Sourdough a Go-Go

As an interlude from hectic gardening we have been honing our sourdough skills:

Step 3

To do full credit to the two bags of strong white bread flour gifted  by our daughter we dusted off and refloured our banneton.

Step 1

 Then comes the risky bit where you tip it out onto a baking tray, trying to avoid it becoming a big flat pancake!  All went well.

Step 2

 Sourdough a Go-Go

Ensalada

The salads are ready - I wish you could come and share - but if you could you would have to...

...bring scissors.

Read All About It

Today I am extolling the virtues of good old fashioned newspaper. It makes for great seedling pots -with the use of this press.   I have tried plastic cells, coir pellets, toilet rolls and have ordered non woven seedling bags.  This last has failed to arrive, what with the lockdown disruption, which is what prompted me to deploy the now rather old fashioned newspaper press. It requires a bit of experimentation to get optimal results. To start I was using far too much paper. But once you have one good pot you can soon have one hundred.

This size is ideal for starting off anything you can get as a plug plant but I tend to use them for pricking out seedlings that are destined for the vegetable patch or tubs, particularly now that I have taken up the challenge of stocking up the school flower beds and playground tubs. 

 

Welcome to the House of Fun

A peek inside my greenhouse on a sunny afternoon. 

 Flowers on one side

Tomatoes and chillies on the other

Chilli

Tomato

All the alliums and other hardy veg has been moved to the path outdoors.  And here is an unheated propagator with spring salads that  gets the lid popped back on at night.

Everything is labelled

Up above I am delighted with the progress of my basil seedlings!

Living in Scotland I might be a bit rash growing frost sensitive plants so early in the year.  The other side of the coin is that the short growing season means you have to make an early start to stand a chance of a harvest.  It looks like this year I have got away with it.  Tonight the temperature is set to drop to one or two degrees and I will be dragging everything I can fit into the greenhouse, shed and coal cellar for the last time.  (The greenhouse gets the benefit of a paraffin heater if  there is a threat of frost.) After that the minimum night temperature is set to be no lower than 4 degrees C until the end of the month.  I will, of course be checking the forecasters  don't change their prediction, but it looks like everything will left in the same place day and night hereafter. Just as well as there are more seedlings indoors under lights waiting to be pricked out.

Cucumbers at the back

Less worry - more fun.

Keeping Up Appearances

Here's the traditional Good Friday bake.  Who would have thought that it might have been at risk with the run on flour of late. Looking back over the years the last time there was a problem was in 2016 when our cooker broke.

Another Good Friday tradition is planting potatoes.  Three out or 4 nets have been planted already so I am ahead of the game.  I am holding off on the last one as  I have crops still to harvest (leeks and chard).  You have to think well ahead to avoid these conflicts.  In another area the carrot patch has followed on from the brassicas.  Kale and Purple Sprouting Broccoli are being cropped and uprooted all in one operation so that the ground can be prepared for the new crop.  Note to self: It helps if these late croppers are all grown at one end of the brassica patch.

A Paradox of a Weed

Our local wood has drifts of these at this time of year.  They have a faint smell of garlic, but what are they? 

Well they are not 

Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum), which has broader leaves round stems and starlike clusters of flowers

Spring or Summer Snowflake (Leucojum), which have quite showy flowers and haven't made it north of the border, yet.

 Wild Onion/Three Cornered Leek (Allium triquetrum).  Their flowers hang in clusters and petals have a green stripe

They turn out to be Few-Flowered Garlic (Allium paradoxum),The long narrow leaves are small in number and each has a ridge on one side and a groove down the other.  Flowers are, as the name suggests, few in number and sit atop a triangular stem. Another characteristic I will be looking out for is the development of bulbils after flowering.  Yes I think I have nailed it (at last)!

They are an introduced species from Turkey/Iran district dating back to 1823.  The first record of them appearing in the wild  in the UK is 1863 "near Edinburgh".  I rest my case.

Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh hate them  See https://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/28757  for their suggestions as to how to deal with it.

Old Bag Sees Light of Day

Today I am following up my  3rd December post when I added a "compostable" bag to the compost bin.  It is now four months on (rather than three) so it is time to assess the breakdown.  Taking the trusty trowel in hand I started my forensic excavation. Here is what I found:

Now compare that with the pristine beginning:

To be honest I am not really impressed with compostability. I don't think these residents were very impressed either!