Gardening bore
173. Autumn routines
Isn't autumn the best? I mean, today is dark, rainy and freezing – it’s a chilly 8°C right now, when this time last week it was almost 30°C – but who doesn’t love an opportunity to wrap themselves up in an oversized cardigan and legitimately wear Ugg boots?* Wood...
170. What to do with all those courgettes
Cake. Surely the best use of a vegetable? I’ve not yet found a great way to preserve courgettes. We recently tried fermenting courgette batons in brine (mixed with dill flowers, horseradish leaves and sour cherry leaves of all things – it’s a Ukrainian...
168. July roundup
The first half of July was dominated by the World Cup and a visit from family. If you’re wondering how Guardianista snowflakes like us who live nowhere near a proper English pub watch the footie, it goes like this: Watching the match on the sofa while eating...
167. Out in the garden
Veg garden recovery The courgettes, rhubarb and beetroot are springing back to form after the heavy storms. It always amazes me that really delicate things like dill and asparagus ferns are totally unharmed by bad weather, while the big ole brutes look...
165. Early harvests
The garden is ramping up and feeding us regularly, despite last week’s epic storms. In fact, we’ve eaten (small) beetroot, (even smaller) courgettes and (lots of) tomatoes from the garden every day this week. Our early Latah tomatoes, and spoils from the...
164. Before and after the storm
I say ‘the storm’, like there’s been just the one. But we’ve had storms almost every day for weeks and weeks. It’s normal for this time of year in the mountains – we have beautiful hot, sunny days followed by stormy evenings – and we never usually mind. One storm...
161. Shit we’re growing this year
I do hope you like lists as much as I do, because that’s basically what this post is all about. What did you expect? I am a literal Gardening Bore. So, *cracks knuckles in anticipation*, this year in the veg/fruit garden we’re growing: Tomatoes and basil –...
160. Back in the Bulg
Here I am! Back from the UK* to a gloriously warm Bulgarian spring. Man, the garden shot up while I was away. I was only gone 10 days and I swear the perennials have grown by a foot. This is the best time of year for a gardener, I think. You’ve got all the promise...
159. Gardening Bore 2018
Not much to report on lately, so here are a few pictures from our early 2018 Gardening Bore efforts. Reliable rhubarb. By the way, isn’t rhubarb just the best word? Try bellowing it when someone says something you disagree with. ‘RHUBARB!’ It will put them...
150. Cider and other stuff
Phwoar. Did someone say cider? Is there a better word to describe cider than ‘scrumptious’? If there is, I’m all ears. We’ve bottled this year’s bounty and have already started drinking it. It’s so … scrumptious. There is no other word, is there? Sadly, we’ve got...
149. Summer kitchen reveal
I just remembered I promised a summer kitchen reveal months ago. Better late than never… Before Our summer kitchen sits in the footprint of this crumbly old barn that we inherited in the corner of the garden. There was some lovely stone and a few salvageable old...
148. Vegetable-related OCD. Snow. The joy of rustic toilets
Excuse the incoherent ‘here’s some stuff we’ve done’ nature of this blog. It’s gone 5pm on a Friday and a large vodka awaits… As the nights are so cold now, I harvested all our butternut squashes the other week, then spent a happy 10 minutes arranging them in...