Chilli Oil, Garlic Mayo and Winter Growth Update

Well, I have not updated this as regularly as I expected, as there has not been as much progress in the onions, lettuce and broccoli.

In the intervening period I have been considering the growing plans for the coming year and getting frustrated at the length of the winter; it feels like I have been unable to grow anything for about two years now!

My lovely other half has, however, had a fruitful winter making use of the remaining chillis and some of the garlic (I have SO much garlic I hope to not have to buy any this year, and will definitely be growing more, but that's another blog) to make Chilli Oil and Garlic Mayo.

Starting to slice up the lovely red chillis

One split chilli, look at all those lovely hot seeds

Chop chop chop chop....

... and dropping the chopped chilli into the olve oil.

Chillis nestled in the bottom of the bottle.

My dried garlic, ready for preparation

Mmmm garlicy goodness

Peeling them under water as they are very strong and made her eyes water :D

Shaving the garlic into very thin slices...

... and mixing it into the, already garlic, mayo to make even MORE garlic mayo

So there you are, a couple of ways to make use of your produce.

A couple of final things to say about it; I did try and dry the chillis out by spreading them out on an oven tray and then putting them in with the oven on very low (about 50 degrees) but I don't think I left them in for long enough as they still got a bit moldy, which is why we decided to put them into oil to preserve them. I will try again with drying some shop bought ones, and report back on what I have learned.

The garlic I also dried in this way and it appears to have been done for long enough; I left it in for about two hours or so...

Anyway, to the MOST exciting part of my update; all the seeds that I planted before christmas have started showing! I am so very very excited. I thought I'd lost the lettuce at least, as in the summer months it sprouts very quickly indeed, but when I went to take pics for this blog of the broccoli, I noticed that both the red onion and the lettuce are showing.

So, here are the pictures:

Lettuce showing tiny seedlings; four out of the five seeds are showing :)

Onion spikes; it looks like a lot of the onions seeds have sprouted which is excellent news. It will be interesting when they develop as I may need to re-pot them to ensure a large harvest.

Last but not least the broccoli. This started showing before Christmas but I didn't get my camera out because I am a lazy sod. It looks like most of the seeds that I planted have also sprouted with these as well.

So, as you can see, my year has started with some very heartening success. I am now champing at the bit to get into the rest of my planting.

As you will know (if you are a regular reader of this blog) I have moved to a house with a small yard and no earth based garden to speak of. Today I also took a tape measure into this yard so I can make a plan of how many pots and planters I can fit in, while allowing space for the punch bag, and a space to eat outside in the summer.

I also plan on planting some flowers to encourage bees to visit so they can work hard for me to pollenise all my my plants.

So there you are, I'm back in the saddle and more excited even than last year.

With the way food prices are going to go this year, why don't you get a couple of planters and throw some seeds into some soil; you could find it saves you loads of money, and also provides you fun throughout the year.

Get involved.

Clearing Tomatoes and harvesting Onions, Garlic, Shallots and Parsnips

So I finally got outside to do some weeding, and tidy up the wreckage of the inside tomato plants (which had been blown to all corners since I moved them outside, and hadn't recovered at all, sadly).

This morning, in a fit of energy, I got out of bed and went straight into the garden. I have recovered the bamboo stakes and the little green plastic bits from the tomato plants, and then separated the soil from the plants.

 Soil from the inside tomato plants

The dead inside-tomato plants

Anyone got any ideas what I can do with the soil? I was just going to spread it onto waste ground... I presume that with all the roots in it there is a chance that next year some random tomato plants may appear?

Anyway, that done, I headed for my Parsnip Patch to weed, and pull a couple of plants to see how well they are doing.  The weeds were pretty bad, but it didn't take long to pull them back. No gloves, pulling stinging nettles out, and very very few stings... I think it is true that if you grasp a nettle hard, you don't get stung - it is when you brush past them that it hurts the most.

My weeded Parsnip Patch

A single Parnsip, looking very healthy.

While I was walking across the grass one time I spotted this little fella hopping away from me.

 This tomato plant was a runt which I just pushed into the ground and didn't even think about. It has a really good crop of tomatoes and is hugely healthy. So there you are :)

The most ripe tomatoes are still getting redder, which is nice.

This is the fruit of my harvest today. The (tiny) parsnips are to the left, next are all the garlic that I saved, then a mix of onions and shallots.

I think I left my onions and shallots in the ground too long because a good half were soft and rotted. This despite the above ground growth not having died down yet. I think this is because of the wetness of the year, which is a shame, but it is all a learning experience.

I actually harvested all the root crops completely by hand, without using any digging implements. I just dug my bare hands into the soil and filtered out the crop. This was a very satisfying (if dirty) method. I recommend it highly.

This evening I am planning on a lamb roast with cabbage from the garden, and I may fry those parsnips up too. I will blog about it.

Cheers

A basic status update

So today is just a simple current state of affairs of everything that I am growing. I have just taken these following a quick half hour blast of weeding around the garden over my lunch break. Someone today said that gardening takes away my anger; I think that is a very accurate description of the calming effect just grubbing around and taking little weeds out of the soil with your bare hands. Epic relaxation.

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

Parsnips (oh yeah!!)

Parnsips close up :) definitely coming through well now they are under plastic

Carrots (another ooohhhh yeahhh!!)

Carrots close up :)

Cabbage seedlings through the netting

Main bed potatoes

Old tyre potatoes (due for another tyre now I think)

(left to right) parsley, chives, corriander.

Chillis

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Peppers

The only two plants not showing any green yet is the mint (which is a major surprise) and the spring onions.

This weekend I am going to be splitting the tomato plants out into separate pots ready for offering around to people.  A hint provided me by @Fat_Jacques "put marigolds among tomatoes, [it] helps tomatoes with aphids and other pests."

As always, I am really keen for any advice like this, as a first time gardener, so please do not hesitate to provide advice on the comments here, or through my twitter account (@rhmgroo)

I have some plant pots (and a progress update)

I have been freecycling (as I think I've mentioned before) and today I made my second collection of plant pots from the nice lady in central Blackpool.

I now have a nice collection of plant pots ready for filling up and putting my Tomato Plants in.

Well when I say a "nice" collection:

I had to wash each one of those; I got SOAKED to the skin; good thing the sun has come back :)

So I'm going to be filling each of these up with soil and planting tomato plants in them; I will be taking requests from people for tomato plants via this site so please keep an eye on it. When I know how many I have to give away I'll put a blog post for y'all to say how many you want.

Anyway, the rest of the garden is going pretty well; the ONLY things not growing are the parnsips, carrots and mint (though I'm hopeful they will start in the next couple of weeks - I really did expect the parsnips and carrots to have started to show green by now) but everything else looking great so, without any further ado, status photographs below:

Chillis: not as good as Jon's at work are (apparently, though he's refused to take any pictures to prove how impressive his are) but they're still alive and growing, though slowly.

Blossom has all gone from the Apple tree, but it is looking very healthy and happy :)

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions; nicely weeded today

The Karmen Red Onions, again nicely weeded

The Red Sun Shallots. These are looking so bountiful :)

The Casablanca Garlic. I'm starting to consider how I'll know when to harvest these things :)

Just showing; the cabbage :) this is very exciting for me indeed!

The potatoes in the main bed; I've lots count now of the number of plants that are growing.

Potatoes in the old tyres. These are growing great guns, since I put the second tyre on they have accelerated dramatically.

The herb garden; in all seriousness if anyone wants some Parsley (who lives near Blackpool) just ask and you can come get some :)

The Sweetcorn is coming on really well; only 2 days after the first green started showing they are already a good inch and a half long.

The tomatoes. I have SO many of these coming on!!! I've been taking daily photographs of their progress and will post a seven day progress blog tomorrow.

So, there you have it. Things is growing and growing well.