This gorgeous, vegetable-filled salad is ideal for winter meals, a great way of using leftover vegetables from a roast dinner – just like “bubble and squeak”. A tasty way to make the most of a Thanksgiving, Christmas or other roast dinner leftovers! This recipe includes an oil free version, too.
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November in my No Dig Garden
It has been a busy time since my last blog post and how the garden has changed! The weather has been typically British, from unseasonably warm to icy cold (for Somerset) and back again. Mornings are misty, deciduous trees almost entirely without leaves now and anything frost tender has died.
The polytunnel has frozen a few times now, I love the patterns on the frozen polythene, although it is still reaching 30˚C in there some days. I have electronic thermometers in the greenhouse and polytunnel and it’s so interesting to see the extremes of temperatures undercover, compared with outside in the garden.
autumn/back garden/blog/Bruton/exploring/featured/front garden/gardening/Homeacres/homesteading/kitchen garden/mulching/nature/no dig gardening/No Dig Home/No Dig Organic Home and Garden/no hungry gap/one/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/potions/preparing the soil/preserving/propagation/The Creative Kitchen/winter
On this harvest moon…
This week began with the Autumn Equinox, the festival of Mabon, which starts on September 21st
allotment/back garden/blog/Bruton/experiments/featured/gardening/Homeacres/homesteading/kitchen garden/making a no dig bed/mulching/nature/no dig gardening/No Dig Home/No Dig Organic Home and Garden/no hungry gap/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/preparing the soil/propagation/seasonal cooking/spring
New allotment plan and other experiments.
Every year I mulch my no dig allotment with an inch or two of composted manure or homemade compost, but this year I am trying something different!
allotment/back garden/blog/Bruton/countryside/featured/front garden/homesteading/kitchen garden/nature/no dig gardening/no hungry gap/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/winter
My polytunnel in early March
Usually the end of February and early March heralds a dramatic increase of activity in the greenhouse – but the unusually cold weather means last week was more about snowing than sowing!
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Sowing aubergines, chillies and sweet peppers for summer and autumn harvests
I absolutely love growing aubergines. Incredibly versatile for so many different recipes, I love all of the different colours and shapes, how some are seriously spiky and of course the delicious taste.
How to make recycled paper pots for sowing and planting
Homemade newspaper pots are quick and easy to make and use, biodegrade in the soil and worms like munching them too! Put into reusable containers to make your own module trays or use as individual pots.
blog/FAQ/featured/gardening/Homeacres/mulching/no dig gardening/No Dig Home/No Dig Organic Home and Garden/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/preparing the soil/You tube
Top 10 FAQ – How to start your No Dig Garden
We are often asked to start no dig gardens and so Charles, the admin team of our Facebook group and I have come up with the Top Ten Most Frequently Asked Questions.
If we haven’t covered your questions, please ask them in the comments here (or on the Facebook group if you are a member) and we will answer them as soon as we can.
There’s a lot more information in our (Award Winning!!) book, No Dig Organic Home and Garden, in Charles’ other books, on his website and his You Tube Channel.
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Time to plant
This is the sixth in my series of blog posts, explaining how to grow vegetables and herbs which can be sown now to see you through the winter and spring – no hungry gap in 2018!
I have added the category No Hungry Gap, so you can find all of the blogs easily using the search facility.
autumn/back garden/blog/homesteading/no dig gardening/no hungry gap/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/preparing the soil/winter
Clearing the polytunnel for new plantings
This is the fifth in my series of blogs, explaining how to grow vegetables and herbs which can be sown now to see you through the winter and spring – no hungry gap in 2018!
I have added the category No Hungry Gap, so you can find all of the blogs easily using the search facility.
Roasted beetroot, carrot and onion hummus recipe
Beetroot grows in my garden from April right through to the end of autumn, some in the polytunnel over winter too. This tasty root vegetable stores so well that I can make this hummus at any time of year, but there’s something especially autumnal and satisfying about the combination of roasted beetroot, carrot and onion.
blog/featured/homesteading/No Dig Home/No Dig Organic Home and Garden/organic/recipes/seasonal cooking/summer
Thai influenced golden raw summer vegetable salad
This gorgeous bright seasonal salad is almost a meal in itself and can easily be adapted to include other summer vegetables in your garden (and winter root veg later in the year). It is a zingy, delicious, colourful way to use up gluts.
allotment/back garden/blog/Bruton/gardening/homesteading/kitchen garden/mulching/no dig gardening/No Dig Home/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/preparing the soil/spring/summer
Clearing and planting
I’ve mostly been concentrating on my at home garden, so it was a real pleasure to be able to spend some time at my allotment, getting ready for everything that will be planted there over the next week or so.
I’d let the brassicas go to flower for the wildlife, but now needed most of the space for new plantings.
At the back, you can see the untidy part of my plot – cloche hoops and sticks waiting in a heap on top of the plastic mulch* to be put to use.
(*the plastic mulch is there to kill off invasive horseradish, which was trying to take over. It will be there all year.)
Bees and other beneficial insects are loving the brassica flowers. Small birds are feeding on the many insects flying about there. Some of the stems are covered in aphids, useful food for all kinds of beneficial predators – fine on these as they are going to be composted soon but I wouldn’t be quite as happy if they were on my food crops.
kale flowers
aphids on the kale
a bee visiting the kale flower
Most of the plants needed removing; I left just some flowering kale (seen above in the photo with the blue sky).
Even though it has been so dry for weeks, these mulched beds have retained moisture so I was able to simply pull out the large plants. Using my very sharp copper spade*, I chopped them into 6 inch pieces, then added them to the compost heap. Allowing the plants to flower has another advantage – it helps to create more material for compost making. To the heap I also added ripped up cardboard and chopped comfrey leaves; there’s a lot of comfrey in the hedgerows at this site.
(* the spade has an alloy so it is really bronze)
After clearing, I walked over the bed to level it off and break down any lumps of composted manure that remained, then using my dibber made holes for the module sown peas. The moisture conserving properties of the mulch made the job easy, even though we have had the driest April here for 30 odd years. It was more difficult where the brassicas had been, as one would expect.
I had meant to add a picture of the module peas but forgot to put it in my media files before going away – I am in Sussex, at Sarah Raven’s where Charles is giving a day course. This is a photo of my view as I type!
Back on the allotment, here are the peas after planting. I also planted module sown beetroot and spring onions down the sides of the beds – you can just about see the small leaves.
The self sown borage is huge now and full of bees.
The allotment after clearing – the garlic in the foreground is looking a little yellow due to lack of rain. I am hoping there’ll be some on Monday; if not, I will water them. It’s looking quite bare but will be full within 2-3 weeks! Most of the plants are ready to go out next week, I was holding them back a bit because of the cooler temperatures last week.
At home, I’ve been clearing much of the polytunnel too. It was looking quite jungly, rather lovely really with all of those flowers, but I need the space for the tomatoes.
After clearing I watered using a hose with the sprinkler attached, for a long time, avoiding the back of the tunnel where I have a store of compost and the apricot. I avoid drenching that, preferring to water the soil.
You can see how some of the garlic has suffered from dryness and growing amongst large brassica plants, something to remember for next year. I’m hoping it will perk up after a few days.
I’ve left some kale, chard, dill and turnip greens for a final pick. I harvest the green seeds of the coriander before clearing, delicious sprinkled on hummus.
Harvests included calabrese, carrots, spring onions and cabbages.
Then the tomatoes went in, with the string placed at the bottom of the hole. This helps to secure the string, which is fastened to the crop bars. I’m using baler twine as I have a huge quantity of it. Each piece is reused for years, not biodegradable unfortunately but as I have some, it seems sensible to use it up.
These tomatoes are mostly much smaller than I would usually plant, late sowing (due to the Italian trip) and so planted from module to tunnel without being potted on. An interesting experiment!
I also harvested the scrapes from the elephant garlic. These have gone into the fridge, I’ll cook them on Monday.
Next week, the aubergines will be planted and soon, cucumbers and melons – also, the edible flower companions and basil soon, too. An exciting transformation from spring to summer.
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Polytunnel polyculture & spring flowers
A quick photo blog – I just wanted to share some spring pictures from my back garden!
Most of the plants in the no dig polytunnel were planted last October into beds which were mulched in May, just as the tomatoes and other summer plants were going in here: no other fertilisers were added, one annual spring mulch feeds the crops year round. The polytunnel has 1/3 mesh and 2/3 polythene doors, which ensures good ventilation and gaps above the doors are large enough for small birds and insects to enter. During the winter I recorded temperatures lower than -4°C in here so everything freezes, however the cover keeps the weather – wind, hail, driving rain – off the plants which makes a huge difference for extending the growing season and feeding my family.
Bruton where I live is in south west England, zone 8/9.
A week ago I planted Swift potatoes into one of the beds and sowed some catch-crop radish in gaps where we have harvested vegetables. I mostly grow annual plants here but there are some perennials; recently I planted an apricot tree, on pixie root stock so that it won’t get very big. Other trees – a peach, nectarine and a mystery fruit – are on unknown rootstocks, so they are growing in large tree pots. A 3 year old grapevine is established at the back of the polytunnel. The lemongrass planted in the ground may have survived the winter, it looks hopeful and other overwintered perennials are snug in their pots in side beds.
This is the flowering mystery tree. Unlike my other potted fruit trees, last year this one didn’t produce any fruit so I do not know what it is. An apricot, peach, almond?
The polytunnel is 12ft x 40ft. During the summer the beds are completely full but at this time of year I make the most of the dry covered space and set up a potting bench. There’s also my saw horse, a stack of card for mulching, bags of compost and lots of young plants waiting to go outside.
carrots, elephant garlic. spinach, lettuce and more
spring cable growing well
I’m looking forward to the first carrots
coriander
brassicas including kale, cabbage and calabrese
spinach and garlic
calabrese
dill
Swift first early potatoes are planted here
kales
large oriental leaves for stir fries
The lettuce on the left has just been picked. The larger lettuce is the chosen Grenoble Red plant for saving seed. I chose this one because, unlike the other lettuces, this one self seeded from the lettuce I was growing for seed last year – it chose where to grow (ok, that is a bit of a romantic notion, but I like it…) Grenoble Red is the best lettuce for overwintering here, very prolific and tasty.
startled winter density lettuce, after picking
the chosen lettuce!
Signs of spring – some of the first flowers in my garden, all outside except the apricot.
Flower on my new dwarf apricot
An early plum tree full of blossom
last year this little tree was hit by a severe late frost so I had no fruit
hyacinths growing under a gooseberry
emerging peony and forget me nots
one of the primroses
euphorbia flowers
bud of the new apricot
polyculture of hyacinths, yellow dead nettles, gooseberry and Japanese wineberry
apricot flower
lung wort flower – this spread like mad
ladybird and rosemary flowers
flowering hairy bittercress – a widespread edible weed, I don’t want it in my veg beds
cowslips have naturalised in the perennial bed
my first tulip of the year
hellebores have been flowering for weeks now
CCCC
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How to eat more than 10 a day, in March
Growing your own really helps to make meals more delicious and exciting, offering an ever changing repertoire of amazing fresh veggies, fruit, herbs and other edibles to eat. For our no dig gardening courses at Homeacres I make lunches using, as much as we possibly can, only food that has been grown by Charles or myself. There is such variety! Even when there are several courses in a month, the choice of available plants to harvest is never the same from one course to the next.
We love sharing fresh homegrown food and hopefully inspiring people to grow as much as possible and experiment with their harvests.
To make the most use of what we grow, all of my dishes are entirely plant based, showcasing the incredible range of colours, flavours, textures and possibilities of the food we grow. People are always commenting on the colourfulness of the food and even the most enthusiastic omnivore leaves the table feeling full and happy.
In addition to freshly harvested vegetables, herbs, etc I use home stored ingredients including squashes, onions, garlic, chillies, beetroot, dehydrated tomatoes, some home dried herbs and spices and dried beans, especially Czar (a white runner bean) and Borlotti. From the larder, I use olive and sunflower oil, vinegars, spices we can’t grow (ginger, cinnamon), oranges and lemons. We have some homemade cider vinegar and our own homemade infused oils and vinegars too.
Seasonal salads, February
Seasonal salads, March
Every meal in the winter and spring includes a seasonal soup, Charles’ homemade sourdough rye bread (made with freshly ground organic rye grain, bought locally) and Homeacres salad leaves.
This month, the range of plants we can harvest include parsnips, leeks, cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, different kinds of kale, herbs (including parsley, mint, chervil, coriander, French tarragon, chives, sage, thyme), spinach and sprouts. Charles’ garden is much bigger than mine, but I also grow all of this – and more – in my own polytunnel, home garden and allotment. It is possible to grow a wide range of plants through the winter to eat in gardens and allotment – with good planning and crop protection! We can also forage for new nettle tops and the wild garlic is just about ready to harvest.
Although I usually have a few ideas for what I will make, the menu isn’t created until I see what we have in the kitchen.
winter veg
fresh kale
some of the veg for the meals
Charles’ salad leaves
Timperley early rhubarb
I make raw and cooked dishes, often experimenting with different ways of using the same vegetable.
roasted squash salad with roasted pumpkin seeds
raw grated root salad
roasted beetroot and orange salad
finely grated lemon zest for a dressing
potato salad – the dressing is made with cashew nuts and herbs
grated carrots and apple
massaged kale
sliced roasted golden beetroot
Borlotti bean salad
And also bake cakes or muffins to go with afternoon tea. The experimental vegan beetroot and spinach muffins were extremely yummy – richly flavoured, just the right gooeyness – but I made them in a rush without weighing all of the ingredients, so can’t share the recipe until I have made them again 🙂
apple tray bake
beetroot muffins
apple, parsnip and carrot muffins
apple, parsnip and carrot muffin mixture
apple, parsnip and carrot muffins
rhubarb muffins
The roasted squash hummus is always really popular; I’ll be blogging the recipe here very soon, so look out for it! Many of these recipes will be in our new book, out very soon!
allotment/back garden/blog/front garden/gardening/homesteading/kitchen garden/mulching/no dig gardening/No Dig Home/organic/permaculture/polytunnel/preparing the soil/winter
Winter no dig gardening
We have had some hard frosts here in Bruton, with temperatures falling well below zero (that’s cold for for Somerset, I appreciate that elsewhere it would be considered rather mild weather!) Although not frost free, the polytunnel offers a lot of protection from the winter weather, in particular icy winds and rain, enabling me to grow a far wider range of food year round.
December no dig gardening at Homeacres
Last week (December 6th) I took some photos of another of my work places, so here is a mini-tour of Charles Dowding‘s no dig market garden at Homeacres.
Mangelwurzels, harvests and growing at my No Dig Allotment
We have been experiencing some horrible weather here in Bruton, due to Storm Angus: high winds and torrential rain causing damage and flooding .