Filling the gaps

My previous sowing of carrots hasn't done very well, and there's no sign of the parsnips or spinach I put in either. So I decided to fill the gaps. A couple of weeks ago I sowed Radish (French Breakfast 3), Carrot (Resistafly F1 Hybrid) and Kale (Nero Di Toscana).The radish and kale has germinated beautifully, and the carrots are just beginning to show. I'm not sure why the first seeds didn't do so well - cats, birds, mice? I've now covered the bed with netting so fingers crossed.

Update - the carrots and kale did pretty well and I dug up the last few in early March, with very little carrot fly damage :-)

Purple radishes

On a sunny day, way back in August, I pulled up these beauties. They didn't look much covered in mud, but just look how bright they were once I'd washed them off! The first few I harvested small, but realised that they are supposed to be this big, so left the rest to grow away and picked them when they started flowering.

They sat in the fridge for a while before I could decide what to do with them. Apparently it's a German tradition to eat this type thinly sliced and served with salt as an accompaniment to beer! As I mentioned before, the taste was more than a bit overpowering for our tastes, so I looked up some recipes for radish relish. In the end I combined a few to come up with my own, but these 2 were good sources:
www.radishgarden.com
www.food.com

What I ended up using using was:
1 1/2 lb Radish
1 1/2 large Onions
3 sticks Celery
3 tsp Salt
3/4 lb Sugar
1 1/2 tbsp Dill seed
1 1/2 tsp Celery seed
1 whole Chilli
1 1/2 tbsp Mustard seed
12 fl oz Vinegar

As yet I haven't tried the finished product, preferring to let it mature. It must be close now...

Time for some more salad

Wow, what a change in the weather - sunny and mid 20s!! I cleared out the first sowing of salad leaves and rocket a couple of weeks ago (see here) which left some space for more. So this morning, I made the most of the sunshine and sowed a wide row of mixed leaves (not spicy this time - a more traditional mix of lettuces) and another of basil.

Having watched Gardener's World last Friday, I'm feeling quite smug about my carrots - Monty Don only managed to harvest 3 tiny ones, whereas I've already pulled a few and have got lots more nearly ready. We love carrots, so I've put in some more today (Autumn King). Rather than a narrow row, I've sown the carrots in a wide row (as Monty Don did!) to see if that works better. I also put in the last 7 red onions that were still in pots. They've gone in next to the carrots in the hope that the smell keeps the carrot fly away.

We found the purple radishes a bit too strong to eat raw, so I've sown some traditional pink ones today (French Breakfast). Let's hope they're more palatable!

Harvesting (in the rain!)

After all the waiting, we're now getting quite regular veggies! Amy and I picked a couple of strawberries this week (although they got eaten before I thought about a photo!) - they were a bit soft with all the rain, but very tasty all the same.

We've had quite a few more potatoes (Kestral) - they look so colourful, but unfortunately they loose the purple when they're cooked.

Yesterday I picked the first of the peas, carrots and purple radishes (and some more spuds!).

The peas were a great success - will definitely grow some more of these.

One of the carrots had split open. I've looked into this a bit and it seems the most likely cause is too much water (especially after a drier spell). Hmmm, we have had exceptional rainfall recently so I'll blame that.

The radishes look great, but the flavour is a bit overpowering to say the least - I may have found the strongest variety! I'm now looking for recipes that use cooked radish - so far I'm thinking radish curry (Kerala style) or chutney...