Grow Your Own – Keeper of the Kitchen

July 5, 2016July 5, 2016

How To Get Rid of Aphids

Along with my allotment, I am also growing a number of salad greens such as rocket and spinach and kale on two windowsills in my living room. One of the windowsills has pots with spinach and kale, and for some or other reason, the plants on this windowsill are over run by aphids! The other windowsill is fine, but this one – over run. Seriously – stick your hand into one of the pots and shake the plant around a little and your hand comes out covered in the little green bugs. It’s rather gross!

I tried to go organic, and spent some time every day manually going through every leaf on every plant pulling them off, but actually, life is too short!

So yesterday I decided I needed to go big or give up. It was time to get rid of aphids!

I mixed three drops of Thieves oil with three drops of Peppermint oil and a small squirt of dish washing soap into a spray bottle with two cups of water and swirled it around, then sprayed it liberally onto all the leaves – top and bottom, to get the eggs too – and in the crevices of the stems. I’ll have to make sure to wash everything properly before eating to get the dishwashing soap off, but it does work, for whatever reason!

By morning there wasn’t any movement on the plants – they’re all dead. Getting the plants cleared is a bit of a manoeuvring, but they just blow off, really. New eggs began to hatch, so I’ve had to spray again, but same story – they’re just dropping off.

If you don’t want to use dish soap, you can go without it, using just the essential oils, but you may need to do two or three sprays.

Hopefully now I’ve been able to get rid of aphids the plants will have a better chance to grow and flourish and I’ll get to eat some of the fruits of my labour!

July 1, 2016July 1, 2016

Grow Your Own Harvest: June

I honestly wasn’t expecting a huge harvest from our allotment this month. We only started planting two months ago, and the weather hasn’t been great. And despite a huge amount of work, it being our first season in this new plot… well, I wasn’t overly hopeful. But, as it turns out, the ground is fertile, and the rain has helped!

Our fellow allotmenteers, who had all started sowing and planting and getting seedlings going before we even had a plot – and a wonderful friend who started off some seedlings for me – were all very generous, and things progressed rapidly.

First in the ground was a row of salad greens, but they didn’t make it – just a patch of curly parsley has come up, so it withstood the slugs and frost that killed off the rest.

The kids planted beans in early spring at their playgroup and home ed group, and while they’ve grown beautifully, they haven’t produced anything. We’ll see if they do. We did have a huge struggle with slugs early on, and after a few rounds of Epsom salts, coffee grounds and prayers didn’t work, I chucked down a thin layer of slug pellets. That helped, but I still pick ’em off every day!

My friend Sara found some onions in the back of her cupboard growing legs, so she gave them to me and not really knowing what to do, I stuck the in the ground. I’m told they won’t produce onions, but they are going to seed, so I’m going to see if I can do anything with those. If nothing else, they are pretty to look at.

I have about 6 tomato plants growing, but so far only two have flowered. We’ll see what that means for the rest.

The apple tree that came with the plot is loaded with beautiful looking red apples. I’m excited to see what comes of them, and so far they are insect free, despite the huge caterpillar nest I took off the tree a few weeks ago.

Our harvests so far have been small, but that’s understandable. That radish is huge though. I’ve never liked peas, so I was keen to try a fresh one, and I love it. I ate it pod and all. And the carrots are sweet. I’m so excited by this first harvest.

We have three average sized rhubarb bushes on the plot, but they are producing plenty too.

The second harvest this month was really just kale and mint and spearmint. Made delicious kale and paprika chips with it, and added a mint layer to the strawberry yoghurt ‘ice creams’ my children enjoy.

The third harvest was the biggest so far. We are running out of carrots which is a shame, but I shall plant some more this weekend. I figure they may still work out if we have a later summer than normal. With any luck, maybe even an Indian Summer, then they should have plenty of time. More kale – the plant is a champion producer! We also got our first gherkins. I need to figure out how to start their pickling process as the rest of the plant is still just swelling, rather than showing actual fruit (veg).

And finally, our neighbouring plot is inhabited by a lady named Carol, who has an artichoke bush – and apparently I’m the only one she knows who likes artichokes… lucky me!

So, June’s thrown a few learning curves our way, and there are some bits in the beds that I’ll do differently next year, but for now, progress is forward motion, and I’m thrilled!

June 30, 2016June 30, 2016

Our New Allotment

Two months ago we received a plot on the local allotment. Our plot was rather overgrown, but we had one bed ready to use and another hidden under a mountain of plastic, rocks and broken glass! Here’s our new allotment journey!

I decided to start with the existing bed, and go from there, so I planted what I had a little (retrospectively) too haphazardly, but never mind – it’s year one, and a huge learning curve.

In this bed we planted salad greens, chives, nasturtiums, marigolds (calendula), radish, carrots and beetroot. A few weeks later I added rows of more beetroot, radish and khol rabi in between. Then I realised I had a quarter bed left empty, so I popped squash, courgette and gherkins in too as well as raspberry canes along one edge. A neighbouring plot holder turned up with two sun flowers for the children, so we popped those in too, to hide the compost bin.

Obviously that’s a lot for one bed, but with limited space we had to do what we could, really.

After I managed to uncover the second bed, I popped the strawberries in, leaving way too much space between them, and made a herb circle. At the end of that bed I added a Logan berry, four tomatoes and two peas.

We’ve had a few strawberries, but not many – I’ve actually just put some cloches on to try to protect it from the birds, but I suspect that’s affected the sun the strawberries are getting as we’ve not had any since. But it is their first year and they’ve only been in the ground for 2 months, so that might be it too.

In the middle of the herbs I’ve put some Kale, and so far they’ve avoided white fly, and have been producing beautifully, so that’s great news!

The plot came with a fully grown and flowering apple tree (complete with a gazillion caterpillars, but fortunately they were the nesting type, so I just moved their whole nest and that seems to have gotten rid of them all) and an abundance of mint and spearmint. It’s surrounded by brambles too, so that should mean plenty of blackberries and there’s a huge Comfrey plant, so fertiliser should be easy to arrange too. Oh, and I almost forgot the huge rosemary bush too! I’m excited about that!

It’s been a massive amount of work, and I honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to do everything I have, so I’m feeling rather pleased with myself – even with the new wildlife discoveries we’ve been making!

We’ve been at it for two months, and we’re now at the harvesting stage for lots of the things we’ve planted, which is terribly exciting! Watch this space for lots of fresh and healthy recipes as well as growing tips as we learn them!

July 30, 2014

Simple Easy Stuffed Courgette / Zucchini Flowers

I love Courgette Flowers (Zucchini Flowers). There’s something about them that just makes me think of long summer days in Italy… maybe because the first time we ate them was in Varazze Italy and a few days later on a long lazy afternoon in Rome. Some years ago we were camping in Switzerland but the nearest market was in a small town in Italy, so we drove there for fresh vegetables a few times, and picked up a big bag of courgettes attached to the flower. We took it back to the camp site and prepared our own stuffed courgettes. They are so delicious, I’m sharing the recipe with you as now is the time for them!

We have two courgette plants, two pumpkins and a marrow. Between them they make loads of flowers, but not enough for us to have a family meal off one crop, so I recently discovered that we can actually freeze the flowers. Just pick them, wash them and lay them on a tray without touching anything else. Pop them in the freezer for an hour or so, then transfer into a sealed container.

When you’re ready to eat them, take them out the freezer about 10 minutes before you need them. They’re so thin the defrost in minutes.

You can stuff courgette flowers with pretty much anything you like. We love mozzarella and anchovy, even if you don’t like anchovy, it’s great… it really just adds a bit of saltiness, which is delicious.

The secret with frying your courgette flowers is in having the tempura batter really cold. Once it’s mixed, split the batter between two bowl. Put one in the freezer, and use other to dip one round of courgette flowers. Swap bowls, and use the next bowl for the next round, then swap back. It may seem a faff, but having the batter ice cold makes it crispy and light, which is really what you want for this summer delicacy.

Simple Easy Stuffed Courgette / Zucchini Flowers

Recipe Type: Main, Starter

Cuisine: Foraged, Italian

Author: Luschka

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

15 – 20 Flowers
Batter
1 egg
250g very very cold water
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
100g all-purpose flour
Filling
100g mozzarella
5 anchovies

Instructions

Hold each flower under a cold running tap. This helps open it up while washing it.
Set aside to dry.
In your food processor, add the egg, water, baking soda and flour.
Mix until it’s all blended (10 seconds, speed 5)
Put it in the freezer
Mix your filling and scoop into a piping bag
Gently fill each flower from the piping bag, and ever so gently twist the top of the flower to contain the filling.
Heat the oil
Pour half of the batter into a different bowl and return it to the freezer.
Take two – four flowers (depending on the size of your pot of oil) and dip in the cold batter, before putting in the oil.
Fry the flowers until they are golden.
Return the batter to the freezer and swap.
Dip the flowers, remove the cooked flowers and put them aside to drain.
Repeat until all the flowers are done. Remember the colder the batter the better and each batch of flowers should cook in 3 – 4 minutes.