A Bountiful Weekend

Although the weather was unfavourable, I managed to complete some tasks in the vegetable garden and the kitchen over the weekend.

Vegetable Garden

The peas have begun to emerge, bringing a welcome splash of green to the garden beds. A few gaps have appeared in the rows, and if nothing sprouts in those spots over the next week, I’ll replant to keep the harvest on track.

This week, I planted another succession of cauliflower—14 in total—and I’ve got more cabbage seedlings coming along nicely. The first batch of Bok Choy is now ready to move from the warmth of the hothouse into the garden, which is always a satisfying milestone.

The carrot seeds I sowed recently have all germinated beautifully and are growing steadily. Meanwhile, the garlic I planted during the first weekend of April has absolutely taken off—it’s thriving beyond expectations. While carefully weeding around these vigorous plants, I stumbled upon a delightful surprise: a generous scattering of self-sown leeks and spring onions.

Each year, I let members of the Allium family, along with lettuce, self-seed freely. I’ve found that nature has a knack for timing germination better than I do. The result is a garden bed that resembles a tossed salad—plants popping up in unexpected places, mingling together in a slightly chaotic way. I always intend to thin or transplant them into a more orderly arrangement, but more often I miss my opportunity and simply enjoy the natural abundance and spontaneity.

On a lovely note, one of my daughters took home a cabbage from my first planting back in late February. She reported that it was beautifully sweet when cooked—a rewarding bit of feedback! I’ll be harvesting one for our table this week.

Kitchen

A few projects have continued to tick over in the kitchen throughout the week, and I now have a good stock of crumpets and have commenced restocking my English muffin supply. My family is divided between white and wholemeal muffins, so I decided to trial a 50/50 muffin to hopefully please everyone and make my life simpler. The end result after a few test batches appears to be approved by all. I named it the Middy English Muffin, as they are midway between wholemeal and white. I settled on the combined stove top and oven method and even introduced my air fryer into the cooking process to see if this would work.

Middy English Muffins

My second trial was to find and make the best YoYo biscuit recipe. This traditional biscuit has a creamy, crumbly texture, and it is the second part that I have an issue with (the crumbs everywhere). I did not want to lose the integrity of the flavour or the texture, and after three batches, I found the one for me.

YoYo Biscuits

My final task was to make another batch of sweetened condensed milk for a cooking project I hope to complete later this week. Many recipes require one tin per batch, but the volume of the tin has reduced over time, and therefore, our recipes are lacking in the correct ingredient ratios. The original tin was 425 grams, but now they are 397 grams. The price has not changed to reflect this, as with many products we purchase.