Garden Update

It has been a while, my apologies but I have still been working in the back ground. This winter has been extremely cold but the days are slowly getting longer and a bit warmer.

Although I have been putting a lot of efforts into the rabbit minimising strategies, they were still winning. I attempted more succession plantings of some cabbages and cauliflowers, only to find them eaten to the ground within two days.

My final effort and may I say successful was to cut down some tree guards and place one around each seedling. This had a two fold effect - protecting my seedlings from the rabbits but also created a little greenhouse effect for the plants and they are rapidly growing.

I did not have enough for all the seedlings but for some reason the rabbits did not seem to like the Bok Choy and I have been able to leave these unguarded.

Another bed which had all my self seeding winter salad annuals was also attacked by the rabbits with all the lettuce, spinach and rocket eaten to the ground and my poor carrots had no feathering on their tops, just spikes. To protect this bed I placed a fruit tree netting over the top, supported by some short bamboo stakes with pots over the ends. This has also been successful but has made harvesting a bit of an aerobics workout, probably needed let's be honest.

This weekend I aim to get all my seeds started in preparation for a late spring planting. I will add an August planting guide if you are unsure what to plant.

In the Kitchen

Due to the cold weather I have been active in the kitchen. The breakfast staples (Crumpets and English Muffins) are always in production along with slices and biscuits. During this week I made a batch of Zucchini Walnut cake mixture and turned them into muffins as an easy grab and go. I used a couple of my cauliflowers for two different cauliflower soups and utilised some frozen homemade pastry to produce a nice batch of homemade pasties. These all turned out fantastic and are definitely worth a try. Nothing better than some warm comforting homemade cooking on a cold night.

Keep warm and happy gardening and cooking.