vegetables - The Bridge Cottage

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating.

February 7, 2021/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden, The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Do you grow leeks? Would you like to grow leeks? They are a hardy crop, standing with patience and fortitude in the ground, month in, month out, waiting to be plucked. Tolerant of the cold and ice, they are a welcome treat in the depths of winter or as tender young things in the summer. I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learnt along the way, plus some tried and tested family recipes.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

It is February and thoughts are turning to this year’s growing season. My granddaughter and I have been sowing leeks this week. One of the earliest crops to get underway. They will grow in pots indoors or a propagator and then go into the greenhouse to grow on during early Spring.

Sow your leeks early in the season, Feb – April. Then sow again later in the year, to allow for a succession of crops. Read more about planting in succession here:

Succession Planting for Vegetables All Year Round

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Start your leeks off in a deep pot – they like to send their roots deep down. This will help strong plants to grow. Just sprinkle on top of seed compost, and then cover with a fine layer. Pop somewhere fairly warm: a propagator, warm windowsill or sunny greenhouse once winter’s chill is over.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Don’t be tempted to put too many in the seed tray, or you’ll end up with far too many and they’ll be all choked up. We’ve been a bit heavy-handed with our seed sprinkling – you might want to give them a bit more breathing room than we have here!

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Once your seedlings are large enough to handle – you need a good bit of growth at the top, tease them gently apart, and plant out in the veggie plot using a dibber or stick to make deep holes (about 15-20 cm deep). Don’t you just love that word, dibber. It instantly conjures up memories of helping my grandad in his garden. I have my lovely son to thank for making me my dibber. If you don’t have a dibber, find a stout stick! Pop your seedling in the hole and fill with water from a watering can. Plant with enough space so you can get a hoe in between rows to keep the weeds down later on That’s all there is to it!

You will be rewarded with delicious, nutritious leeks to feed yourselves and your families.

Here are some tried and tested recipes the family have loved here at Bridge Cottage. They all serve a family of four, so scale down for smaller portions. We are meat eaters, so have included bacon in the Leek and Bacon pudding, but feel free to leave it out.

Top tip – when washing leeks, slit the tops with a deep cross and hold upside down under running water, teasing out layer to get all the soil out. Nowt worse than a crunch of grit when you munch!

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Cheesy Leek Gratin

Ingredients

4 large leeks

25g butter

½ tbsp plain flour

Approx. 1 pt milk

100g cheddar cheese

2 handfuls breadcrumbs*

Fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)

*(whizz up some stale crusts in a food processor – top tip: keep a bag in the freezer so you never have to throw away stale bread)

Method

Wash the leeks well, and chop into chunks. Sauté in the butter for a couple of mins until just tender. Stir in the flour, and then add milk a little at a time until you have the consistency of double cream. Add grated cheddar and season with salt and pepper. Pour into an overproof dish.

Mix the breadcrumbs with chopped parsley, season and place on top of the leeks. Bake in a medium over for 10 minutes, or until breadcrumbs brown.

Leek & Bacon Pudding

Ingredients

125g / 5 oz wholewheat flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

50g / 20z shredded suet

2 chopped leeks

3-4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped

1 tsp mixed fresh herbs or ½ tsp dried

I medium egg

Method

Mix together flour, baking powder, suet, leeks, bacon, herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Mix with egg, adding a little milk if necessary, to make a soft dropping consistency (so mixture drops off spoon when held aloft)

Grease a 600ml/1 pint pudding basin and put in a piece of greaseproof or parchment paper to just cover the bottom.

Put pudding mixture in basin. Cover with greaseproof paper and foil and tie with string.

Steam for 1 ½ hours. If you don’t have a steamer, place a saucer in the bottom of a large pan, and cover with boiling water. Place pudding on saucer and put lid on pan, topping up water when necessary.

Serve with parsley sauce.

Sue Reed writes for the Bridge Cottage Way

There are, of course, lots of other recipes for leeks – we love a leek risotto, or that old favourite, leek and potato soup.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Tim & Sue in the Bridge Cottage Way garden

Succession Planting for Vegetables All Year Round

August 13, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

Succession Planting

Succession planting has nothing to do with the monarchy but refers to the system of planting crops at regular intervals with thought and planning throughout the growing season to make sure you have vegetables all year round. This helps reduce the gluts and shortages, although I can do nothing about the glut of courgettes that so many of experience in summer.

It’s the middle of August as I write, and we’ve just eaten a spinach and chard omelette for lunch, with salad on the side. Thanks to succession planting, we enjoy these three crops more or less the whole year through. Let me explain.

We all know the buzz of excitement as Spring appears, the days become sunny and warm (well, for some they do) and the seed packets come out of storage and new ones bought in garden centres or online. Perhaps now is time to give a shout-out to Premier Seeds Direct, Real Seeds and Higgledy Garden who have done a fabulous job at supplying us with seeds during this crazy pandemic year.

Seeds for Winter Veg

It’s so easy to plant too many seeds at once – and my top tip here is only planting a few of the seeds you are going to grow, in succession; a few lettuces at a time, a short row of spinach and chard, and maybe half your broad beans, leaving more to plant in a month’s time. Lettuce, spinach, chard and beetroot are crops I like to sow at maybe four intervals throughout the growing season.

Make the most of your containers here, and a succession of tubs of cut and come again salad leaves can be very handy.

The more tender plants like runner beans courgettes, squash can go in once early crops like garlic, early beetroot or onions are out.

Spring grown pak choi

Then there are those plants which don’t do as well in the hot summer months. We had wonderful pak choi this Spring but found the second sowing bolted in July. I’m going to sow some now that the days are shortening, and it should fare better over the next few weeks. Pak choi is a fairly quick crop to grow, as is rocket (clue’s in the name) and is another crop that likes to be sown early and later in the growing season.

Companion Planting

Fennel too likes to grown away from summer’s heat. We’ve just put in some fennel that had been sown in plugs, next to this climbing squash. Fennel and squash do well grown together if you are into companion planting.

Late summer is the time to think ahead towards the winter. Do you want braised red cabbage with your Christmas dinner? Then get some planted out in the summer months. There is still plenty of fine weather in these late summer months and the ground beautifully warm, for crops to grow and be harvested at the end of the growing season or remain in the ground to give lovely fresh vegetables over Winter and Spring. Kale, cabbages, sprouting broccoli, all-year-round cauliflower, perpetual spinach, chard, beets are all good examples of crops to overwinter.

Wool slug pellets on brassica plants

Don’t forget to cover your brassicas with net – those pretty while butterflies we see flitting around the veg patch are longing to lay their eggs on your cabbages, which will in turn to hungry caterpillars. The slugs are doing their darndest to prevent my winter veg growing, but I’ve just given them a liberal sprinkling of wool slug pellets, so fingers crossed they make it into the ground.

The Lady of Shallot

Speed is of the essence, and it’s an idea to have young plants or seeds ready for when early crops are out. We’re pulling up our onions on Saturday, with some help from the Lady of Shallot here, and have kohlrabi, red cabbage, red and Tuscan kale and cauliflower waiting to go in. The slugs are doing their darndest to prevent this, but I’ve just given them a liberal sprinkling of wool slug pellets.

If you’ve got a greenhouse, or live down South, then this is a whole different ball game, and your growing season is extended even further at either end. We have great success growing French, dwarf and borlotti beans in the greenhouse early doors, and then sow again outside once the dangers of frost have passed.

This year are going to experiment with a third, very late sowing of French beans in the greenhouse. We’re not sure it will work, but all we will have lost are a few seeds and a bit of time or trouble. If ever you are in doubt about sowing – give it a go! We can also never predict what the weather is going to be like, so nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Bridge Cottage Greenhouse

Tim is always saying, ‘write it down’ and a garden journal is a really useful tool. Succession planting is about planning and remembering what has worked one year to the next. However, I’m rubbish at following my own advice, and so often forget to write successes and failures down, which is surprising, seeing as I’m a writer.

There are various online digital planners, and after a quick look down the Google tube, I found this Vegetable Garden Planner App from Growveg. I’ve not used it myself, I love a journal, but would be interested to hear from anyone who has found a good gardening planning digital tool.

I do hope this has been useful if you’re new to gardening or succession planting. Please get in touch if there is anything I haven’t covered, or if you have any questions.

I’m off to sow those late French beans and some pak choi to grow in the greenhouse once the tomatoes and aubergines have finished.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

Biennial Sowing in Summer

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Tying up Unruly Peas, Mangetout & Broad Beans

June 29, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized, The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

Mangetout in the Bridge Cottage Garden

It’s June, and the crops are growing well in the Bridge Cottage garden, but I have unruly beds of broad beans and mangetout that have grown to be taller than me in places and are starting to waft and wave. If we get a windy day, they will snap, so I thought I’d better get them fettled.

First, the tops were nipped out. This will stop them getting any taller, help them to bush out, and the tips, lightly steamed are delicious to eat.

Pinch out the tips of broad beans and mangetout

If growing broad beans, pinching out the tips will also help to deter blackfly. These are very tasty, lightly steamed.

Broad Bean tips

Sharpening the ends of hazel poles to make stakes

Sharpening hazel poles for stakes

We coppiced a hazel tree in the winter, and so have these beautiful hazel poles to use. You could also use garden canes, but I like the rustic feel of the hazel, and am not a fan of going to garden centres unless I have to! Tim used an axe the sharpen the ends to make them easier to drive into the ground.

Beds of mangetout, peas and broad beans in the Bridge Cottage Garden

Placing the supports around the crops, I used natural twine, and wound it around the poles, skirting the broad beans and mangetout at three different height levels.

A job well done! Now my broad beans and peas can continue to grow without the risk of falling over or getting too tall.

Mmm, mangetout are delicious

We had a little visitor to Nanny and Grandad’s garden today, and she thought that her first taste of mangetout, freshly picked was ‘delicious’ 🙂

Are you growing peas, beans or mangetout?

Have you had your first harvest yet?

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on any of our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Make your own Organic Comfrey Feed

June 29, 2020/2 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

comfrey

We cut down comfrey to make our own organic comfrey feed here at Bridge Cottage at the end of May or beginning of June to make a feed for our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, dahlias and clematis, hanging baskets and indoor pot plants. this process then continues throughout the summer, as comfrey if fast-growing.

Comfrey is an excellent source of potassium, an essential plant nutrient for flower, seed and fruit production. Its leaves contain 2-3 times more potassium than farmyard manure. The comfrey root grows very deep, tapping sources of potassium in the subsoil that would not normally be available to plants and thus makes comfrey a superb plant for the organic gardener who is looking to use homemade, organic means of fertilising crops. We also add nettles to the mix, as they contain nitrogen, which is important for leafy growth

Other plants to add to the comfrey feed bucket are nettles, rich in nitrogen and borage.

Cutting comfrey with shears

We like to leave the cutting of comfrey until the bees have had their fill of the nectar from the flowers, which here in Northumberland is around the beginning of June. It might be earlier if you are in more southern climes.

We grow Russian comfrey, but be warned – this is very invasive, so unless you have a big plot, you might like to look for the Bocking 14 variety which is easier to tame. Bocking 14 is also higher in nutrient content than the wild comfrey. See if you have a local plant swop group or find someone with a big clump who is happy to divide it for you. Once established, this is a prolific plant, so finding some shouldn’t be a problem.

Cut the leaves using shears and wearing gloves, about 5cm from the ground. You can be brutal, and this plant will soon grow back, allowing you to do another cutting from it later in the year.

Comfrey feed drips into container under bin

Comfrey feed drips into the container under the bin

There are two schools of thought when it comes to making the feed. If you are a fan of Gardener’s World, you may have seen Monty Don adding comfrey leaves to a bucket of water and letting that steep. It produces a less concentrated feed, is easy to do, but boy, does it stink! Use approximately 1kg leaves to 15 litres of water. After about 4-6 weeks this can be strained, and the leaves put on the compost heap. It can then be watered directly onto your plants.

Another method is to make a concentrate. Use a container with a hole in the bottom, or a bokashi bin. Place the leaves in the bin, chop with shears, and then press own with a weight. (we use a couple of bricks in a bucket) and allow the leaves to rot of their own accord, catching drips of this precious black liquid, which should be used sparingly. Use in a ratio of one-part feed to ten parts water.

Organic Comfrey Feed

Feed your crops:

tomatoes/peppers in pots – feed 3 times a week
tomatoes/cucumbers in greenhouse beds – feed twice a week
indoor and outdoor pot plants/hanging baskets – feed once a week

Feed tomato plants with comfrey feed as the first fruits set

Other uses for Comfrey:

Composting

Place cut or bruised comfrey leaves in alternate layers throughout your compost heap. Their decomposition will encourage bacterial action causing the heap to heat up and speed up the composting process.

Mulch

Use as a mulch. Chop up comfrey leaves with grass cuttings and place a 5cm layer on the surface of the soil around all plants. This will slowly rot down to provide nutrients and act as a mulch to keep in moisture and help control weeds.

Leaf Mould Seed Compost

Add fresh cut leaves to your leaf mould heap. Their nutrient-rich liquid will be absorbed, making it a perfect medium for growing seeds and potting compost.

Planting Potatoes & Beans

Fertilise the bottom of your potato and runner bean trenches with a layer of comfrey leaves. As they break down, the plant roots will access the potassium-rich fertiliser.

If you master the making of an organic feed, your plants will love you and so will the planet.

Happy gardening 🙂

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on any of our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen & Seasonal Eating.

June 28, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen and our introduction to Seasonal Eating. 🙂

Welcome Bridge Cottage kitchen

In this section of the website, we will look at seasonal eating to help you understand when different fruit and vegetables are ripe and ready. It is offered as a complement to the page, The Bridge Cottage garden, where we hold your hand as you plant and grow your crops. We will offer tried and tested recipes to enjoy home-cooked food when it is at its best, fresh and locally produced. We will also look at pickling and preserving to help your precious produce last into the winter months.

There is much food to be gathered from the hedgerows, foraged for free. We will discuss the ethics behind foraging, and how to gather food from the wild without impacting on wildlife.

Tomatoes ripening on the vine

Supermarkets with their year-round array of fruit and vegetables have taken seasonal eating out of many folks’ consciousness, and with it, the taste. I don’t want to eat tomatoes in January that have been ground under plastic in Almeria in Spain, neither do I want to eat asparagus that has come from Peru. I want to eat English asparagus in the small window that it is available in June, and will wait for my tomatoes to be ripe and ready before I eat them. I guarantee they will taste like a different vegetable to the one that has sat on the supermarket shelf, wrapped in plastic, after having been shipping halfway around the world.

homemade jam

Do you have memories of your grandparents pickling and preserving fruit and vegetables? Both my grandmothers made jam, one with a shelf in the fridge door of strawberry jam, and the other who filled tiny paste posts with homemade raspberry jam. Mine were from the wartime generation who had to learn to make the most of what they had, and I believe we need to take a leaf out of their books and go back to those days. I wrote over in the Sustainable Living section of this website about how the bubble had burst. I strongly believe we need to reduce our spending, reduce plastic waste, and for the sake of the planet, reduce our carbon footprints. If I can keep out of the supermarkets I will. Never has it been more important to try and grow and cook as much of our own food as we can, and eat seasonally.

Gooseberry and elderflower ice cream

Over the year we will be making jam, jellies and chutneys together, drying herbs and making herbal teas, freezing summer fruit, churning ice-cream and making out own cheese and yoghurt. When Christmas comes, we’ll look at ways to keep it simple and homemade. So get saving your jam jars, don’t throw any containers or bags away. You’ll be needing them for in the coming months.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

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