Sunday 30 June 2013

Strawberry glut

So it has been a good year for strawbs and this is the latest picking. The ones in the pan are from my plot, I heat them through gently to break them down, they can then be frozen in containers or keep for longer in the fridge than if they hadn't been cooked. Very tasty on museli. There is a before and after shot but not sure what order they appear as doing this via a phone.

The ones in the tubs are from my allot neighbour who is not v well at the moment. I've been cutting his paths and picking his strawbs, of which there are masses, that man can sure grow fruit! This is some from his patch, I ran out of time yesterday, so will pick the rest today and drop them round. They keep better if you pick them with the stalks still attached. His are a much redder colour than mine though they are all tasty!

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Rocket Gardens arrival

So, a kind friend gave us a voucher for a Mediterranean Garden from Rocket Gardens. The plants are all organically grown and are delivered as plugs. It includes over 70 plugs of various med varieties of veg such as toms, lettuce, beans, pepper, rocket, courgette. Knowing we would be getting these, I grew less of my own so far this year.

How does it work? As you can see from the pics in the previous post, the plants arrive in a cardboard box, laid on their side and packed in damp straw. Obviously plants don't generally like being in the dark on their side, so they arrive looking a bit beaten-up. Some look better than others....some look as though they would have preferred to have been planted out a while back, like the courgettes with yellowy leaves which are also quite straggly. I guess it must be hard to get all the plants ready at the same time. You're advised to unpack ASAP and give them all a good drink, which I did.

Well, hopefully they will pick up a bit! I have put them in the lean-to so they will get light first thing in the morning and maybe straighten up? By a happy coincidence I have tomorrow off work so the morning will be spent planting out as many as possible.

Don't panic ...

...is what you should do when 70-odd plug plants are delivered to your house and need planting out within 24 hours!

Here are the photos, will explain more when not on a mob phone!