Broad beans and garlic are just up. Two weeks past the shortest day so I’m hoping my chooks will start laying again any day. Betty never really stopped, although her eggs are rather misshapen and sporadic. Very slow growth in the vegetable garden except the tunnel house where I’m off to tonight with my head torch to catch the slugs and snails munching through my chinese cabbages in there too.
It seems like soup-time to me so I’ve made some chowder to make a change from slow cooked pumpkin soup. I dug my first leek this week, planted a long, long time ago. Could be made into spiced leek and potato soup or a leeky flan or two. The 4th July seemed like the right day to sow some more rocket ready for rocket pesto.
Kings Seeds catalogue is due to arrive any day – their new varieties include some tempting edible ones. White radishes ‘ping pong’, nasturtium ‘night and day’, viola ‘chicky chicks’ (just for the name really), lettuce ‘hint of red mix’, equine grazing mix, bean ‘hestia dwarf’ (runner beans for pots!), corn for popping and snow pea ‘kennedy dwarf’ would be my picks. Given my love of tomato ‘jubilation’ I might try another orange one, ‘jaune flamme’.
We’ve had a wonderful winter weekend stay at Ohau River cottage. Perfect for a getaway for two (and an outside dog) and only a short hop from Wellington. There was a tamarillo tree fruiting in the garden so there’s hope for my frost-bitten one still.