More growing...

It is still absolutely glorious here and all the plants are busy producing buds, leaves and in some cases even blossoms.  How lovely it looks when everything is coming back to life after winter!

The tomato seeds are germinating nicely.  No signs yet of the pepper seeds germinating but I only put those in a couple of days ago, so no surprise there.  Outside the garlic and onions are continuing to make good progress and I can't wait for the first sign of the potato plants appearing - then it will be a busy time with earthing them up and keeping fingers crossed for a good crop :-)  Not too long now until I can start sowing lettuce seeds into the raised bed - we will go for lambs lettuce again as that worked really well last year but this time I need to remember to sow every couple of weeks for ongoing supplies.  I might also try gem lettuce but with extra slug protection (ie plastic covers).  I am still thinking about what else I could give a go... This time of year is just so exciting and I don't want to miss out on the chance to grow produce. :-)

I also can't wait for jam making time!  We will go strawberry picking then and I will make jam for the larder - the blackberry & apple jelly I made last year was very tasty indeed but we'll have to wait until autumn to replenish our supplies.  Still have a few jars left...

No news on the cooking/baking front - I have been making more rolls and bread but haven't bothered mentioning it here or posting photos.  Thanks to the River Cottage Bread book they are pretty much fool-proof...famous last words! :-)

Little miracles

Tomato seed germinating...

Now, I don't know about you but I never cease to be amazed at what nature does! 

It's only been a few days since I put the tomato seeds into compost and under the propagator and look what happened: the first little fella appeared yesterday late afternoon!  Not only that but by this morning he not only had straightened himself out but another one did exactly the same thing as did a couple more in another pot!  Amazing to think that (hopefully) these little chaps will grow into tomato-bearing plants in just a few months! I find it all rather humbling!

I am checking every day as to what progress the rest of my crops is making.  So far, nothing else has come up but at least I can see that the garlic is growing nicely. 

Ta-da...two little seeds have germinated!

I am experimenting with yellow pepper seeds as well - just took a few seeds from a shop-bought bell pepper and put it into compost & into the propagator in a sunny spot.  I shall report on any progress ... if there is any...

It is still really sunny here, so running by the sea this morning was beautiful - well, the view was...the running was rather hard but enjoyable nonetheless.  The weather is forecast to last until at least the weekend, so I will definitely have to remember to water the crops! 

Springtime

Springtime in our park

It is an absolutely gorgeous day here today with the sun shining, the sky a perfect blue and the birds singing in the garden!  I love Spring!  Everything is waking up from its winter sleep - lots of buds on the trees, the camelia in full bloom and tadpoles wriggling in the pond.  I seem to have more energy now as well, so I went for a run first thing - it was stunning down by the sea (unfortunately I didn't have my camera/phone to take a photo).

Afterwards I took the dog for a walk and he loved being out in the sunshine - the photo is of the park during our walk.  How lucky are we to have such a stunning place right opposite our house! 

The sunshine is supposed to be staying with us until at least the middle of next week which is great but I do hope there will be some rain at some point soon to help the crops, plants and wildlife.  What we really don't want is a hosepipe ban like the one in England.

Planting...

Ready to grow...

I am very pleased to say that I have finally got round to planting the first lot of this year's potatoes!  They'd been busy chitting on the window ledge but I decided that now was a good time to get them into their grow bags.  There are some more still chitting which I will plant in a couple of weeks.
The garlic that I planted in the far top of the raised bed is growing and little green shoots are now visible, although unfortunately not all the cloves made it.  The ones that have are now joined by a couple of rows of onions as well as another couple of rows of dwarf broad beans.  That leaves me enough space in the raised bed to plant some lettuce and similar...

The tomato seeds are in a propagator and I am waiting for these to germinate - hopefully, at least some will make it into plants and they will then go out into hanging baskets when the time is right (which probably means around May).  I am also thinking about growing peppers...we'll see!  For now there is enough going on and I still have to sort out the herb garden.  I find it all terribly exciting! ;-)

To eat or not to eat...

Carrot cupcakes

After taking the dog for a walk this morning, I finished off the carrot cupcakes by decorating them with cream cheese icing and a few fancy sprinkles.  The cakes are not terribly sweet, so the icing works well with these.  Might have to make these again sometime... 

Now, as is probably obvious from this and my other blog entries, I enjoy food.  Having a meal either at home or in a restaurant, watching my favourite show "Masterchef" - it's all about lovely food.  But this makes me ponder the question whether it is right to enjoy, in particular, fine dining when there are people starving in the world who quite frankly couldn't give a damn if something was created with a cauliflower foam or jus de whatever.  And yet, I love watching and reading about and sometimes eating this type of food - is that selfish, inconsiderate...?

On top of everything else, the society I live in wants me to be a stick insect thin person, so I am supposed to be on a diet all the time and deny myself the foods I am lucky enough to have.  Great!  :-(  I guess at least part of the answer is to keep enjoying food, be mindful of waste and decadence and thankful to have enough (or rather: more than enough) to eat.

Good enough to eat

Millionaire shortbread...how decadent!

It's been a very foggy day so far and it doesn't look as if the sun will come out today.  The dog decided that the best way to deal with this type of weather is to go to sleep...he's only just waking up now after a 90 minute nap :-)  Whilst he was snoozing, I managed to prepare dinner and also finish off decorating the millionaire shortbread ( = caramel shortbread) I made last night.  I thought it wasn't going to come out right but it did in the end.  Sometimes I think we strive for perfection when what we do is already good enough.

Stunning places

Now, I am not sure how 10 days have passed by since I last wrote a post - that's shocking!  But then again, we have had one of my sisters visiting from Germany for a few days, have had quite a few things going on anyway, so that the blog got pushed right to the back of the list of priorities.

In the garden, things are slowly picking up.  We have had some beautiful sunshine and can almost hear the plants grow :-)  Even my garlic is poking through the soil in the raised bed!  Tomorrow the potatoes will be planted in the grow bags and I will put some onion bulbs into the ground as well - the lovely weather is due to last for a couple of days, so we might as well make the most of it.  And in order to do exactly that, we took the dog for a beautiful walk to Cefn Bryn today - it must be one of the most stunning places on this planet with views that almost make me cry they are so beautiful. :-)  How lucky we are to be able to go to these places that are so unspoilt! 

Inspiration

See what you can find when you look closely enough...

We were very lucky to attend a talk by wildlife cameraman Doug Allen yesterday evening!  He shared his experiences of filming in the coldest places on earth and showed the most breathtaking footage (some of which has been seen on "Planet Earth" and similar programmes).  What an inspiration!  I am not sure that diving and filming under 12 feet of ice would be my cup of tea :-) but thanks to films and photos captured by people like Doug, those amazing secret worlds are made accessible to the rest of us. We got hold of a copy of his book "Freeze Frame" which can also be ordered on his website - simply stunning!

We have been very priviledged to have some incredible wildlife experiences in South Africa and Tanzania with expert guidance by our friend Marius of Clearly Africa but we have also seen amazing things in our own garden, just by watching the birds, frogs etc. When you truly look at the natural world around us more intently and closely, you will find astonishing things! And when you think about how everything interacts and is connected, you realise that we ourselves are just a part of the big puzzle called nature and you also realise that we have no other option than to protect our planet!  

Old fashioned food - a different perspective

After my post earlier today, I have been thinking a little more about what I wrote and feel I should add something further.  I talked about oxtail as an example of being a somewhat old fashioned cut of meat, not used by many anymore.  I guess this view is very much from a Western European perspective and therefore incomplete - in other countries and especially in less well off places, using every part of the slaughtered animal (if there is one to be slaughtered) is very much a necessity and/or a tradition.  One of the reasons why "odd" cuts of meat or certain fish are no longer eaten as regularly in the UK is the wide choice of food available to most of us at pretty much any given moment. So, what I have labelled old fashioned food may represent something very different in another part of the world.

Old fashioned food

A little while ago I came across a recipe for oxtail whilst watching Rick Stein's Spain on TV and - never having cooked this before - was intrigued by what looked like a delicious slow-cooked meal.  By chance our butcher had some oxtail in at the weekend, so we bought one and prepared it yesterday by oven cooking it over a long time on a low temperature.  It'll go in the freezer today but when we do eat it, I will post a picture.  Judging by the delicious aroma and tasty gravy, I can already say that this is going to be a winner! :-)

I love trying out new things, especially using ingredients that are probably a bit old fashioned.  Often enough they are cheaper than the more popular ones - take fish, for example: cod is probably one of the most popular (and over-fished!) choices but we had whiting the other day, courtesy of our fish monger at Swansea market and it was absolutely lovely and very reasonably priced.  Just dusted the fillets with seasoned flour, dipped in egg and then breadcrumbs and shallow fried these for a couple of minutes on each side...yummy!

Other news: I am pleased to say that I finally got my first ever garlic into the ground yesterday!  It was a beautifully sunny day and I spent some time tidying up the raised bed and then planting the cloves.  I just placed each clove (ten in total), pointy side up approximately 3cm deep into the ground, leaving about 10cm between each to allow for enough space. Fingers crossed they will turn into fat bulbs to be harvested in a few months!