Long overdue update

Last year September to November were among the busiest months on the blog but this year things took a very different turn and those months were among the quietest, without even a single post in both October and November! And that's not because there was nothing happening in Cowick Garden Cafe, on the contrary, we've been very busy. I must confess I let other commitments get in the way of the blog but hopefully I will make amends over the coming weeks.

There's quite a lot to update you on and quite a lot of recipes to upload too! This year was a very good year for vegetables but not such a good year for fruit. Sadly, we had very few apples this winter, not only did many of them rot on the tree, but there were also far fewer than last year to begin with. That was very disappointing. Although we did make some comforting apple crumble as well as a delicious new recipe by Nigel Slater - caramelised apples with apple ice-cream. Delicious! 

Another bit of disappointing news is that we had to say bye bye to the blackberry bush. It became infected with almost every single pest and disease that has ever visited Cowick Garden. It became the hub of pest life, where they all congregated to discuss their next plan of attack and in the process they ravaged and ransacked the poor blackberry bush. Blackberries are normally hardy plants but it didn't stand a chance against the force of all the pests in town.

We're thinking of replacing that patch where Black Berry used to live with a flowering creeper. It will be good to have some flowers near the vegetable patch to attract more bees and helpful insects. We haven't decided what plant yet but as we'll only plant it in spring there's still time to decide. If anyone knows of a good flowering creeper to plant near vegetables, please let me know.

We hardly had any nectarines this year either and very few strawberries. However, this is the first year that we've planted strawberries and apparently they always produce very little in their first year, so next year should be better.

Anyway, enough of all the bad news. Now for some good news. The tomatoes and chillies were our biggest success. We had so many! We made so many spicy pasta sauces, tomato soups, oven-roasted tomatoes, bruschettas, that at one point we had no place to store everything in our tiny fridge. The beetroots were a success too though the slugs and snails did help themselves to the leaves every night. At least not to the extent where it prevented the root from growing so we had a number of beetroots to enjoy over several weeks. The spring onions did well too and so did our parsnips. 

We only dug the parsnips out of the ground yesterday as they can stay in the soil well into the autumn, up until the first frosts apparently. Interestingly, our parsnips didn't quite resemble the neat-shaped parsnips you find in the shop. On the contrary ours looked like mutant creatures from another galaxy. Didn't stop them from tasting good though. We made some spicy parsnip soup with many of them last night and that's what's for dinner tonight!

More photos and updates coming soon. It's good to be back!

Spicy tomato soup

So we've had spicy tomato sauce and now it's time for spicy tomato soup. Basically what that means is we're not keeping up with all our chillies and tomatoes. We haven't even had time to make our celebratory beetroot and chocolate cake yet because of all the tomatoes. We're not complaining though and enjoyed a very spicy soup in our very windy garden this afternoon.

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 spring onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, seeds removed and chopped* (add 2 small chillies if you're feeling brave)
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin powder
1 tbsp tomato paste
1,5 kg fresh tomatoes, blanched and chopped
200ml vegetable stock
Basil leaves, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the onion and stir until it becomes soft.
2. Add the garlic, chilli, coriander, cumin and tomato paste and stir for approximately a minute.
3. Add chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce heat to low, partially cover pot with lid and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occassionally
5. Puree the soup in a blender.
6. Return to the pot and add a little to all of the vegetable stock depending on how thick you want the soup to be. Our tomatoes had a lot of juice in them so I didn't add much of the stock.
7. Stir slowly until hot again and add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Serve into bowls and add basil leaves.
9. Bon appetit!


*Useful tip: Remember to wash hands well after chopping the chillies. You can also rub a bit of olive oil over your hands too as that will get rid of any remaning chilli on your fingers. Don't, like me, absent-mindedly touch your face after chopping the chillies. You'll be crying into your tomato soup!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Cowick Garden Cafe. One year old today! In celebration we'll be baking a chocolate and beetroot cake. Recipe coming soon!

Simply spicy pasta sauce

We've just come back from a few days in the very hot city of Rome (39 degrees C!) Inspired by the heat and all the delicious Italian food we ate, as well as an abundance of tomatoes in the greenhouse and some very red chillies on the kitchen window sill upon our return, we decided to put together a simple tomato pasta sauce. Our Italian friends in Rome gave us this very easy recipe and said that the essence of Italian food is simplicity. So here is our very simple spicy pasta sauce:

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 red chillies, finely choppped
6 large tomatoes, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper


Method

1. Pour the olive oil into a pan and add the crushed garlic.
2. Cook on a medium heat until the garlic turns golden and then add the chillies.
3. After a couple of minutes add the chopped tomatoes.
4. Bring to a simmer and then cook for approximately 45 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.
5.Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with your favourite pasta.
6. Bellissimo!

Creamy courgette and chilli pasta

This recipe was inspired by a good friend who said she adapted the mangetout tagliatelle stir-fry recipe by adding  some fennel (from Cowick Garden) and courgettes to it. I thought this was an excellent idea and so we tried our own version of it last night. It was delicious. We added our first red chilli from the garden too!

Ingredients 
2 medium courgettes, grated
150g peas
1 spring onion
2bsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
8 tbsp single cream
250g tagliatelle
Parmesan cheese, grated
Fennel leaves

Method
1. Cook the tagliatelle in a pot of boiling water and steam the peas.
2. While the pasta and peas are cooking, add the oil, garlic and chillies to the frying pan over a low to medium heat and stir together for a few minutes.
3. Add the grated courgettes to the chilli garlic and mix together well. After a few minutes add the cream and continue stirring.
4. When the courgettes have turned into a green creamy mixture and feel very soft, add the peas and then the pasta and toss well.
5. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and garnish with fennel leaves.
6. Enjoy with a glass of good French wine!

Sunny Garden Cafe

  

  

A day in the sun

Hot beetroot salad with goat's cheese

We harvested our first beetroots yesterday and they were so tasty. We pulled three out of the ground and turned them into a mouth-watering salad with honey, mustard and goat's cheese.  The recipe is below - it's an adaption of a hot beetroot salad we discovered on the BBC Good Food website.

Ingredients

3 raw beetroots
1 lemon
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 tsp clear honey
1 tsp grainy mustard
Lots of goat's cheese!

Method

1. Boil the beetroot for about 20-30 minutes depending on the size. The larger the beetroot the longer the boiling time.
2. Test the beetroot is cooked by inserting a sharp knife into it, if the beetroot slides off easily then it is cooked.
3. Peel the beetroot and slice into thin circles.
4. Add a little oil into a frying pan and gently fry the beetroot for a couple of minutes.
5. Drizzle the juice of the lemon over the beetroot.
6. Add the honey and mustard and toss so all the slices are well coated.
7. Crumble a very generous helping of goat's cheese on top of the beetroot slices and serve.

A soggy garden

It is so wet out there! I've just been taking refuge in the greenhouse from the relentless drizzle. The garden has had a good soaking over the last few days but a few little rays of warm sunshine would certainly be much appreciated now.

If the sun does come out this weekend, I will take some photos of the garden as it's looking very very different to how it was a couple of months ago. It's exploded into a sea of green and looks like a real jungle. The neighbour came over the other day and looked at the garden through the kitchen door and exclaimed, "Wow, your garden is a jungle! But in a good way." He was very quick to add the bit at the end. Maybe too quick. ;) Yes, it's true the garden does need a bit of tidying up and a bit of pruning. The banana trees have grown and spread out and their large leaves are providing a canopy of bright green above your head as you walk through the garden. The campsis has spread across the new fence so enthusiastically that you can hardly make out the fence anymore through all the long green stems  and the beautiful red explosions of the trumpet-like flowers. The oleander recovered very well from its rigorous pruning over the winter and is now a fireball of green and the periwinkle has spread like wildfire around the phormium and its stems have even made their way over the wall of the path towards the broken paving.

Talking about the broken paving, this coming Monday the paving people arrive! Paving is big business these days it seems. The company whose quote we eventually accepted had over a two-month waiting list and their quote was by no means cheap. I've obviously missed my calling in life. If I had gone into the paving business this recession and economic crisis would have nothing on me!

Anyway,  the two months are now up and our turn has come. The old grey slate slabs are finally going to be replaced with some bright Indian modak sandstone which will hopefully complement the brick-red paint on the walls of the borders very well. We're dreading the arrival of these paving people as it's going to be such an upheaval. A lot of the potted plants are going to have to move indoors to the study upstairs. We won't even be able to put them in the lounge or kitchen as these paving men are going to be using our lounge and kitchen as a thoroughfare to the garden. Ah the joys of living in a small London terraced house!

First they have to remove all the slate slabs and any bit of cement that is still currently there, they then have to remove a large amount of soil and dig quite deep, then they build some kind of sink hole for drainage and then they start cementing and cutting and laying the slabs. It's going to be noisy and dirty and messy! Poor Cowick Garden. It's not going to be a pleasant week but hopefully once it's done it will look good. And there will be photos in celebration including a full landscape view of the whole garden.

Celebrating Wimbledon

It's the weekend of the Wimbledon finals and Nadal is playing so what better way to celebrate than with a Pimm's Punch! It's also ten years since I saw my tennis hero, Goran Ivanisevic win Wimbledon for the first time after entering the tournament on a wild card entry. He made history as no wild card entry had ever won the tournament before. What a match! He played the Australian Pat Rafter and the match went to five sets. It was so close the whole way through and I was there on Centre Court watching it. There was no roof on Centre Court back then and because of all the rain delays the men's final was played on a Monday which meant it was open to the public. I managed to get one of the last seats on Centre Court and to watch my longtime tennis hero finally win Wimbledon after being in the finals three times was a dream come true. Time to celebrate!

We used strawberries and mint from Cowick Garden so I think this recipe qualifies for entry onto the blog.;)

Pimm's Punch

Ingredients
Pimm's
Lemonade
Handful of strawberries, cut into quarters
Half an orange, sliced
Handful of mint, shredded
A few cucumber slices

Method
1. Add 600ml of lemonade to 200ml of Pimm's

2. Add in the strawberries, orange slices, mint and cucumber.

3. Stir and allow to stand for a few minutes.

4. Pour into glasses, sit back and enjoy the tennis!

Supper tonight!

Mellow yellow mangetout

Well I certainly didn't have my facts straight last week. There I was saying that mangetout are yellow before they turn green. Well that's not true. There are some varieties of mangetout that are yellow and as it turns out the variety we have are yellow...they won't be turning green.  They're called Golden Sweet and if I'd read the seed packet correctly I would have realised that we were in store for some lovely golden yellow mangetouts. We were patiently waiting for them to turn green but as the pods started swelling and they were still a bright yellow, I thought something was a bit odd so I dug out the seed packet and sure enough they're not going to be turning green...at all.

So yesterday before the rain set in I picked up a handful of mangetout and last night we made a delicious mangetout stir fry with some cream and tagliatelle. This recipe will be perfect when our spring onions and peas are ready as we added some shop onions and peas to it so some fresh Cowick Garden peas and spring onions will make it extra tasty. I found the recipe on the Cooks United website but tweaked it a little to incorporate the peas and onions.

Mangetout tagliatelle stir-fry


Ingredients
100g mangetout
150g peas
3 spring onions, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
5 tbsp single cream
250g tagliatelle
Parmesan cheese, grated

Method
1. Cook the tagliatelle in a pot of boiling water. Use fresh tagliatelle, if possible.
2. Steam the peas.
3. While the pasta and peas are cooking, stir fry the mangetout in the olive oil with the garlic, onions and cream until the mangetout are soft.
4. Add the peas and then the pasta and toss well.
5. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheeese and tuck in!

When the going gets tough...

Trying to write this post while watching the French men's single final and I'm not doing a very good job of multi-tasking. Nadal is precariously close to losing the first set and being a big supporter of the tall tanned Spaniard I'm biting my nails and burying my head in my hands rather than tapping away at the keyboard. Right, I'm turning away from the TV now and focussing on a battle of a different kind. Ohh...break point for Nadal, err I'll be right back.

And he's done it! He's broken Federer's serve. He may, just may, win the first set after all. As the old saying goes - 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going!' And the plants in Cowick Garden are toughing up and going for it. It hasn't been very easy for them with all the dry weather, the strong winds and all the different assortments of bugs and beasties attacking them, but they've hung in there and they're pulling through.

The first photo on the left is of one of the little chilli plants growing in a pot in the greenhouse. We had a few of them growing together in a large pot on the deck but they were a bit too crowded in there and jostling each other for space. So I separated them out and gave a few of them their own pots and they seem to be enjoying the space and the chance to spread their little roots out.

And he's won the set! Incredible. And now it looks like Federer has completely given in as he's lost six consecutive games. What a turnaround.Well I hope our plants have done a Nadal on all the bugs out there. We haven't seen many greenfly for a while now and the lovely ladybirds have been munching away greedily at all the aphids on the apple tree. There still seem to be a few slugs hanging about like stragglers around the beetroot though hopefully they'll soon realise that they're not very welcome and find another party to crash in someone else's garden.

The second photo on the left shows the parsnips rearing to go. In between the parsnips we planted some fennel which is growing very tall. Down the left hand side the marigolds have spread out in their bright orange and yellow glory. Being the unexperienced garderner that I am, I didn't realise they would spread out as much so looks like there is going to be some competition and some bullying between them and the parsnips.And along the back and side of the vegetable patch are the sweet peas. Looking forward to seeing those in bloom soon.

The peas are growing well as you can see from the third photo and we should be able to harvest a few pea pods soon. The mangetout which are growing just outside the greenhouse have beautiful purple and pink flowers and quite a few yellow mangetout pods are now appearing. I had no idea that mangetout were intially yellow. We are going to have to come up with a few intereresting recipes for mangetout because it looks like we are going to have a lot of them!

I've also added a photo of the beetroot. A few of them are growing proud but you can see some smaller ones which had most of their leaves chewed off by the nightly slug escapades. We also have some fennel growing in between the rows of beetroot. The spring onion are behind the fennel but not so easy to spot in the photo.

The next photos are of the tomato plants in the greenhouse. They have been doing well. I think they're enjoying the sumptuous soil we added in for them. We removed a lot of the soil from last year and replaced it with a whole bag of multipurpose compost mixed with soil improver, which they seem to be loving. They are growing very tall and there are even some tiny green tomato fruits on one of the plants. When the flowers start appearing that's when you need to start feeding the tomato plants fertiliser, such as Tomorite, once a week. Apparently it's not a good idea to give them the Tomorite before because then the plants focus on producing more leaves instead of flowers and fruit. We've also been picking out the side shoots so that more of the plant's energy is directed towards fruiting. Saying that, I've just spotted a side shoot in the second last photo...oops, looks like we haven't been doing such a good job.

Remember the tiny green shoots that we had poking out of the potato grow bags? Well the last photo shows how much they've shot up since the last post!

Federer is now fighting back and could possibly take the second set. Just goes to show you can't let your guard down. Just because there aren't too many beasts out there at the moment, doesn't mean they're not going to be coming back in full force, guns blazing, so just like in tennis, you have to stay focussed.

Break point now for Federer...

Windswept Sunday

What is going on with this weather?! Warmer than average for this time of year, no rain and wind wind wind and more wind! I shouldn't complain as all the beautiful sunshine has been wonderful for the garden, however the fact that we haven't had a decent spell of rain for a number of weeks is not so good and on top of that all this wind. Poor Cowick Garden is taking a beating!

I wanted to transplant some beetroot seedlings today but with the galeforce winds we've been having I've been transplanting turned-over pot plants to calmer surroundings, namely the kitchen - hence the photo below. Getting to the kitchen sink has turned into a bit of a challenge. I also spent quite some time tying up the poor campsis who's had four of five branches, some of them quite large, completely ripped off. The lovely banana leaves who were just opening up into large proud green leaves have been shredded and the bamboo who is normally quite hardy has lost a lot of his leaves all over the garden.

Apart from this chaotic weather it's been a busy month in the garden. The sweet peas, peas and mangetout are all doing well and after a slow start the spring onions are looking sturdier than the wispy blades of grass that first appeared out of the soil. Parsnips have been slow to come up but some are now making a gutsy appearance above the soil and I'm hoping the rest of them will overcome their shyness soon too. Some tiny slugs made a midnight feast of a few of our beetroots seedlings a few nights ago. One day the beetroot was standing tall, colourful and proud and the next day they had been chewed back to their stems. The cheek of those slugs! Well we put an end to their after-hours parties.

My partner in amateur gardening crime was very keen on planting some potatoes this year so he bought some potato seeds and growbags and after weeks of chitting (leaving the seedlings in egg boxes to allow the sprouts to grow) and earthing up (covering the stems as they grow) there are some lush green leaves appearing at the top of the grow bags. Below is a photo of the bag with the King Edward potatoes. In another bag we have Maris Piper.

Strawberries are growing (they're on the kitchen sink at the moment - see photo above), apples are forming and the nectarine has a lovely little fan trellis to keep him attached to the wall. Bought in the nick of time yesterday afternoon before the war of the winds began!

The beasts are out and about

I'm writing this post from a sunny corner of Cowick Garden. It's been another glorious day, however, extremely windy. All the plants are looking a little windswept, probably not a good day for gardening. A good day for hanging out the washing and flying a kite, according to the weather man, but not a good day for planting. However, seeing as tomorrow is back to work, it was either do all the planting today or wait till the weekend. So I decided to hold onto my hat and plant some dill in the vegetable patch, plant a fuscia near the deck (the one we had last year didn't survive the winter) and plant a colourful reddy orange plant called a Georgia Peach!

So, in the vegetable patch we now have rows of marigolds and some rows of dill in an attempt to ward off the aphids. Still no sign of ladybirds in our ladybird tower however we have spotted some ladybirds around the garden so hopefully it won't be long before they set up home. We're also finding more greenfly unfortunately. There are still quite a few on the rosebush and on some of the peas and sweet peas. We've also discovered a large number of caterpillars on the blackberry bush. We never had such a problem with caterpillars last year until we started growing broccoli. (Damn that broccoli!) Looks like there isn't much out there to deter caterpillars, however, you can buy some eco-friendly, non-chemical sprays and we found some specifically for caterpillars on www.greengardener.co.uk. (Thanks very much Sheila for recommending the site.) We'll give that a go when it arrives and in the meantime we are cutting away the badly affected leaves and getting rid of any caterpillars we see.

We also discovered scale insects on the campsis outside the kitchen. Scale insects apparently stick to the branches and leaves on plants and suck all the goodness and nutrients out of the plant until they die. We removed as many of the scale insects as we could by scraping them off the branches (yuk yuk yuk) and then gave the campsis a healthy dose of fertiliser to help it recover after that traumatic experience of being eaten alive.

So it's been quite a battle in Cowick Garden these last few days. Aphids, caterpillars, scale insects, black fly, snails, slugs, it goes on. Can't let your guard down otherwise you are under attack by the beasts! This gardening business is hard work!

Come on little ladybirds!

We've installed a ladybird tower underneath the apple tree and now all we need is for some lovely little ladybirds to come and set up home in their grand tower.  We also smeared some 'ladybird attractants' (some powdery stuff that you mix with water) onto the outside of the tower in the hope that it will lure the brightly coloured little bugs to their new home. So far, it's still empty but it's only been a few days so here's hoping...

In the sunshine!

We've been outside in the garden all day. We finally sowed the garlic and we've put our potatoes into grow bags so now all our vegetables are planted. Also planted some sweet peas in the vegetable patch with the parsnips. ( I hope sweet peas like parsnips!) There is a trellis and some netting along that side of the vegetable patch so hopefully the sweet peas will climb it and add some colour to that part of the garden.

As you can see from the photo on the left, the banana trees are doing well. We pulled most of the dead bark around the trunk to expose more of the stems to the glorious sunshine we've been having. You can just about make out the apple tree in the photo - it's growing behind the palm.

Unfortunately we also discovered some ghastly green fly! They've attacked our tiny shoots of peas, our mange tout and our rose bush. So out came the soapy water and it was open warfare on those horrible pests! They're obviously enjoying the good weather too.

The second photo on the left is of the smaller banana trees. They're also doing  well and there's even a tiny pup bursting with life though you can't see him as he's hidden behind the fern. In the background is the stump of a Canary Island palm which sadly didn't make it through the winter. We're hoping to get another palm soon though how we get the huge stump out of the soil with all the other plants growing around it is going to be another one of our gardening challenges.

This photo also boasts our smart new fence which we only had installed a week ago. The old fence was falling apart and was even rotting in places so the time had come. We've also had the sides of the borders rendered and painted a bright brick red and so now all that remains is to replace the paving. That has been a huge saga and probably for another post. Today it's about the lush green plants and the stunning sunshine!

A quote...

Saw this on the back of a book by Louise Hampden called A Treasury of Garden Wisdom - "If gardening doesn't teach us anything it should teach us faith. All the time we are shivering and complaining nature is working miracles underground..."

Tips from the old wives

Did you know that marigolds are excellent deterrents for aphids? We discovered this last year in a handy little book called "Tips from the Old Gardener's" by Duncan Crosbie. We put this old wive's tale to the test and bought a large selection of French marigolds in spring last year, potted them and then placed the potted marigolds in between our tomato plants in the greenhouse. Well the aphids stayed very far away from our tomato plants. Result!

Apparently marigolds secrete an insect repellent that protects plants. I've always found the smell of marigolds very unpleasant and it seems I'm not the only one; aphids do too. The roots also secrete a repellent which is why it is  recommended that you plant marigolds near your vegetable patch.

This last weekend, we've been on the hunt for marigolds and sadly most of the nurseries don't seem to have any young shoots of marigolds yet. We managed to find some African marigolds so that's a start. The plan is to plant rows of marigolds in between the vegetable plots this year and to also dot some around the garden and greenhouse again.

Another interesting fact we learnt from Duncan Crosbie's little book is that parsley encourages bees and borage helps strawberries to grow. Garlic and chives keep greenfly away from roses and lavender planted near roses keeps aphids away.

There's also a handy little table in the book which shows you which plants should be grown close to each other and which ones should be grown very far apart. For example, onions shouldn't be grown near peas. That might explain why our peas shrivelled up so quickly last year - we planted them right next to the onions! Potatoes shouldn't be planted close to tomatoes but beetroots and onions are supposed to be good friends.

Days are getting longer

The clocks went forward last weekend which means the sun is now setting a little later and the afternoons are spreading out into the evenings. It's been fairly warm these last few days and with the lighter evenings there's a definite feel that spring is here. About time too!

So to give you an update since the last post -which was actually in the icy throes of winter - January! The basil, chives and salad leaves on the windowsill are doing well and we've been enjoying some fresh salad leaves with dinner every evening. The basil is still quite young but hopefully we'll be able to use it soon. The chives - well I'm not so sure about the chives. They look a little skinny to me - not like the thick chunky chives I know - our chives are frail little whisps of green. Not sure why? Maybe they need warmer weather and more sunshine before they start to bulk up... let's see what happens.

We've also planted some tomato seedlings in a pot on the windowsill and so far so good. Will need to transplant them into a bigger pot over the weekend. We also have some Maris Piper and King Edward potatoes chitting in some ice trays near the kitchen window. Apparently egg boxes are recommended for chitting but ice trays work just as well!

In another small pot next to the tomato seedlings we have some strawberry seeds. It seems most people don't grow strawberries from seed and instead buy them as young seedlings and plant them out. For some reason we chose the hard way and decided to plant from seed. The packet said to scatter the seeds on the top of moist soil and then cover the pot with cling film, which we duly did. Seemed strange not to cover the seeds with compost but apparently strawberry seeds need light to germinate. Well, after two weeks three of the eight seeds have germinated. It's all starting to happen on the Cowick Garden kitchen window sill!

In the vegetable patches we've planted  beetroot, spring onions, peas and mange tout. We're waiting till mid-April before planting the parsnips.

And the very big news of the day is most of the banana trees have survived! In the end we lost only two - two of the bigger ones, which is a shame. We should have covered them up earlier especially considering we had such a cold  December. Well we know for next year.

Spring time!

A few photos of Cowick Garden in flower. Today was the first day in weeks that the sun came out for the entire day and not a single cloud was seen in the sky. The buds and flowers were basking in the warmth of the sun.

Bulbs, herbs and plans

We're well into the new year and this is my first post for 2011! Where has the time gone? Even though I've been a bit quiet we haven't been neglecting Cowick Garden. Yes it's still cold and grim but it's time to prepare for spring. And the garden is getting ready for spring too. It's been unusually mild for this time of the year and we've noticed quite a few bulbs peering through the soil. Being the novice gardener I'm not exactly sure what bulbs they are but there are some lovely green shoots poking up through the soil around the fuscia near the kitchen.

This weekend we decided to get some herbs on the go for the windowsill in the kitchen so we planted some sweet basil, some chives, lettuce leaves and some wild rocket. Apparently basil can germinate within a week, chives within 2 - 3 weeks, and salad leaves and rocket within a few days. Covering pots of basil with some cling film keeps the compost damp and thus speeds up germination. We already have some rosemary on the window sill although he's not looking very healthy or happy. Maybe the company of some other herbs might help. The window sill is full of pots now so let's hope he likes the new company. There's not space for much else on there though it would be nice to find some space for a little chili plant... have to have a chili plant somewhere. ;)

In November we bought some hyacinth, tulip and crocus bulbs but never got around to planting them so last weekend - much later than we really should - we planted them in some pots which we're hoping to dot around the garden when they flower. Hopefully we haven't planted them too late and they will still grow. Fingers crossed!

I also got the garden planner out last weekend and we've decided on the vegetables we're going to grow this year. So, on the list so far we have:

Tomatoes, of course,  but a few different varieties. Last year we only grew cherry tomatoes but this year we'd like to have a go at some larger varieties.
Garlic 
Spring onion. Spring onion is relatively trouble-free and doesn't have any diseases or pests. As soon as we found that out we thought, yup, that one goes on the list!
Beetroots were very easy to grow last year and were also trouble-free so they went on the list.
Peas. They weren't a big success last year and withered up after the first harvest. Not sure what happened there but well worth another try.
Parsnips (Mmm yummy parsnip soup)
Potatoes
Strawberries for the hanging basket

Quite a list but not as long as last year's list - well almost as long!