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This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay
Showing posts with label Veg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veg. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 September 2016

Summer Harvests

Its been a busy summer and I've had lots of good eating from the garden! 

I'm involved in two community growing projects and have my own garden to look after so most of my spare time over the Summer has been gardening!

The community growing projects are great in that they involve other people who have an interest in gardening, and we've been able to share our crops. The veg in the first photo is from the community growing scheme. In our first year we've had lots of salad crops, spinach, chard, runner beans, courgette, cucumber, broad beans, parsley and potatoes. 
Two varieties of potato were harvested from my own garden - Pentland Javelin and Red Duke of York. I dry them and store them in a cloth bag in a dark, dry place. They usually keep through to December.
More veg from one of the community growing projects. Lots of salad crops this year. I also grew garlic for the first time and had reasonable success.

My tomatoes were grown from seed and kept in a plastic greenhouse facing South-East. They grew well, however, the fruits have been slow to ripen.

This large Summer Squash was given to me by a fellow grower, and has been turned into soup and put into the freezer for eating when the weather is colder!
The weather has been good and I'm hoping for a late frost!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Monday, 2 May 2016

Harvesting Rhubarb

The rhubarb is ready for harvesting!
Rhubarb is one of the most reliable plants I've grown over the years. Its an early-cropper, while many other plants are just coming into growth at this time.
I've always grown rhubarb in a slightly shady area of the garden. I generally mulch it once a year and leave it to its own devices. Two of my four plants are growing at different paces - this is luck and perfect for staggering the harvests a bit. I've no idea what variety I have as the plants were given to me by two different people.
What to do with the rhubarb? I saw a recipe in Tesco (grocery store) magazine about a month back, stuck it on the fridge so I wouldn't misplace it, and waited for my rhubarb to grow big enough to harvest.  This weekend I made 'Soured Cream and Rhubarb Tea Cake' - yummy! Above is a picture of the cake on the recipe page - always a bonus when what I make resembles the picutre!  It tastes delicious. Each serving has 23 grams of fat and 477 calories - no wonder it tastes so good! 

Tesco recipes can be found at: https://realfood.tesco.com/

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Sunday, 24 April 2016

Harvesting Veg (radish, spring onion, mustard greens)

I've started harvesting! 
There's not a whole lot of harvesting to be done at the minute (to be honest), but it's always a great feeling to be able to sow, grow, and eat something... and that something (currently) has been radishes, spring onion and giant mustard greens. 

 The radish were sown in March and harvested in April. Radishes only take about a month or so to grow into something edible. I had a bit of a glut of radishes but I discovered they are delicious in stir fry, and are also good cut in half and added to vegetable soup. Of course, the most common way of eating radishes is sliced and put into salad.

 Radish are generally easy to grow. However, I recall, when I first started gardening, having quite  a few unsuccessful attempts at growing them!  

The Spring Onion and Mustard Greens 'Giant Red' were sown last year around August time. They over wintered and are now starting to put on growth and are ready to eat. The giant mustard greens, like their name, taste just like mustard and are great on burgers, sandwiches or in salad to spice up the flavour.

You may notice the net covering the  veg - this is because stray cats seem to think my nicely turned soil is a 'loo' for them, so I have to net any vegetables that I grow. Suppose this is an issue many of us face (naughty cats)!

Happy Gardening!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Monday, 28 March 2016

Getting Back into the Garden


I generally wait until April to start sowing seed and this year will be the same. My little plastic green house is great and comes in handy. This little 'tent' system is cheap; it cost about £10 and keeps plants warm and protected. I'll then harden them off and get them into the ground by late May / early June.
Other seed of course will be sown direct into the prepared beds in May / June. 

This year I'm upping my sowing of potatoes, onions and salad plants. Other plants I always sow:
- courgette
- kale 
-chard
mainly because they're easy to grow and generally give me little trouble.

I'm focusing quite  a bit on salad plants this year and will grow a variety of lettuces for colour, shape/texture and taste. Another busy year for sure!

Potatoes will go into the ground in early April and Onion sets will be started in the greenhouse.

It's great to see the bees buzzing around the garden; here pictured feeding on Heather.

A little reminder to myself this time of year!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Wednesday, 23 September 2015

VegTastic Display

Leek dressed to impress!
The temperature may be dropping but there's still lots of harvesting to be done... 

 apples are ripening, 
leeks are fat and ready, 
lettuces are still hearting, 
fennel is going to seed, 
onions are being dried, 
and there's still beetroot, kale and lots of other goodies to bring to the table. 
Over the weekend I visited the City of Belfast Autumn Flower (and Veg) Show.  It was quite a small show but lots of effort had noticeably gone into it. Of course it was pouring rain the day I attended, but I still really enjoyed viewing all the fantastic displays. 
Here are some of my favourite photos, from the Northern Ireland Vegetable Association (NIVA) display - and what a lovely display it was!
Lots of herbs, veg, and fruit displayed very carefully by the NIVA team!

One of the NIVA members made a 'market cart' to display their prize fruit and veg, costing £50 in wood (excluding the wheels) and excluding labour provided in-kind. It looked lovely! 

Eye catching preserves, edible flowers and herbs decorated the top of the display cart. 
Congrats to the Northern Ireland Vegetable Association (NIVA) on a great display and what looks to be a great harvest year.


Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Monday, 7 September 2015

Harvesting Tasty Salads

I've had great salad crops all summer long. Grown from seed, the lettuces have been relatively pest free - however strange it seems! The slugs, snails, caterpillars and other pests have affected other plants (kale, beans, etc) but they've left most of the lettuces alone, which has been great.
Pictured is an organic mixed salad made up of: lettuce leaves (salad bowl red and green); onion; shredded carrot (the carrot is underneath so its difficult to see); cucumber and cherry tomatoes from the community garden; and coriander sprinkled on top for added flavour. I'll serve with olive oil or red wine vinegar.
Grown from seed, I harvested 'Chantenay Red Cored 2' carrots for the weekend. More of these to pull but I tend to leave them in the ground until needed.

I ate my first home-grown apple of the season this week from a self pollinating apple tree that grows in a large pot. I have 13 apples this year - equal to my previous record of 13 apples.

Today I'm joining Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions blog. 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Thursday, 3 September 2015

Community Gardening Update


Even though summer feels like it's coming to an end, there's still lots of harvesting (and deadheading to be done) with flowers, herbs, fruits and veggies still available and many plants thriving.

The community garden at Antrim Castle Gardens has looked well this year. We're a small group of volunteers who give a few hours each week to keep areas of the gardens 'under our care' looking good and productive.

This year our greenhouse contained several varieties of tomato, cucumber, and a grapevine - with our very first bunch of grapes! One of our volunteers made a sign, writing with chalk on a piece of slate, to help encourage donations from passer-bys in exchange for a plant. This has worked well as a way to raise some money for projects.
  
One of our members had an idea of a 'cut flower' bed so we developed this area earlier in the year, growing plants from seed. It has turned out to be an eye-catching area, which contains plants like sweet pea, cosmos, snapdragon, asters, and dahlia. 

Last year we noticed one of our flower beds was in a shadier section of the garden so this year we developed a 'Woodland' flower bed. Many of the plants were donated to our group from some of the plant nurseries that attended the Garden Show Ireland (Northern Ireland's largest gardening event). 

Above and below: The flower beds bring lots of colour throughout Spring, Summer and Autumn with their mix of perennials, herbaceous plants, bulbs and some annuals.

Above and below: This year we have also been fortunate to have obtained a polytunnel. This will allow us to grow more plants from seed, and soon it will be filled to the brim!

Our group never seems to rest and our current project is developing a Cottage-style planting scheme that will run across an area approx 30 feet by 10 feet. This well keep us busy over Autumn and into the New Year.

For more info on the volunteer gardening group, click here. 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Potato Pentland Javelin Harvest

This week I harvested my potatoes, Pentland Javelin, which were planted as seed potatoes on 21 March 2015. 

In a 40 by 32 inch planting space, I had put in 10 small seed potatoes. The end result was a harvest of 9.1kg or approx 20 pounds. 

So far, I've baked them and made chunky oven chips and they taste great. They have a good texture after cooked.

They grew relatively pest free and have a very clean, light coloured skin. I'd definitely recommend them for the Irish weather.

Where I made space, taking out the potatoes, I've planted salad crops (mustard greens, salad bowl, mizuna, and radish) so I can continue my summer salad eating regime.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Friday, 7 August 2015

Harvesting carrot, potato, onion

Even though it was the coolest July in 22 years here in Northern Ireland.... this has been a good year for veg growing. 

My nephew is staying the Summer with me and this week we were out in the garden pulling a few carrots, digging up some potatoes, and harvesting a few other things like lettuces and onion. He loved digging potatoes, and is looking forward to this job again in the coming week.
Pulling a few 'Chantenay Red Cored 2' carrots for grating onto salad.

Potatoes are Pentland Javelin, planted in the ground on 21 March 2015. They have a very clean, light coloured skin.
The onion are Stuttgarter, planted March/April 2015. We harvested a few for salad and they have a good flavour.
The carrots are Chartenay Red Cored 2, seeds planted on 6 April 2015.
The green is a self-seeded fennel plant I decided to pull and add to salad.
This year I have a good selection of purple and green lettuces, however, I keep forgetting to take photos!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Sunday, 26 July 2015

Courgette Zucchini Cake

When I returned from holiday (vacation) I was greeted in the garden by a 450 gram courgette (zucchini), a small marrow. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it until a came across a recipe for Chocolate Courgette Cake (pictured). 

This is an extremely tasty recipe that's moist and delicious. 

I made three slight alterations to the recipe: (1) I baked two round cakes rather than using a large brownie type pan, (2) I put raspberry jam in between the two layers, and, (3) I made Betty Crocker butter cream chocolate frosting for the top and middle of the cake. Absolutely gorgeous! For a  link to the recipe click here. 
This year I grew a prolific, unusual Italian heirloom variety of Courgette called Coucourzelle. It has lovely stripes and the seed pack describes it as producing "heavy crops of slim, straight fruits with excellent flavour and an excellent source of vitamin C." This is the variety I used in the cake. Gold star!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Monday, 8 June 2015

30 Days Wild and Around the Garden

Beach walk included admiring a jellyfish, shells and seaweed.
From the 1st of June I've been taking part in The Wildlife Trust's '30 Days Wild' Campaign which involves getting outdoors every day and enjoying nature /  the natural environment. 

I've been taking walks in the evening, listening to birds sing at lunch time, and I've enjoyed taking time out for beach walks and noticing the beauty of wildflowers/ weeds in bloom this month.
Evening walks have been amazing. I discovered this wonderful forest walk is only a 10-15 minute walk from the house. Funny how it took over a year to discover what was on my doorstep. All it takes is trying a new route rather than taking the same path all the time.

Meanwhile, in the garden....
The flowers are bringing in bees and insects. From chives to wild floxglove, the pinks are looking lovely this month!

And lots of things to come, including strawberries, onions, apples and potatoes!

The foliage around the garden is looking fab too!

If you're interested in going '30 Days Wild for nature' for the rest of June, check out the Random Acts of Wildness ideas.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

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Sunday, 17 May 2015

Magical Gardening Month of May

With the warmer weather, lots of growth can be seen daily throughout the garden, which is very exciting.
Pictured, veggies grown from seed sown last year are growing rightly - kale, chard, spinach, parsley and Winter lettuce 'Arctic King. These have all over wintered and thrive in Spring/early Summer. I imagine many of these plants will begin to bolt soon so I've been harvesting and trying to use as much as I can.
In the clay pot, I have Wallflowers 'Choice Mixed' grown from seed in Aug/Sept last year. I've been a bit disappointed with the number of flowers (not much of a show) but maybe there's more to come. This is the first time I've grown Wallflowers so I don't know much about these plants. On the plus side, they provide some early colour. 
Chard and Kale are staples in my garden. They contain lots of vitamins and minerals and are easy to grow. I've now sown chard and kale seed for the coming year and will plant into the garden at the end of May. These tasty greens compliment soup, casseroles, sauce based dishes, as well as stir fries.

Rhubarb with some bendy looking stalks. Rhubarb crumble is on the menu today.

Hostas are emerging and looking really pretty. Non-edible to humans? They're a tasty treat for snails and slugs. I try to keep an eye these plants before they become shabby, half eaten plants.

Recently I purchased some value pack bulbs and I manged to get the Acidanthera Peacock Orchids for 10 pence / 15 cents per pack marked down on clearance. I'm wondering if they have an invasive nature and if they tend to multiply like crazy as do some bulbs like crocosmia? I definitely don't want something that multiplies and is difficult to remove. 
Has anyone ever grown Peacock Orchids, and any tips?

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Monday, 27 April 2015

First Rhubarb Harvest


The first of the rhubarb harvest this year... there were four more stalks but they were stewed last night and served with yogurt topped with honey granola. My all-time favourite way to eat rhubarb is warm served with ice cream.

I have no idea what variety of rhubarb this is as I acquired the plant years ago. Last year I was given more rhubarb from a friend and not sure what variety it is either. Luckily the four plants seem to be growing at slightly different rates, which is handy. I've always grown rhubarb in the shady area of the garden and it has grown well.

In celebration of my 1st rhubarb of the season, I'm joining Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday ...where she's cooking up some fab looking butternut squash!
Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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Friday, 24 April 2015

Seed sowing

We've had lots of sun this week and my little seedlings have suffered a bit from the heat and the drop in temperature at night. I'm eagerly awaiting their growth, and trying to ensure they don't dry out or suffer from sun scorch.

I've a good variety of seed sown. I'm aiming to grow veg that looks interesting as well as tastes good. Some varieties I've gone for include:

red/green lettuce Lollo Rossa
purple/green kale Red Russian
red stemmed Rhubarb Chard Vulcan
stripy Courgettte Coucourzelle

Above: Kale and courgette are growing quickly. The next step is to pot them on , with the aim of planting out into the veg area at the end of May (to ensure they don't get hit by frost).

Onion sets Stuttgarter have grown quite quickly. They are now relocated and have been planted outside. Of course I had too many that I could use, so I'll be giving a tray to one of the garden club members - 0ne of the benefits of being involved in a gardening group.

If anyone would like to take a look, my gardening group has set up a FaceBook - click here to visit. 
Happy Gardening!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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