Blog
One of those ‘whoa’ moments
You may not expect this of me, sweary, dungaree-devotee that I am, but I’m surprisingly into visualisation and manifestation. No, really. Woo woo me up, baby. I draw the line at crystals and horoscopes (with apologies to crystal- and astrology-lovers – you do you),...
Roasted courgette dip, savoury courgette muffins, and the aggressive giving away of vegetables
I dare not venture into the garden during daylight hours. The second I sneak into the veg patch, our elderly neighbour pops up on his side of the fence and yells (in Bulgarian), ‘Do you want some courgettes?’ Each time, I firmly remind him that we have four...
A really, really good vegan burger recipe
Not going to lie, this recipe has so many things that should make me hate it. I have to wrestle my food processor out from the cupboard. There’s the frying of onions. (As a human smell sponge, I usually nope out of any recipe that starts with caramelising onions.)...
Mixed planting, finding my gardening style
Our first veg patch was in the style of a traditional market garden or old-school allotment – as in, rotovated earth with crops sown in long rows. We didn’t think too much about how we wanted the veg garden to look. We were new to gardening and our neighbour had a...
How to love tofu (by an ex-tofu sceptic)
I don’t mind admitting I’ve been on a journey with tofu. A journey that started with me as a staunch tofu sceptic and has arrived here, at the point where I get nervous if I have fewer than four blocks of tofu in the fridge. You, too, can learn to love tofu to this...
Planted up, garden zen
I knew if I moaned about the weather (see previous post) it would improve instantly. Tis the way of it. This week has been sunny and hot and settled – and finally the garden gets a rest from the grey skies and snail army. It’s a chance for plants to put on some...
Why does this summer hate me?
I don’t want to be one of *those* Brits. Those Brits who complain about the weather all the time (it’s either too cold, too hot, too dry or too wet for those people). But I have to get it off my chest, guys. I just have to. I’m going to explode all over my office...
Rhubarb wine (because I’m obsessed with fermenting)
Earlier this year I started brewing my own ginger beer, following instructions in the River Cottage Fermentation Handbook, and I’ve been making batches regularly ever since. My ginger bug – the ginger and sugar concoction that’s used to kickstart fermentation –...
I sowed too early, and other garden woes
It’s a rookie error, really. Getting excited at the first flush of warm weather in March and sowing lots of seeds. Seeds which then develop into seedlings right as the weather turns cold in April – which it inevitably does – at which point they either grow too...
Ah, so THIS is why we moved to Bulgaria
We’ve recently been rewatching The Good Life, the 1970s BBC sitcom about a suburban couple who turn their back garden into a self-sufficiency paradise. And oh lord, my life choices make so much sense now. Because I forgot how much I LOVED The Good Life when I was a...
Eng-er-land
Greetings from the UK, where apparently everyone wishes to cough and splutter on me. Seeing as I’m on a mission to not catch COVID for once – I’ve had it three times in total, twice in the last year, and every single time I’ve caught it, I’ve been in the UK – I’m...
Not fast, not furious: Learning to love slow compost
Once upon a time we were fully intending to follow the ‘fast’ or ‘hot’ composting method, where you turn your compost regularly to aerate it and speed up decomposition. That was the idea. We pretended to ourselves that we would diligently turn our compost every...