End of the month roundup..

The garlic that we dug up a week or so ago,  maybe longer than that,  time flies when you're busy,  we left it to dry for a few days then took another look and thought about storing it.  Trouble was,  quite a lot of it had gone to seed and I don't think it stores well then.  Bit like onions, if they've got a thick stalk they need using quicker.

So I sat outside one afternoon and peeled all the garlic cloves,  some bulbs had only made 2 cloves,  very big ones though,  and some had made 8 or 9 but tiny sliver-like things.  Very fiddly to peel and smelly too.  Then into the food processor until it was finely chopped,  packed into old icecube trays with a drizzle of olive oil,  and into the freezer.  Next day when I remembered about them,  I popped the cubes out and into freezer bags for instant use.

When we are cooking in the autumn and winter months we try to remember to cut off the base of the onions before cutting in half and then the bases get planted.  Free onions they are - mentioned before on here -  you're supposed to separate the new onions once they start to grow and replant as there are normally 3 or 4 from each base.  The only time I tried that they all died on me so now I just leave them to get as big as they can before the tops die off and they are ready for lifting.  Normally about pickled onion size,  so that's what we do with them.  Yesterday I peeled the onions,  last night they soaked in brine,  this morning I rinsed them then pickled them in white wine vinegar with a bit of sugar to counteract that mouth shrivelling vinegary tartness.

10 days ago  John's mother sent us an unusual assortment of seeds to try out,  June is lovely and warm so ideal for germinating but we didn't want to plant too many of the seeds out and then find the summer too hot for them.  So John started off a few of each to try out and then next spring we can do some more, but earlier in the year.

I'm ok planting seeds,  but when they are so small and come with instructions that say  'sow thinly and only keep the largest'  or words to that effect,  it seems a shame and a  waste of seed.  So he said he'd have a go this time - miniature gardening is what he's doing.  Compost sieved and sieved again,  yoghurt pots standing on gravel bases,  liquid plant food in a bottle,  a water spray bottle and a magnifying lens.  Tools?  The largest is a teaspoon,  the smallest a toothpick.

So last Thursday afternoon  (the 20th)   he put 14 sweetcorn seeds in between 2 sheets of wet kitchen paper,  by last Sunday  (23rd)  they'd germinated and were planted into loo roll middles with the sieved soil,  packed onto gravel in a box and later on today - about 6" high now - they are going out into their veg bed.  Also put for germinating the same way were electric daisies,  wintergreen,  asparagus peas and  inca berries.

The 50-ish electric daisies are now on their 2nd pair of leaves,  the 6 asparagus peas have all germinated and are potted,  1 is up and opening it's leaves with 2 more not far behind,  but the inca berries and wintergreen are much slower.  I know 50-ish electric daisies is a lot but you never what's going to survive..... and that's only a fraction of what was in the packet.

Lots of links for you to browse,  when we get to pick and eat we'll do a taste report as some of these plants sound curious to say the least!

Just received these from J -

 Electric daisy, just germinated,  1mm seed plus root.  Yes,  1mm.

Sweetcorn,  day 4.

Sweetcorn,   on day 7.

And finally..

Apparently April and May were not the coolest but almost,  for 10 years,  and we've just had the coolest June for 10 years,   which explains why our 'normal' seeds got off to such a slow start.   Still it's warming up nicely now and to be honest 27° or 28° has been very nice.  Up to 30° is ok and so long as you don't want to do much during the day,  then the usual long hot summer heat of July and August is - well, holiday weather.