Sowing the seed

It started in 2008 when I decided to start growing some herbs on the balcony of the flat we were living in at the time. I’m a keen cook and the idea of having a supply of fresh herbs at hand whenever I needed them appealed to me. I had some limited success and even managed to grow some potatoes in tubs. The problem was lack of space and more importantly, lack of any sunlight.

We moved into a house in 2009 and one of the things that drew me to this property was the small garden. Enough size to pose a challenge but not too big to overwhelm me. We moved in at the end of October only for the weather to take an immediate turn for the worse with some of the heaviest rain we’d had for a long time. Winter then set in and we didn’t really get a chance to get out into the garden and take a good look at it until the following March.

Making a start

The garden in March 2010

You can see from this picture that the garden was looking pretty grim come March this year. In fact this picture was taken AFTER the first round of clearing up. We didn’t know the pond that you can see on the right was even there for 6 months, it was so overgrown.

After much hacking at bushes and faffing about, we set up a small greenhouse (one of those plastic covered, metal frame jobbies), a small raised bed and a load of pots and containers.

A growing policy of “pretty or edible” was put in place and fruit and veg-wise, we went for a fairly broad range: lettuce, chillies, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, onions (white, red, spring), garlic, strawberries, carrots & cauliflowers. Additionally there were already mature cherry, damson and pear trees at the end of the garden. A final pleasant surprise was finding raspberry canes nestled between two overgrown bushes.

The tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and cayenne chillis came in one of those starter packs that you get from DIY stores and after seeing my other half sprinkling about 50 seeds onto some compost in 4″ pot, I immediately dismissed them as doomed to failed and let her get on with it whilst I trundled off to do so serious gardening. This proved to be somewhat ill-judged.

The onion and garlic seedlings were planted out into the raised bed; two cauliflowers went into pots whilst the others went directly into the ground; carrots, strawberries and lettuce went into further containers.

Chillies

Mixed chillis

Being a fan of spicy food, I decided I wanted grow some chillis and bought one of the South Devon Chilli Farm’s excellent Chilli Growing Kits. It came with a select of seeds, namely Jalapeno, Santa Fe and Twilight. In the kit, you get a small, lidded propagator, some coir plugs that expand when moistened, some chilli food and labels along with the aforementioned seeds. I managed to kill all but 4 of the first batch of 10 plants by overwatering and then 6 of the second batch by UNDERwatering. It’s hard to judge as having the lid on or off the propagator has a drastic effect of moisture retention. My downfall was a combination of n00bieness and the early part of the summer being extremely hot.

The few plants that I managed not to murder have gone on to be very healthy and we’ve had a bumper crop. So much so that I’ve had to pickle of lot of the jalapenos and have a freezer full of whole cayennes. The Santa Fe chillis are a fairly useful “utility chilli” as they are that aren’t really that hot but have enough heat to lend a little spice where required. Unfortunately, they’re the creamy yellow colour of those dodgy whole chillis you get in kebab shops and don’t look particularly attractive.

The twilights are a smaller, hotter variety and are the only chillies I have that have ripened.  Two of my three twilight plants are indoors and it’s on these that the chillies have ripened and turned red. They’re fairly pretty although the plants are pretty big – well over 1 metre and I’m not sure how useful the chillies themselves are going to be in cooking. I don’t think I’ll grow any more next year but will probably investigate a dwarf ornamental variety instead.

Tomatoes, Peppers & Aubergines

Homegrown tomatoes

The DIY store veg were the biggest shock. The tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and cayenne chillies all thrived in the small pots on various window ledges around the house and in varying levels of sunlight. Eventually they outgrew the pots and we had to go through the delicate  process of potting on the seedlings into cell trays. As I had been when the seeds were first sown, I was once again certain that most of the seedlings would die and again, to my amazement, they thrived out in the greenhouse.

During the height of the summer they needed daily watering and there were  occasions that it got so hot I had to take them out of the greenhouse and hide them in shaded areas of the garden. The peppers and aubergines were fed weekly using a liquid, organic fruit and veg feed, whilst the tomatoes had a specialised feed, as did the chillis.

We ended up with so many young plants that we had to give away about three quarters of them to our neighbours who luckily, are both keen gardeners. All but 12 of each plant where given away and it was the tomatoes in the end that were by far the most successful of the veg along with the chillis.

Massive fails

I believe gardening is about trial and error. That’s what makes it fun but often frustrating. Some of the more notable fails this year include:

• All 6 of my strawberry plants succumbed to white leaf mildew and managed a meagre 10 strawberries between them.
• All  12 of my tomatoes plants caught blight at the end of the summer. We had a lot of rain this year which I think was a contributing factors. I harvested all the green tomatoes as soon as I identified the disease and although none ripened on the vine, most ripened OK in a cardboard box under the stairs.
• I killed as many chilli plants as I successfully grew.
• The lettuce was unpleasant tasting and tough.
• The carrots had an odd taste to them. At least I think so, the other half didn’t mind them.
• I grossly underestimated the size that cauliflowers grow to. 4 of them were decimated by caterpillars and the remaining 2 bolted and produced strange alien looking curds.
• Slugs and snail had a go at pretty much everything. Copper tape, 2 tubs of pellets and 3 beer traps had little effect.
• Our cats thought it great fun to dig up all our onion seedlings and to add insult to injury, proceeded to shit in the raised bed amongst the seedlings making retrieving them a most unpleasant experience.
• Only one aubergine fruited. Just one. Out of 12 plants.

Lessons for next year

Assuming we’re still here next year, this is what I’ve learnt and will be applying:

• Netting is a must to protect seeds and seedling from the local cat population. Mainly our own.
• I need a better strategy for dealing with slugs and snails.
• Give consideration to size of plant versus yield. The cauliflowers were huge and even if had they produced edible curds would have proved very poor yield for the space they occupy. Carrots and potatoes are two more vegetables that take up a lot of room
• Strawberry plants seem to be quite tender. Should I try to grow them again, I’ll try and sunnier position perhaps in a hanging basket.
• Try some different cultivars, particularly of chillies and tomatoes. I don’t eat raw tomatoes but the other half does they are relatively bland, much like standard shop bought ones. The tomatoes we planted were Moneymakers.
• Sow fewer seeds but more varieties. We had way too many plants producing the same thing and ended up with massive gluts of cayenne chillies and tomatoes.
• Aubergines don’t like our garden. Maybe we were a bit late getting them into the ground, which leads me into…
• Start earlier. We were a bit late getting going and didn’t really get planting until April / May. Weather permitting, I’m going to start sowing the first seeds in March next year.
• Vine tomato plants can get big and need to be planted in big enough containers to prevent them toppling over and need plenty of support in the form of canes etc. Bush varieties are available and are smaller and well… bushier.

Seasonal produce

On the whole, I’ve really enjoyed my little garden adventure this year and aside from the growing techniques themselves it’s helped me to be more aware of the seasons in this country and the seasonality of produce. I’ve become a lot more aware of what I eat and how it’s got to my plate.

What about you? Have you tried growing your own fruit and veg? Any stories or tips you’d like to share?

Image credit: Red chillis.

I’ve decided to try again and this time I’m going stick to personal musings. Previously, I was trying to mix up techie stuff with my ramblings which in hindsight, probably wasn’t the greatest of ideas. You’re always going to alienate someone, one way or the other. I intend to set up a second blog for the techie stuff, mainly web development and computer related content and will post the URL up here in due course for those interested.

So first things first, I need to revamp this place a little. I’ve removed a number of the old posts from this site so if you’ve got here following a link from a search engine and can’t find what you’re looking for, sorry about that. Next step will be to find a decent template design. I do like the minimal look I’m rocking at the moment but frankly, it’s boring.

Then all that’s left will be to actually write something of interest. And probably post pictures of cats.

We had my favourite Chilli beef noodle soup for dinner again tonight, so I thought I’d post the recipe. It’s very healthy, low fat and fairly simple to prepare.

It’s a modified recipe from noodle restaurant chain, Wagamama, although I’ve tweaked it a bit to suit my own tastes.

Ingredients (this is for 2 of us; we’re quite greedy though, so maybe enough for 4…)

• 250g Ramen, Miso or Udon noodles.
• 1/2 red onion, sliced into half rings.
• 3-4 spring onions, shredded. If anyone can recommend a simple method to shred spring onions, I’m all ears.
• 1 x red chilli, trimmed and de-seeded and sliced; personally, I leave the seeds in for a little extra heat
• 1 x lime, quartered.
• 1 litre chicken stock (I use Knorr liquid concentrate)
• 3-4 tablespoons chilli ramen sauce (see below)
• 150g beansprouts
• A handful of fresh coriander (chopped) – optional (the other half isn’t a fan)
• 6 mushrooms, quartered
• 200g sirloin steak, trimmed of all fat
• A little sunflower or other low-saturates oil
• A little Teriyaki sauce (or Soy sauce)

For the chilli ramen sauce (Makes 125ml – enough for 4 portions)

• 5 tablespoons Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 3 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce (sometimes I go for 4tbsp or more)

For the Chilli Ramen Sauce

Disolve the sugar in the vinegar over a gentle heat then remove from the heat and set aside to cool before mixing in fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce

For the noodles

1. Put a heavy bottom frying pan or griddle pan onto over medium heat to warm up.
2. Lightly rub the steak with a little oil and set aside.
3. Pour your stock into a fairly large pan along with the mushrooms and Chilli Ramen Sauce. Set over a low to medium heat and allow to gentle come to the a simmer. No need to boil.
4. Pop your steak into the hot pan and cook for 2-3 minutes on either side depending on thickness of steak and how you like your meat. Turn the steak once – don’t keep messing with – leave it alone!
5. Whilst the steak is cooking, fill a small to medium sized saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, throw in the beansprouts for 30 seconds and then remove them from the heat and drain them over another saucepan or bowl to retain the cooking water. Run the drained beanspouts under cold water to cools them down and prevent them from cooking further.
6. By now your steak is probably nearly done, so set the beansprout water over a medium high heat and bring it back to the boil and return your attention to the steak. Once cooked remove from the heat, brush it with Teriyaki (or soy sauce) and set aside to rest for 4 minutes.
7. Handily the noodles should take about 4 minutes to cook in the now boiling beansprout water!
8. At about 3 1/2 minutes into the noodles cooking time, thinly slice the steak and get two bowls together for serving in. I suggest BIG bowls
9. Now it’s simply a matter of assembly! Distribute the noodles and beansprouts evenly between the two bowls and then top up each with the broth and mushrooms that have been simmering away happily for the last 5 minutes or so. Split the steak between the bowls before topping off with the onions, chilli, spring onions, lime wedges and coriander and serve.

As I mentioned earlier, if you’re a veggie or vegan, you could just omit the beef and swap chicken stock for vegetable stock. My other half doesn’t eat much meat so from the recipe above, she has all the mushrooms and I have all the steak .

Reading back over that, it sounds complicated but really, it’s not. And it’s well worth it, I think.