You can't beat fresh veg!

There's something strangely satisfying about cooking and eating home grown vegetables.

Take the humble Beetroot for example. We're probably all familiar with the shop bought pickled variety, but have you ever tried roasting them in their skins, or simply boiling them? When they've cooled a little, gently peel off the skin, and savour the sweet taste within.

As well as the delicious flavour, Beetroot is a good source of Calcium, Iron, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Folic Acid too. It's also high in fiber, and is rumoured to reduce high blood pressure.

I came across this recipe for Beetroot and Goat's Cheese tart in the Runners World magazine:

Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Tart - Runners World August 2010

I decided to make it for a friend, and was very happy to see that she thoroughly enjoyed it.

As that recipe turned out to be a success, I thought I'd give this River Cottage version a try too:

Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Tart - River Cottage


Beetroot Cardeal F1

In the second week of May, I planted two dozen seed potatoes which were kindly given to me by my friend Allan. We were unsure of the variety, so it was simply a case of waiting to see what came up.

They were planted in four rows of six plants, with each row being mound shaped, and spaced about 30 cm apart.

As the foliage (or haulms as they're called) started to grow, I carefully shovelled soil over each plant, thereby raising the height of the mound on each row. The idea being that the additional soil provides a larger area for the tubers to grow, as in the illustration below:


Tubers growing within a mound - © Bayer Crop Science


Potato plant with Tubers growing - © Pass My Exams

Unfortunately, I hadn't left enough space between rows ~ I could only pile the soil to a certain height before running out of room. In the long-term, this might affect crop size, but there was nothing I could do about it now, I'd just have to wait and see how the plants grew.

With hindsight, I probably should have left at least 40 cm between each row, perhaps as much as 50 cm.

As it turned out though, I was quite lucky. I managed to harvest about 3 lbs of potatoes from six plants, with only a couple of potatoes that had turned green due to exposure to the Sun.

There's still another 18 plants to harvest, hopefully they'll be as productive as the first six were.


3 lbs of Potatoes from six plants

The Cucurbits are still doing extremely well, providing me with fresh squash and courgettes every other day. They seem to be very thirsty plants, so I've been giving the entire patch two watering cans full of water every day (12 litres).


From left to right: Courgette Black Beauty, Courgette F1 Jaguar, Courgette Bianca de Triest and Straight Neck Summer Squash

I was relieved to see that the Asparagus which I've grown from seed appears to be establishing itself now. When I first transplanted it to the raised bed, the fern-like foliage started to turn yellow and seemed to be dying back.

However, all was not lost. A week or two later, new growth started to appear in the form of stronger, thicker shoots:


Asparagus Marte F1

From welly to belly!

I harvested some more cucurbits earlier today. These plants seem to be growing really quickly, with fruit ready to pick every couple of days.


From left to right: Courgette Bianca de Triest, Eight Ball Zucchini and Courgette Jaguar F1


Here's a close-up of the Eight Ball Zucchini. I've never grown this unusual variety before, so it'll be interesting to see what they taste like.

My vegetables are flourishing

My allotment seems to be doing really well lately. I've had a good crop of Blackcurrants, lots of Rhubarb and plenty of Radishes.

Everything appears to have shot up in the last month or so. The Leek seedlings are looking much more healthier, and the Beetroot which I've sown from seed on the 6th of May is almost ready for harvesting.


Early Sprouting Purple Broccoli - sown from seed in a windowsill propagator (see below) on the 8th May, and then planted out about a month ago.


Botanico Windowsill Greenhouse - it's got five individual six celled modules (making it easy to transplant the seedlings), a built-in drip tray, and is quite narrow (Width: 15.7cm), so it'll probably fit most sizes of windowsill. I purchased two of these at about £3.00 each.


Sweet Corn Sweet Bounty F1 - sown from seed in a windowsill propagator, and planted out at the same time as the Broccoli.


Cucurbits which were harvested this morning. From left to right: Courgette Black Beauty, Courgette F1 Jaguar, Yellow Straight Neck Summer Squash, Zucchini Bianca de Triest.