Mobile phone cases

Robot case was for Sally, the Cthulhu case I made for myself but I believe +Dario Domizioli has one too.

Damson Ketchup

From Jams, Preserves and Chutneys.

Damsons 1.35 kg
water 300ml

Halve, de-stone and wash the damsons, put into a pan with the water and simmer until a puree. Rub through a fine hair or nylon sieve. To each 600ml of damson juice add 100g of sugar and 300ml of spiced vinegar.

Pour into the preserving pan. Simmer steadily until a faily thick consistency then pour into hot bottling jars or bottles and seal down. Loosen the screw bands or clips on bottling jars or the caps on bottles to allow for the expansion of the glass. Place in a deep pan of boiling water and boil for 10 mins. Remove from the pan. Tighten screw bands, clips or caps.

Redcurrant Muffins

Managed to rescue some redcurrants from the pigeons and made muffins. I don't think they'll keep for very long tho'!


Makes 12 muffins.

• 
  
• 60g unsalted butter
• 175g plain white flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 60g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 120ml milk
• 125g fresh redcurrants
• 
  
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 180°C (Gas mark 4). Butter a 12 cup muffin pan. Melt butter; set aside to cool. Sift flour into a medium mixing bowl, add baking powder, salt and all the sugar apart from 2 tbsp - reserve this to sprinkle over the muffin tops before cooking. In a small mixing bowl beat egg enough to combine yolk and white. Whisk in milk and melted butter. Add to flour mixture; stir quickly and lightly just until flour is almost dampened. Gently fold in redcurrants; be careful not burst too many of them. Spoon batter into prepared muffinpan cups, filling each slightly more than half full. Sprinkle reserved sugar over batter in each cup. Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and a wooden skewer or knife inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes and serve warm with a dollop of créme frâiche.

Spring fruits from the garden

Picked the blackcurrants this week, I think the birds got the majority tho' as I hadn't realised they would be ready so early.

Cranberry

The cranberry I bought last year is flowering, apparently this loves acidic moist soil too.

Borlotti beans

Not all of these have germinated yet, but those that have are very enthusiastic about it.

Honey berries and lingonberries

My new berry bushes turned up :)
They all need repotting, the honey berries are apparently a type of honeysuckle. The lingonberries need an acidic soil and a moist environment.

So many tomatoes!

This weekend was a bank holiday one so there was lots of opportunity to plant things :)
I created a new raised bed, a Gardman heavy duty raised bed which is made of slats which slot into each other and was very easy to put together. In the raised bed I put more tomatoes.

I have about 20 tomato plants!  The first batch of ferlene that I put in the airing cupoard I left for too long and they had grown quite gangly they germinate in 2-3 days not 7, as it says on the packet!

So I thought they'd die so I planted a new set and Fee took pity on me and gave me a few. Everyone of them survived!

Fees I've left in the greenhouse (I don't know what type they are ) and the other 17 are outside.

I repotted all the chillies, the hot tepin never grew but the seeds from the chilli farm grew well. They germinated quicker in the airing cupboard but did eventually grow in the greenhouse.

All the romanesque cauliflower and brussel sprouts germinated I've repotted them for the second time as last year they were attacked by caterpillars quite badly so I thought I'd let them grow a bit larger first.

The aubergines are all potted into bigger pots and are looking well.

I sowed the following

Coriander - Dad's seeds (planted as companion to tomatoes)
Carrots - Bought last year, Parmex, Suttons, sow by 2012, second batch this year
Rocket - Dad's seeds, not all of these germinate so I'm planting 2 in a pot, second batch this year
Radish - Bought last year, Jolly, Suttons, sow by 2012, second batch this year
Dwarf Beans - Dad's seeds
Beetroot - Bolthardy, Carters, sow by 2010, plant two to a pot, second batch this year
Turnip - Purple Top Milan, Suttons, sow by 2013, second batch this year
Dill - Dad's seeds

Squash

Squash take ages to germinate! My squash seeds were quite old, I had some Harlequin, Butternut and Onion. None of them germinated so I planted the seeds I harvested from one of Dad's half pumpkin, half marrow squashes from last year. Eventually one butternut squash grew and all the harvested seeds grew. Once I'd repotted the squash, using the soil that had the ungrown seeds in some of those seeds started to grow.

I weeded the back of the garden, retrieved the broken bird table and put in another raised bed. Filled it with 120 litres of organic, peat free compost (this wasn't really enough) and planted the 26 squash.

Compost

Turned the compost heaps today all rotting nicely :)

Spring

The peas are now 2 inches high :) but the peppers and the chillies haven't germinated. I think this is because they haven't been kept warm enough.






I've planted the following and put them in the airing cupboard:

Ferline F1 Hybrid
Aubergine Ophelia
Chilli - Pepper hot tepin, hungarian black, madre vieja, jamaican hot
viola sweeties F1 hybrid

New year

Ground has finally defrosted so I dug up all the raised beds and planted:
under cover:
Chilli seeds from the chilli farm
Peppers
peas

carrots into the new roots and onions bed.

Snowdrops are already poking their green leaves out of the ground :)