Wild Garlic

Picking wild garlic is always something I really look forward to. At this time of year it is in abundance in many woodlands and unlike a lot of foraged foods it is almost impossible to miss. You are likely to smell it before you see it but when you look around it will be everywhere.

A short walk from where I used to live I have a favourite spot that I have been using for the past couple of years. This week I happened to be passing and couldn't miss the opportunity to stop off and check if it was ready yet. I was in the area about a month ago but was too early, this time it was in perfect condition.

The best time to pick is before the flowers start to appear, as with a lot of plants the leaves turn slightly bitter after this. I helped myself to a carrier bag full and drove back home with car full of the scent of garlic. This year, to make my harvest last a bit longer, I decided long before I picked the garlic that I was going to make wild garlic butter.

After a quick rinse I placed the wild garlic in a blender and shredded it quite finely, I then added some softened butter and combined. Following this I scooped the mixture out and rolled into cylinders inside some greaseproof paper.

 

Altogether it only took five minutes and I'll definitely be doing it again next years. The butter will now go in the freezer and I'll take from it as I need to. It will add fantastic flavour to all sorts of dishes from pasta to jacket potatoes to homemade garlic bread. I saved a few fresh leaves to eat on the day, these will only keep for a couple of days so unless you live near a good spot this is a great way to store them.

Lessons learnt

As we move towards April plenty of lessons have been learnt in the garden already this year. It was always going to be a learning curve starting a veg garden from nothing and so far it has proved to be a very steep one.

The main challenge I have faced is the weather. After the incessant rain came the freezing cold all of this accompanied with harsh gales day and night. With the weather so changeable the handful of seedlings that I have planted out have barely made it through the day let alone gone onto establish good roots and growth.

I was perhaps over eager in February when planting out broad beans with minimal hardening off. These were reduced to just stalks by the harsh winds and hail.

One thing which really has come to my savoir is cloches. I have made these by cutting used plastic bottles in half and placing the neck end over the seedling.

I have been doing a trial on the lettuces which I over wintered with great results. They didn’t really need them, the ones without cloches are growing perfectly fine however the lettuce which has had a cloche over it for the past three weeks is the biggest and certainly looks the healthiest plant. So a small victory there, even if there is a way still to go with before I harvest them.

I have since employed this tactic with my chard. I only have two plants out at the moment with a couple more just starting off inside. The idea being that by successional sowing these I would avoid a glut in the summer and free up space to grow a greater variety of plants. The cloches have saved the chard from a pretty rough start and they have since begun to look a lot better. Once they get too big for the cloches then they should be big enough to stand up for themselves.

As a precaution to the frosts this week I have covered over the raised bed that I planted seeds in last week with a plastic sheet. This has done the job of keeping the frosts out but at the moment there is no sign of any seedlings. Fingers crossed on that one.

A good sign this week was some shoots appearing from the shallots I planted last month. The ducks had dug a couple up which I just pushed back in. At the time I noticed there was plenty of root growth so had been anticipating the appearance of these shoots. I may have been later than some planting the shallots out but they still have a long growing season ahead and plenty of time to bulk up. The challenge was to get a harvest from these before the onions were ready, providing food over a longer period of time. With the onions that I’m growing from seed still inside this still looks very much on track.

Fun in the sun

The weather has been fantastic this past weekend. An unexpected surprise in the middle of March but a much needed one.

By chance I had taken a long weekend hoping I would be able to catch up on some bits in the garden, I ending up doing all I had planned and more.

The front garden had long been in need of some attention, the plants were all overgrown and as with the rest of the garden there were piles of old stone everywhere. The idea is a wildflower meadow effect; the space isn’t particularly large and won’t be used for much else other than for admiring when walking in and out of the house. It benefits from all day sun which is a real help too. Through Saturday morning I cleared all the stone and pulled up the old plants reducing it to something that I could sow seed on. At the back I have built a trough-like planter out of some of the stone which when filled with compost will ideal for my strawberry plants. I spread the wildflower meadow mix over the now bare ground along with some ‘ladybird’ poppy seeds for extra effect. This was then covered with a fine layer of compost and watered well, being gentle enough to not displace the seeds too much. To get a longer flowering period I kept half of the seed back to repeat the process with in a couple of weeks. I’ll watch this with interest as I have sown poppies before with no luck. However this is just a side project, after all the aim was to try and grow all my own fruit and vegetables this year. The ulterior motive for this is that it will attract pollinating insects to the garden which in turn will result in me getting more veg.

A trip to the garden centre saw me come back with a car full of compost to go into the raised beds. Although I’ve got plenty of seedlings growing inside at the moment, these are all destined for the main veg patch. In one of the raised beds I directly sowed beetroot, radish, garlic and carrots. These are sheltered and can be looked after here; once they start to grow I can thin as needed to allow the others room to expand.

At the bottom of the garden half the veg patch still needed to be dug over. So with the ducks in tow looking for worms, I spent the afternoon digging out roots and stones and ended up with quite a good consistency to the soil. Into this I planted some red cabbage seedlings that had grown to a decent size on the windowsill and also some green cabbage. This doesn’t look as good, the seeds were old and germination rates were low but rather than waste them I thought I’d plant them and see what happens.

The sunniest bed in the garden I have earmarked for tomatoes and courgettes. The weeds were removed fairly easily and again I dug over the soil. This backs onto the hedge and is in full sun all day. If Sunday’s weather is anything to go by they should thrive here. At one end of the bed I already have rhubarb growing and at the other a gooseberry bush. At the moment the tomatoes and courgettes are inside on the windowsill having only been planted last week, I’ll look to plant these out late April.

The whole family have been enjoying the garden this weekend with even my five month old coming out to play with the ducks.It feels like a real step in the right direction was taken. After weeks of rain things were looking a bit behind schedule but now, they're right back on track. It's amazing what a bit of sun can do for you.

Wild encounters

After a few months of short days and long nights, this week I’ve really begun to see an increase in the amount of wildlife I am seeing.

Throughout winter the birds in the garden have caught on to the fact that fresh duck food is put out every day, recently it seems they have told all their friends about this too. Despite all the neighbours having bird feeders hanging in their gardens the duck’s food bowl is now the favourite local eating spot amongst the wild birds. The ducks look a bit intimidated by all of the action going on and would now rather walk off and dig around for something else than compete for their own food. By the time I get home the ducks are following me about waiting for another handful of food before they go in for the night.

I don’t mind all of this, I quite enjoy watching all the birds when I’m out in the garden. This morning however I had a new visitor, or if not new then certainly one I hadn’t seen before. As usual I let the ducks out of their coop and went to get the bag of food from the shed. Normally I would use a plant pot to scoop the food out without even looking. By chance today I happened to peek into the bag to see a mouse stranded in the bottom staring up at me. Overnight it must have climbed up the side of the bag and dropped into through the hole at the top eager to get at the food inside. Of course once inside the bag there was no way out. It gave me quite a surprise at first. I carefully turned the bag sideways and what I think I have since identified as a wood mouse jumped out and ran into the hedge. The ducks didn’t even notice the fleeing mouse, they were more interested in why their feed was being delayed.

I had been worried about rats before with kitchen scraps going on the compost heap and the duck feed being kept in the shed. I may have to have a rethink with regards to the storage of the feed but it certainly was a pleasant surprise to see this mouse getting a free meal out of my misjudgement.

That wasn’t my only encounter this week. Whilst driving through the mountains one morning, not less than five hundred metres from the house, a red deer hind jumped over a fence and onto the road in front of me. I wasn’t driving particularly fast and slowed to a stop far enough away so as not to frighten the deer away. She casually walked across the road and effortlessly leapt the fence the other side. This was a real spectacle and one I have not seen for a few years.

So far living in a national park has surpassed all of my expectations, with the seasons changing I hope they’ll be a few more encounters like this before too long.I