouth pork and the enthusiastic reviews of this highly-rated recipe on food.com, I could hardly wait to give it a go. I made quite a few changes to the recipe to suit our tastes and the ingredients I had available, and it seemed right to add beans as well, like in other types of chilli, so here's my version:

Chili Verde
(serves 4)

• Roughly dice 600g-700g pork shoulder (or four pork shoulder steaks) and sear in a little oil, in a large saucepan or stockpot. Remove from the pan and drain all but a tablespoon of the fat.
• Saute one diced onion and gently in the pork fat until soft.
• Add 3 cloves garlic, crushed, to the pan and soften for a few moments, then return the pork to the pan, add 1 tsp cumin and 500ml chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
• Add a green pepper, yellow pepper, one jalapeno (or more to taste), all finely chopped, and saute a few minutes until starting to soften.
• Add 500g-600g finely chopped green tomatoes (or tomatillos!) and a tablespoon dried coriander leaf (or 3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander - I'm just not keen on the flavour of fresh).

• Bring to the boil, then simmer for two hours, uncovered, over the lowest heat possible. By this time the veggies should be mushy, the pork should fall apart on contact with a fork, and the stew should be reduced and thick.
• Check seasoning. Don't be shy - I think the slight sourness and acid of the green tomatoes absorbs a little more salt than expected.
• Drain, rinse, and add one can of white beans (pinto, cannellini, etc.).
• Serve in burritos/tacos, over rice, or with tortilla chips. Add other tasty Mexican-style trimmings as you feel led!

It was really, really good - the flavours were lovely, the pork was beautifully fall-apart tender, and the beans went perfectly. It could easily be adapted for vegetarians too, with or without adding extra veggies. I'm very happy to have, at last, a really good use for those green tomatoes that would otherwise go to waste, and I expect salsa verde, with its many uses, could probably be made with green tomatoes too, as well as numerous stews and soups. In fact, I'm a bit gutted I don't have any more green tomatoes until probably this time next year - I wish I'd saved them all, not just the biggest loveliest ones! I might just have to go in search of some tomatillos instead...

There goes May...

I've been pretty busy these last two weeks and neglecting my poor blog again, but with June (and some sunshine!) here now it's got to be time for at least a little update on things in the garden.

The early potatoes are loving their grow sacks and their sheltered spot by the house. No sign of any flowers yet, which will mean time to start harvesting spuds, but it won't be long.

The tomatoes and peppers are all settled into their pots and tubs and planters. There's a lot of em! In the picture below you can also see lettuces and radishes, kailan, mangetout, strawberries, various herbs and a courgette.

The tomatoes are starting to flower.

The French beans I planted during the wet, cold weather a few weeks back never germinated, but a new sowing is now popping up, both below left and in another big planter. And I've planted up a lot of smaller pots with Swiss chard and perpetual spinach, and sown salad burnet in others. Hate to see pots empty!

The first courgettes are on their way...

The mangetout is flowering, and beautiful!

The aubergines and West Indian gherkins (pictured) are planted permanently in the plastic greenhouse for a little extra warmth and shelter. I've never managed to grow an aubergine yet - I'm hoping this is the year!

And the herb garden is flourishing and wonderful! I am actually remembering to sow successional crops of spring onions (tucked at the back there), and getting loads of use out of the herbs. Wooo!

I also have beetroots growing in a window box, cucumbers in a grow bag and various pots of poached-egg plant, poppies and marigolds on their way.

At the allotment I'm afraid it's another story. The weeks of rain really helped the grass to run riot and kept us away for the most part, and we're still catching up. The maincrop potatoes are planted and just shooting up now, the asparagus is plodding along despite less-than-ideal conditions, and we've got some garlic and onions doing fabulously well, but the strawberries are under a jungle of weeds and we still have to clear room for our pumpkins and squashes, artichokes, a new batch of perennial brassicas and some cabbages and calabrese. Oh, and some kohlrabi, celery and celeriac... Not exactly sure where I'm gonna put those... I haven't sown any parsnips and I guess it's probably too late now. But more on that another day...

Kale and pepper update

Remember my perennial kale, that drooped in the snowy weather? Despite lots of care, it didn't get better - the leaves went dry and crispy and I thought it had died. I was pretty miffed - it cost £5 plus £5 postage and it really should have withstood the cold weather better. Today, however, I spotted these new shoots coming from the base of the stem, so it looks like all is not lost after all! Hooray!

Sowing begins today - I'm planning a trough of mangetout, a tray of peas for shoots, two pots of parsley, a few early Swiss chard seeds in the greenhouse as an experiment, short rows of carrots, radishes, spinach and lettuce, and tomatoes and celery in the heated propagator. Really must get my broad bean seeds in at the plot soon too...

And to make space in the heated propagator, I've potted-on all my early chillies, peppers and aubergines. They're doing great and many are on their third pairs of leaves. I'm making a few extra sowings though, as one variety gave me zero germination (from seeds bought just last year!) and the ancho/poblano chillies, which I was really looking forward to, have only given me one seedling from ten seeds. Rubbish!

I'll leave these pots on the windowsill for now, to get used to not being heated from underneath, but as soon as we get some decent March sunshine I'll get them out into the greenhouse during the days and bring them in at night.

Chicken Noodle Soup

I am enduring day eleven of intense sore throat, swollen glands, stiff neck and upper body, exhaustion and misery. Apparently antibiotics won't help me, and nothing else is either - rest, plenty of fluids, vitamins, garlic, throat sprays and gargles, high-antioxidant tea... I've been eyeing the fancier immune-sytem-boosting supplements in the health shop too - Manuka honey, bee pollen, elderberry extract, echinacea, special probiotics, beta-glucan, colloidal silver... One person swears by one and another swears by another, and it all seems rather a gamble when each is so expensive (I've been disappointed by echinacea once before - do I really want to spend £15 trying it again, however many people say it works?)

But healthful foods are, happily, easily available to us all here, and there's one flu-busting food which is supposed to boost health and healing more than any other. Chicken noodle soup.

Huh? Which chicken noodle soup? Made by what recipe, with what ingredients? Surely the instant packet stuff can't be that great for you? Are the noodles essential? Can't I just eat chicken? I have long been suspicious of this claim, but in fact, studies have shown that eating chicken noodle soup can cut the duration of flu or similar illness by half, and another study even compared commercial brands to show that Knorr's instant chicken noodle soup was the most healing! So, well, seeing as I've had plenty of time on my hands, I've been thinking and reading about this a lot, and actually it really does make a lot of sense.

The base for most (if not all) chicken noodle soups is, of course, chicken stock, plus onions, garlic, carrots and celery. Onions and, particularly, garlic both contain anti-viral and anti-bacterial compounds, and strengthen the blood and the lungs. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene which assists production of infection-fighting cells in the body. Celery is packed with vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fibre and, unusually, stands up well to cooking, keeping most of its goodness when other green vegetables would lose it. Add chicken to the mix for a rich source of protein, which promotes healing, as well as zinc, which supports the immune system by helping the body to make better use of vitamin C, and cysteine, which stimulates the immune system. Noodles serve to fortify the dish, adding extra energy when it's most needed, and egg noodles provide even more protein. Add some chilli - the capsaicin which makes chillies hot is a powerful decongestant which loosens and liquefies mucus - and you have a cocktail of great nutrition ideal for someone fighting illness. Furthermore, making this into a soup means that it's easy to eat and digest, especially for the sick and those with agonising sore throats, and the (largely) liquid delivery makes the nutrients super-accessible, meaning they're fast-tracked into the system. Genius!

Of course, it doesn't stop there, either. It's easy to add extra vegetables, such as tomatoes perhaps for their many antioxidants, red peppers which contain many of the same health-boosting compounds as garlic and chilli, or chopped leafy greens for iron. Many people extol the medicinal properties of certain herbs when fighting colds, and you can, of course add herbs to your heart's content too.

Does an exhausted sick person want to stand in the kitchen cooking up soup for ages? No, of course not. But thankfully this is quite quick to make (about half an hour), and when I sat comfortably at the table to do all the chopping I actually found it quite therapeutic. And luckily a large batch keeps well in the fridge for a good few days, and would freeze well too ;)

Nome's Chicken Noodle Soup (not just for sick people!)
(makes five big bowls, or eight little ones)

• Bring 1.5 litres chicken stock to the boil. (Beware the high salt level in some stocks - choose low-sodium if possible, dilute with water to lower the salt, or use home-made.)
• Add one large onion, two large carrots and four or five sticks of celery, all chopped, plus 2 teaspoons mixed herbs and a generous grinding of black pepper.
• Simmer for 10-15 minutes, until soft.
• Blend with a stick blender (use your judgement and make it as chunky or smooth as you like).
• Add a red pepper and a chilli (or less, or more, depending on your taste), finely chopped.
• Break up two nests of dried egg noodles (to make the noodles shorter and easier to manage) and boil in a separate pan according to the instructions on the pack - usually about 4 minutes. (It's important that they're cooked before you add them to the soup, as they absorb so much liquid.)
• Add two chicken breasts, chopped up small, to the soup, along with 2-4 chopped cloves of garlic (adding it near the end like this means it is less cooked and its health properties will be stronger, but the taste will be stronger too so watch out!)
• When the chicken is cooked (only 3-4 minutes if you've chopped it really small), check seasoning, drain the noodles and stir them in, and serve.

I opt sometimes to sprinkle mine with nori - a widely available seaweed - for extra iron-rich goodness too.

Well, I've been eating chicken noodle soup for lunch for several days now, and no, I'm not better. I am improving slightly and slowly, I think. But well, it's delicious, I do feel good eating it, and I know I'm doing the right thing by my body by nourishing it with loads and loads of goodness - it's got to be helping at least a little! Forget the expensive supplements - these basic building blocks of health are accessible to us all and are the very first thing we should turn to when illness looms.

Home Garden Tour

I took advantage of a couple of free days last week to get lots of things sorted in the garden. I planted out the tomatoes and peppers and gave the rest of the potted plants a bit of TLC and a tidy up.

As you know, I share a garden with my parents, and their ideas on gardening and mine are not really the same... So I try to keep my pots under control and squeeze them into as small a corner as I can! This is our little bit of patio:

On the lefthand side of the door is our 'herb garden', with flat-leaf parsley, curly parsley, basil, thai basil, red basil, sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, chives, garlic chives, and some rather sickly and pot-bound lovage. Ooh, and a jalapeno pepper.

And on the right of the door, our salad bar!

Here we have, at the back, 'pizzo' mustard, mizuna, and little gem lettuce, and at the front, the last of our winter gems, purslane, the much more vigorous and highly recommended winter purslane (aka claytonia, aka miner's lettuce), chervil (not going down too well as a salad leaf, with its thin dry texture and aniseed flavour, but I think I'll try cutting and drying some to use as a herb), spring onions, and saltwort.

The saltwort's a funny thing. It's not at all salty - I wonder if I'm supposed to give it salt, as with samphire... And the plants are very small, with rather insubstantial narrow leaves. A quick bit of research shows that I'm supposed to pick the whole plant at once. Doh! I should have sown LOADS more!

Here are our tomatoes, planted out in their growbags. I've been a bit daring and planted six to a bag instead of the recommended three. As I've said before, these 'Angelle' plants are not very vigorous or leafy, so I think they'll get on fine like this.

And here are our peppers - four in a big trough, and four in individual pots, dotted around the place.

Some sorrel, grown from seed this spring, and French tarragon, bought from the garden centre on Saturday!

A lone strawberry plant, 'Eau de Cologne' mint, cat mint, and our 'Hundreds and Thousands' tomato plant (from saved seed). There's also a 'Sub-Arctic Plenty' tomato hiding in the background.

Wedged next to the bike shed is our potted courgette plant, some feverfew, and another pepper, with a growbag stuffed down the back and supports ready for our cucumber plants...

But the cucumbers have to get a bit bigger first - and I'm crossing my fingers they even get that far! A villainous mollusc climbed right to the top of our greenhouse to get at this one the other night:

Luckily the growing tip doesn't seem to be damaged, so hopefully it'll make a full recovery.

And on top of the shed are our leek and brassica seedlings and some back-up tomatoes! I'm wondering if I can keep them long enough for a late-season crop, or if they'll get too pot-bound while they wait...

I've been a bit anxious about the leek seedlings. Despite a late Feb sowing and a couple of doses of feed, they still seem so tiny! But I put a ruler to them today and actually, most of them are about six inches now - big enough to be planted out. I'll try to do that today...

Elsewhere in the garden we've got another tub of strawberries, a little behind compared to the ones on the allotment...

...and a column of mangetout! There are two varieties here; a golden-podded one and a giant-podded one! They seem to be struggling a bit to climb, but they're getting there.

Next to the greenhouse, our French beans are doing pretty well. (Why is it the ones in the corners are always smaller?)

And inside the greenhouse we have a couple of spare peppers and tomatoes, all our squashes waiting to be planted out, and a tray of pea-shoots.

Gosh! I've been starting to wonder if we still really need the allotment, with all this going on! Then I remember that without it, we wouldn't have room for potatoes, onions, leeks, root veg, brassicas, and my beloved pumpkins and winter squashes. We've been busy there over the weekend too, but I think that's enough for today. Allotment round-up tomorrow!