This is the fourth season I have got down to the nitty gritty of planting vegetables but unlike other years I will be around to watch, wait and most importantly succession sow. So for my fourth season of succession I am going to focus on a few crops sown often to give us a base of food for the next year. I had fun with the optical illusion below.
I had a bit of a cheat first of all and picked up 24 "strips" of baby vegetable plants from a local garden centre. I was not here in February and March to get ahead indoors. Jane has the Aga , kitchen windowsill and the conservatory working as proxy greenhouse so I have some catching up to do, It felt good to get a little head start while waiting on my seed orders to come good.
I planted a full bed of lettuce and leaves in neat rows. Green Oakleaf, Lollo Rosso, Cos, Romaine, Lambs Lettuce and Butterhead. Whether you cut and come and again or take out whole heads at a time lettuce in particular is one of those "maker" foods. Quite apart from filling out sandwiches (what's not to love about a tin or corn beef straight out of the seventies) I have a real desire to put a small salad on the table as a starter for every meal or a huge bowl of salad as an adjunct to every family gathering. Barbecues are made by the salads as much by the meat. I have invested heavily in salad crops this year.
I have heard some very strange "desert island discs" of vegetables and to my bewilderment Sarah Raven's podcast left me feeling thankful that I am unlikely to get ship wrecked with her. No offence but she really should stick to cut flowers because you would starve if you tried to live off her top of the pops. If you want to install vegetables as the cornerstone of a self-sufficient menu then you need dense foods packed with vitamins and which pull their weight in the kitchen in terms of versatility.
I am a great fan of Leeks. Coupled with my potatoes I will have a superb soup to fall back on and the unloved parts of a Leek are great for making vegetable stock to power those soups further and to make risottos. Musselborough is common variety that does well at Oaklands. I have cheated with four rows of baby plants and will start to sow out another full half bed in sowings very two weeks. If you want a simple and delicious supper then a buttered dish of leeks baked in a white sauce revved up with unwanted off cuts of cheese and a bit of English mustard powder does not disappoint.
In between the rows of Leeks I have sown a few rows of Carrot Autumn King and an old French variety, Jaune Obtuse des Daubs. The Leeks and indeed any allium (garlic, onions) will ward off carrot fly. The Autumn King are our mainstay for carrots but I have ordered a couple of fancy pants varieties from the Real Seed Company this year. June Obtuse des Daubs is not a set text for French A level that Jane studied about a goat herding woman who dreams of a life on the stage as an opera singer at the turn of the century but rather a long sweet yellow carrot will nicely rounded ends. I also have a packet of the old Manchester Table Carrot which is an old variety in need of support.
At the other end of the bed from my carrot sowings and Leek plantings I have slid in a couple more staples. Firstly Black Kale or Cavalo Nero. I have been growing Cavalo Nero for a good while now - I cannot imagine a year without it. The beautiful almost fern like fronds of Kale remind me of heraldic crests of arms. Its dense, packed full of nutrients and when tossed in a hot frying pan with (take your pick) a splash of balsamic or white wine vinegar, a few walnuts, ginger, garlic - you name it - it can make up a substantive meal in its own right. A great dish is just a tin of drained cannellini or butter beans browned in a pan with olive oil tossed with minced garlic and parmesan and an oversized bunch of Black Kale.
In between the rows of Black Kale a couple of rows of rocket. I used to sow a "bucket of rocket' every year. Again balsamic, parmesan, a few good tomatoes and rocket leaves is a good enough lunch for me. Pack the whole thing in a ciabatta and even better.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that the first one of the blocks this year was Alan the Gardner - Actually the guy that cuts our grass and trims the paths every three weeks (A job I haven't graduated to since I got home a week ago). Every year Alan gifts us a few rows of Broad Beans. I wrote up a pasta dish last year for those.
At the end of the Broad Beans I have planted out two rows each of red and green Oak Choi. I like a stir fry and again any dense "leaf" can provide the solid base to that. Jane has taken up a full bed pretty much with several varieties of garlic and shallots. I will compliment this with my own onion overkill. Again I cannot imagine a desert island discs of vegetables without a dozen varieties of garlic, spring onion, onion ? Soups, stews, stir fries, cottage pies, pasta dishes ? How can you cook with the onion family ?
Apart from gardening skill and knowledge I have to say that Jane's hand writing looks better on the black slate markers that have become part of the garden livery at Oaklands.
So we are half way through April and the tally is follows :-
- Leeks
- Kale
- Garlic
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Lettuce
- Rocket
- Pak Choi
- Broad Beans
That's a great start and four beds out of twelve have been taken up with eight more to go.
Comments