Halfway through the month and the lovely hawthorn flowers which grace the beginning of May have shed their petals. The garden is bursting with new life and the promise of more to come.
The polytunnels are giving us crisp lettuce and tasty radishes for delicious fresh salads. If I just nip out the crinkled leaves from around the middle and leave the central leaves they will keep supplying new growth. No need to pull up a whole lettuce. I always do this with “Little Gem”, our favourite lettuces.
The garlic is ready to harvest and has just sent up flower shoots. These, known as “scapes” taste of garlic and are a tender alternative. I nipped them off to prevent the plants from bolting and I used them in our favourite Italian-style salad.
Normally, for this I rub a little crushed garlic around the bowl to flavour the olive oil but as I’m waiting for my garlic harvest I snipped some of the scapes into the oil instead. Lots of flavour. It was very tasty.
For this salad I use basil. I’ve sown the seeds with the tomatoes in the greenhouse, so will be enjoying it soon. When it’s out of season I buy a pot from the supermarket. I can keep it going for weeks if I give it a drink of cold tea every day.
Outdoors, the kale is sending up flower buds and is almost ready to come out. Not yet though, because the buds are a treat, either raw or cooked. If I keep pinching them off they grow more and I can keep this going for a couple of weeks. Very nutritious and a pleasure to eat.
I’ve also discovered that if I remove just the head of a cabbage and leave the outer leaves, sometimes the stump will make new growth if it’s kept watered. This cuts down on space as less plants are needed.
I normally sow my runner beans this month from seed I saved from last year’s pods. This time though I decided to cut down on work so I bought some plants from a garden centre. I also bought Brussel sprouts and lettuce to save time and effort. Because I’ve grown from seed for many years I feel almost as though I’m cheating by buying plants but I’m not getting any younger and the garden is a lot to manage. I don’t ever want to give up gardening but I need to make life a little easier.
The roses have started to bloom. Although they struggle in our sandy soil I usually manage to coax them to produce a few flowers.
Tulips have finished but I captured the evening light on a lovely one before it finally dropped its petals.
The Aquilegias are wonderful this year. Beautiful shades of pink and purple are giving us such pleasure.
Comfrey is flowering now. It makes a great plant food, especially for tomatoes. It’s smelly but easy to make and very effective. Just cut it down with leaves, stems and flowers. Chop them up. Put it all in a bucket and fill with water. Leave for a couple of weeks then pour off and dilute as needed. Costs nothing, resourceful and organic. According to the organisation, Garden Organic, the variety of comfrey called “Bocking 14” is the best for this purpose.
On a wet day I baked my banana and cranberry loaves. I had four small ripe bananas to use up and it was an ideal day for working indoors.
Delicious served as buttered slices. My very easy recipe is in my Earthy Homemaker’s Cookbook. Follow this link if you’d like to find it.
I hope your gardens are full of tasty food and glorious flowers and your days are filled with pleasure. Bye for now. With you again in a couple of weeks.
Living a contented creative life. 