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!

Little winter wonderland

The banana trees are all wrapped up (apart from a few of the larger ones), the apple tree is all bare and has lost its leaves, the nectarine tree is bare too, the blackberry bush needs some pruning and the vegetable patch is empty with a few hardy shoots of green manure peering through the remaining ice and snow. It's not very exciting at the moment in Cowick Garden. The paving and fencing is collapsing in certain parts too so in the spring we will have to look into replacing most of our paving and repairing a large part of our fence.

Though the snow caused quite a bit of havoc and the banana trees certainly didn't enjoy it, it was very pretty to look at, so below are a few photos of Cowick Garden wrapped up in a fluffy blanket of snow. You can make out the brown withered leaves of a couple of the larger banana trees in a few of the photos and on one you can just about see the leaves of the bamboo under all the snow. Many of the palms struggled under the weight of the snow and some bent down almost blocking the way to the rest of the garden. The garden table shows exactly how much snow fell in one night.

Luscious caramel apple loaf

We're still trying to get through the last of our apple pickings. After the cold snap, the blackbirds decided to have a hearty feast of the remaining apples in the tree so there aren't any more apples to be picked but still a very large pile of apples in a large bowl in the kitchen.

Last weekend we decided to make a caramel apple loaf and it was so delicious we made it again yesterday - and it's going fast! We found the recipe on BBC Good Food but decided to increase the number of apples seeing as the recipe didn't call for very many and we had very many indeed! This is the perfect gooey sticky cake to curl up with on the sofa with a hot chocolate or a big cup of tea on a cold dark winter's afternoon.

Ingredients


175g soft butter
Margarine (for greasing)
175g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour
2 tsp cinnamon (though I think we added more!)
4 heaped tbsp Greek yoghurt
3 apples
50g walnuts (plus some extra for topping)
50g soft toffees
2tbsp double cream

Method


1. Heat the oven to 160 degrees C

2. Grease a 2lb loaf tin with the margarine and line the base and ends with some baking paper

3. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until pale. (Melting the butter for a few seconds in the microwave makes this whole beating process a whole lot easier!)

4. Add the eggs in one by one to the butter mixture and beat together.

5. Add the flour, cinnamon and yoghurt.

6. Peel, core and chop the apples into small chunks and add to the bowl. Mix all together with a wooden spoon.

7. Scrape the mixture into the loaf tin, smooth the top and scatter the walnuts down the middle.

8. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 1 hour 20- 30 minutes until a knife poked into the centre comes out clean. Cool the tin.

9. Now for the yummy gooey bit. Put the toffees in a small saucepan with the double cream. Gently heat, stirring the whole time until the toffees have melted.

10. Drizzle the toffee sauce over the top of the cake. Scatter with a few extra walnuts. Leave for ten minutes before serving and then enjoy!

Over-wintering banana trees

What a week it's been! Wind, snow, frost, rain, sleet, black ice. Just the type of weather banana trees don't like. Fortunately, before the big chill hit the UK this week, I wrapped up most of the banana tress in Cowick Garden.

Last year it was a little easier to wrap them up as by the time the freezing cold temperatures arrived, the leaves had already withered and were hanging by the stems so it was easy enough to throw over the frost jackets. This year the cold arrived so suddenly that all the leaves were still green and spread out so wrapping up proved a bit tricky.

I started by making sure the base of the stems and the ground around the plants were covered in bark chip as that protects the soil from frost and keeps it 'warm'. I then took some sheets of frost fleece, folded them in two and wrapped the fleece around the stem several times all the way up until I reached the leaves. Then, on the smaller banana trees I gathered the leaves as close to the stem as possible and covered the entire tree with a frost jacket. I've read that some people remove the leaves, however the leaves are added protection against the frost so I'd advise leaving them hanging around the stems (even if it doesn't look very decorative!) as this will give your banana plants an extra buffer against the cold.

On the larger plants it was not possible to put a frost jacket over them as they are too tall and the leaves are too spread out. However, the larger plants should be fine as they are quite hardy by now. It's the smaller banana plants that we need to worry about so they are the ones that have frost fleece all around the stems and a nice cosy frost jacket on top. Some of the larger plants haven't been wrapped up at all as we didn't wrap them up last year and they were fine. However, this winter is proving to be a very cold one (-5 degrees tonight apparently!) so we may have to wrap the larger ones if this cold weather continues.

If we could, we'd take ourselves and our palms and our banana trees off to a sunny warm tropical island right now -which is where we all really belong!

The birds are back

For the last couple of months we haven't seen many birds in the garden. They've managed to find bugs and treats elsewhere. However, with the colder days on the increase, bugs and food are becoming more and more scarce and over the last couple of days we've seen sparrows and tits feeding on the suet balls we have hanging on our bird feeder.

Last winter, a large variety of birds visited the garden from blue tits and great tits to sparrows, finches, thrushes, blackbirds and even robins. Of course, putting out bird food also meant the inevitable visit from the large clumsy pigeons who always manage to chase the smaller birds away and then plod around under the bird feeder picking at the seeds the other birds have dropped until one of the neighbour's cats comes along  to make a tasty (or not-so tasty) meal out of them. Let's hope we don't have to pick up the remains of too many pigeons this winter.

It's always a treat watching the different varieties of birds coming to visit and trying to identify them and listening to them tweeting and chirping away. Welcome back birdies!

An abundance of apples!

The last recipe was about apples and I'm afraid the next few recipes are going to be about apples too. There's an apple and almond cake baking in the oven as I write this and a half eaten spiced apple cake in the fridge and we have an enormous bowl full of apples in the kitchen and more apples are falling off the apple tree outside. It's apple mania!

I think we're going to have to look into making some apple chutney and maybe even some apple cider (now that would be exciting though I'm thinking complicated too!) to keep these apples under control. The apple cake recipes don't use a lot of apples so next week's task is finding a recipe which uses an abundance of apples.

In the meantime, here is the spiced apple cake recipe which I found on the Channel 4 website and is one of Gordon Ramsay's recipes. Talking about Gordon Ramsay I'm still sulking about the fact that La Garrigue, the French Bistro in Edinburgh, didn't win the French restaurant heat in his Best Restaurant series. For me, they were by far the better French restaurant. I'm also sorry that we never got to go to the restaurant when we were in Edinburgh in August. Next time!

In the original recipe the apple mixture is divided up into small baking dishes and a piping bag is used to squeeze the sponge mixture on top but as we didn't have small baking dishes (or a piping bag!) we opted for placing it all into one large baking dish.

(Note: If you have self-raising flour you can substitute the 125g plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder and pinch of salt with 125g self-raising flour)

Spiced apple cake

Ingredients

For the sponge

125g plain flour
50g butter

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

2 tbsp caster sugar
1tsp vanilla essence

1 egg

100ml milk (or enough to bring mixture up to 110ml)

1 orange zest

For the apple mixture

4 apples

50g unsalted butter

2 tbsp honey

100g dates, diced

1tsp ground cinnamon

Flaked almonds for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl.

3. Cut the butter into cubes and rub together into the flour mixture with your fingers until it resembles bread crumbs. (Licking your fingers after doing this is a very tasty treat!)

4. Beat the egg in a measuring jug with the vanilla essence then add the milk so the mixture reaches the 100ml mark. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, add a pinch of the orange zest and mix together.

5. Peel, core and dice the apples. Add the butter to a large deep frying pan and toss the apples into the butter mixture and then add the honey and mix through again.

6. Add the chopped dates, cinnamon and the rest of the orange zest to the apple mixture. Cook for a few minutes making sure the apples are evenly coated in the honey.

7. Add the apples to a baking dish and pour the sponge mixture on top.

8. Scatter the sponge with flaked almonds and bake in the oven for 18 minutes until golden brown on top.

9. Dust with icing sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream or double cream or custard!

Winter is here...

The clocks have gone back. That's it. It might only be a mild 16 degrees and the sky might be blue with bright sunshine and the garden might still be very green and the banana trees might still have their leaves but none of that matters because as soon as the clocks go back that one precious little hour at the end of October, that's it for me. It's winter.

Apart from sulking at the fact that it's dark at 5 o'clock in the afternoon it's also time to rake up all the leaves, clean out the greenhouse, plant violas, cyclamens and pansies and curl up with warm soups, hot chocolates and my early winter favourite - mulled wine! I think we'll have a go at preparing our own mulled wine this year instead of buying the usual sachet filled with cloves and cinnamon. Yes, this year we'll create our own little bundle of spicy goodness to place in a pot of warming red wine. Mmm...delicious!

Anyway, before I get carried away thinking about warm spicy wine, onto something not very warm  at all. A few days ago we decided to make a Waldorf salad with the apples from the apple tree. There are so many apples on there at the moment and so many shapes and sizes too. Some extra large ones to some tiny little baby ones and all sorts of shapes too as some have grown in peculiar places like squashed between small little gaps in the branches so they're plump on one side, skinny in the middle and plump again at the end. I suppose that's what happens when you try to grow too much in a tiny space like ours. So with an apple corer in one hand and a couple of unusually-shaped apples in another we decided to desert the sweet for the savoury and make a winter Waldorf salad.

This is one of the simplest recipes I could find. Some recipes use yoghurt instead of mayonnaise but having recently invested in a very large jar of garlic mayonnaise we decided to add a tiny twist to the recipe by opting for garlic mayonnaise instead of ordinary mayonnaise.

Wintery Waldorf salad


Ingredients
2 large (round or not very round) apples
4 tbsp garlic mayonnaise
1 tbsp French Dijon mustard
2 stalks of celery
1 tbsp freshly-squeezed lemon juice
Walnuts, generous helping
Watercress, a handful

Method
1. Core the apples and cut into slices and then mix with the lemon juice to prevent from browning.

2. Cut the celery sticks into chunks and add to the apples.

3. Mix the mayonnaise and mustard together in a salad bowl and then add the apples and celery and toss together until well coated.

4. Sprinkle the walnuts and watercress on top. Crunchy and delicious!