Back to school...

If you had asked me at school whether I would ever willingly CHOOSE to make cauliflower cheese, I would have given a resounding "NO!"

But I made my first ever dish of it tonight (how did I go so long not making it?) and it's delicious ... Even though I do say so myself!

I basically followed this recipe from the web, but it is fairly straightforward. And it was a bit of a bargain, as the cauliflower - still in perfect condition - had been reduced to 20p! Can't say fairer than that :-)


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Location:Church Lane Kitchen, Scredington, Lincolnshire

Tastes of Lincolnshire...

The Hub, Sleaford

As I write, I am sitting in the cafe of The Hub partaking in a cheeky "coffee and a sit down"!

The afternoon has been made even nicer by virtue of the fact that the latest edition of "Good Taste" magazine has just been published, and there are plenty of copies around the cafe to pick up and have a browse through.

Good Taste magazine

I have managed to receive every copy since the project started (published by Tastes of Lincolnshire) and it's always a joy to read and find out about all the "foody" related things going on in the county. It's also reassuring reading about the people and producers who are passionate about local, seasonal, organic food - a subject becoming more and more important to me. As it should perhaps be more important to lots of people, as Lincolnshire produces a vast percentage of the veg grown in the UK (e.g. Did you know that Lincolnshire produces 57% of all the cabbages in the UK, on just 2.6% of it's area!)

Lincoln Longwool

Now, I can't deny that I am always particularly drawn to the picture and recipes for glorious looking baked goods, cakes, ice-cream, local fruit & veg...I mean...who wouldn't be! But I do also take note of the articles on local growers and producers. This issue has an article on Rapeseed Oil (first grown in Lincolnshire as 'Coleseed' in the 13th century); one about trials growing more than 200 varieties of Tomato at Henrietta's Garden; an article on the ever-so-woolly 'Lincoln Longwool' sheep, one of 23 breeds on the 'at risk' list; and plenty of local news and events in the coming months.

OK. So, this has sounded like a bit of an "advert", but I imagine every county has something similar, and something that supports local business, local growers, and local consumers can only be a good thing.

Coffee finished now. And yes - I did have a slice of home-made cake too!

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Steaming piles of...

Manure!

I am collecting a load later today from a kindly local Freecycler. (You gotta love FreeCycling!)

Obviously it'll mainly go in various places in the garden and on the plot and be left to rot down for next year's use. But I will be using some on the Plot (as the owner said that the pile has been building up for years...good, wholesome stuff it sounds) in some of the beds. With care of course!

Fairweather Gardener (If but it were...)

OK. I admit it. I am just a fair-weather gardener / allotmenteer deep down.

It isn't that I lack commitment, or that I don't mean well... it's just that when it is cold, wet, grey and miserable, there seem to be so many other things on the "To Do" list - admittedly things that are indoors - that are more attractive.

I will use my time productively though. I am going to sort out the Pantry in the Church Lane Kitchen, to ensure I am sorted and ready for all the various goodies that will get created from the produce of the Plot & the Garden (if I ever get out there and actually grow stuff!) I may even be brave enough to post a before & after shot later...we'll see.

But despite the weather, the seedlings on the windowsill seem happy enough - more peas have pushed their way through the surface, joining a couple more Kale seedlings and now I have Broccoli coming up too. Hurrah!

Stirrings...

I was rather excited yesterday morning to notice that the seeds I sowed last week are making their first tentative steps of growth.

Peas starting to sprout

This is the first of the peas ("Telephone") that I have sown. Actually there are 2, so it's a good start. I grew this variety the first year I had my garden and seemed to get a good crop, so these are "saved seeds" from a previous year. I love the thought of being able to supply your own seeds from things growing in your vegetable plot. Something for free can't be bad! I grew these babies up 6' canes, and they happily went all the way yo the top. I may investigate some 'pinching out' of the tips this time to keep them in check. I will be asking for guidance on that in the coming months!

Kale sprouting

Also, the Peas were accompanied by a showing from the Kale ("Scarlet") in the next seed tray. So as long as the remainder of the crops continue in this vein, I will be more than happy!

I spent a productive few hours down on the Plot, and started to get to grips with weeding one of the beds - which will hopefully contain (amongst other things no doubt!) Broad Beans, Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts, with some Marigolds and Foxgloves possibly thrown in for good measure. The planting combination along with the floral component, comes from ideas gleaned from Andrew Sankey's Companion Planting book that I mentioned before. If I get it right (!) then the plants should either work to support the growth of eachother or go some way to putting off the pests. We shall see - I have every faith in it!

Potato sack

Dosey Bumble Bee

A bit of a catch-up on the iPad

In the bed that I managed to get weeded (well... to some degree...) I put in the first batch of First Early Potatoes ("Home Guard") - which will soon be followed by their Maincrop cousins. ("Cara"). These were actually the first things that I have actively planted down in The Church Lane Plot, so it was quite momentous really! In digging over the bed I clearly disturbed a current inhabitant - this gorgeous Bumble Bee. Although I was a bit shocked by the frantic 'buzzing', I don't think I had the wee chap, so I moved him over to a slightly more secluded bit of earth to go about his business. Back in the Garden, I also potted up a few of the "Home Guard" seed potatoes in a growing bag to see how they get on. And was even left with a bit of time to sit out in the garden in the (reasonably) warm setting sun. Who could ask for anything better than that to end the day!

Sowing the seeds...

As I intended one of the functions of this Blog to be a "diary" to accurately record sowing, planting and harvesting times for my various crops - I'd better get on with it as I have started the process!

And as I have managed to find a few quiet minutes sitting outside in the slowly setting sun, what better use of my time :-)

Here is the current list of seeds that I have sown in propagators (I use the term advisedly!) on the windowsill, ready for planting out further down the line on the Plot. They were all sown on the 7th March 2011... for future reference.

Courgette All Green Bush	Kale Scarlet	Parsnip Tender & True
Pea Telephone	Broccoli Green Heading	Cabbage Rouge Tete Noir

OH - and I have some 1st Early potatoes that I've planted into a growing 'sack' outside, to see what happens. They are "Home Guard" for this year. As it's my first year of growing any great volume of Potatoes, I have no experience of this variety - so it will be a voyage of discovery! I'll be putting the rest down on the Plot along with the maincrop "Cara" which I have chitting happily indoors. They'll be in this week I think...

Starting to catch up...

Although I don't seem to have blogged in a while, it's not from the fact that I have been sitting around doing nothing - honest! What with a bit of time spent down in London, and then a couple of sunny & bright (if a little breezy!) days, I thought I should devote some time to the Plot and the Garden as well. So I did...

My biggest excitement this week has been putting to use a present that I received for Christmas - a garden shredder. It has languished in the shed for a couple of months, but I've now put it to good use. I tested it out on a few prunings and bits & pieces from the garden, and was fairly happy with the results.

Walking back from the Plot I had noticed that behind the Church was a heap of dry, woody cuttings from one of the trees in the churchyard that had been 'pruned'. I checked with one of the church wardens that it would be OK, and promptly set to work nicking piles of it!

Fresh wood chippings

And what a treat - the resulting shreddings are brilliant... dry, crispy little flakes, that were just the thing I was looking for to cover the paths on the Plot. I had thought that I would need to end up buying bags of bark chips from the garden centre, so what a result! Not to mention the fact that it was free, local, organic - you can't say fairer than that ;-)

I have started sowing some seeds indoors this week to get a few crops underway. There had been some which I'd "overwintered" in the garden, but due to somewhat inclement weather (!) only the garlic and onions have survived. I have plenty more of those filling up the Plot, and lots of packets of seed waiting in the wings, ready for the off. I do follow the instructions/timings on the packets to some degree - although not always - and often I go with what feels "right" at the time. I have no doubt that there are those who would gasp at my slightly haphazard approach to things. But I have to admit that that is half the fun! I will give an inventory once things are definitely on their way. I also planted up some seed potatoes in sacks yesterday.

Dividing the beds

Armed with bags full of fresh wood chippings, I started the process of covering the paths between the beds on the Plot. There are plenty more to cover, and I've only really done a light 'sprinkling' so far, but it certainly defines the beds really nicely, and makes it a much less muddy proposition, walking around the Plot. Now to decide what to grow in my newly defined beds.

Getting the beds ready

Although I have a long list of all the fruit and veg that I would like to grow on the Plot, I am also going to try my best to follow the 'Cottage Garden' principles of companion planting. Back in the Autumn, I made a trip to Gainsborough for their L.O.A.F. day - Local, Organic, Apples, Fairtrade. Great idea! There were lots of stalls, exhibitors, groups represented and so on, and also free talks given on various topics. I went to one on Companion Planting given by Andrew Sankey, which was fascinating and really struck a chord with me - especially the basic principles of working WITH nature, avoiding monoculture and making use of the experience of hundreds of gardeners and farmers over hundreds of years. That may all sound rather high-minded, but everything Mr Sankey outlined seemed to make perfect sense to me. So much so I even bought his book, and I'm not known for splashing my cash around!

Suffice to say I have been happily doodling plans for the various beds I have on the Plot, and matching up those crops that I want to grow with their ideal growing partner (or "partners" -they just don't care, they're very free with their love some of these plants you know!) and then adding in any so-called 'tonic' plants to the mix as well. I am hoping for quite an interesting looking plot later in the season - watch this space!

Pheasant eggs

Having cleared quite a lot of over grown hedgerow on the Plot, I came across a clutch of eggs, nestled in a damp hollow in the ground. It was fairly clear they had been there for some time and weren't part of a current brood. My allotment neighbour was called over, and he informed me they were most likely to be Pheasant eggs. Each egg was about 5cm long and had fairly non-descript colouring - perhaps there was the slightest hint of green/grey/blue - there were 4 of them lined up on the ground.

And he also added a warning not to drop one or break it, as he said I'd soon know about it... warning heeded!

And down the garden path...

Victoria Plum tree

I finally got round to planting the VIctoria Plum tree that I had picked up a while ago in ALDI for the bargain price of £3.99. Well - it would have been rude not to! I do love the idea of having an "orchard", burt sadly there really isn't that much room in the garden. I have two mature apple trees (one a cooker, one an eater) of slightly indeterminate breeding. I think one is a Bramley Seedling and the other...? Well, who knows! So hopefully this year I can get them identified at an "Apple Day" event. I have also planted a Lincolnshire Heritage variety - Barnack Beauty - but this may not fruit for a while yet. So you see - what with the Plum now as well, I'm doing quite well!

Rhubarb bed

I'm am rather excited to see my rhubarb coming on apace. A couple of heads were donated to me by a family member, and the others I have grown from seed. The year after I planted them I thought they had ALL given up the ghost. Weedy, thin stalks, lacklustre growth... really not very happy. I lavished affection on them but to no avail. So to see them putting on a great show already, early in the season, certainly bodes well for Rhubarb Crumble and the like later on in the year. I also have a couple of new plants starting off that I will be putting in down on the Church Lane Plot, so if they do well, it may be a bumper year. Fingers crossed!

Although I am rather focussed on growing things to eat, I am not averse to there being some beauty in the form of flowers in the garden (or on the Plot for that matter). Some were planted, and others have just appeared. I quite like it when that happens...

Nature certainly knows her stuff; the Daffodils have just started to open, and along with all the blooming flowers I have spotted a couple of Bumble Bees this week dozily buzzing around the place - what a joy to hear them again especially following the harshness of the winter just past. It is looking like I have some more time this weekend and next week, and that means hopefully I will get lots more things underway, and perhaps get the beds on the Plot up to scratch. There's plenty still to do, but it will feel a lot more "together" once I get a good amount of stuff in the ground and growing. I can't help but hope for more days like this...

Time flying..

How did it get to be March 8th Already? Surely that can't be right? Not that I am complaining if it means we have more weather like the past few days. Glorious, bright sunshine, blue skies - hurrah :-)

It is still clearly "March" which a bit of a nip in the air, but once you get working, you soon warm up. Yesterday was a "Church Lane Garden" day (photos later) and today I am heading down on the plot. Lets hope the weather holds!

A full, illustrated, and slightly more exciting post later today - off to do some work!

A little ash, a little soil, a little flour...

Nope - it's not an odd recipe that I've picked up to use in The Church Lane Kitchen!

I did manage to do a little work on the plot today between some rather heavy rain showers. Just a bit more digging-over of various parts of the plot, and establishing the remaining beds. Hopefully over the next few days I will have that job completed, and what with the majority of the hedgerow a little more under control, I will be able to focus on weeding/sorting each bed to make it a little more 'seedling friendly'. That was the soil part.

The ash part was to spread the remains of the bonfire I had the other day into the beds that I have already created... specifically round the gooseberries and in the bed I've planned for potatoes. Monty Don wrote a discourse on his use of bonfires and ash here which is quite a good read. Although I thought I dealt with about a tonne of cuttings from the hedges, it appears to have become no more than a few spade-fuls of wood ash. Oh well, all gratefully received and recycled into the plot. So there we have the ash bit.

Flour? Surely I can't already be milling my own flour from the plot - I've only had it for a few weeks!! Sadly, that's correct. And to be honest, I am not sure I have quite the room I would need to grow a sufficient amount of wheat or ba(neither, for that matter, do I own a mill!).

Cogglesford Mill flour

I dropped into Cogglesford Mill this afternoon to pick up some flour. It's always a great feeling if you are making some homemade bread to know that the major ingredient has been grown and produced locally, and the 'food miles'have been kept to a minimum. In this case the mill is all of about 4 miles away from The Church Lane Kitchen, so not too bad. I didn't have time to have a proper visit to the Mill today, but having been before, I can certainly recommend it if you are in the Sleaford, Lincs. area. It isn't huge so won't take up your whole day, but has a lot of interesting information, artefacts and photographs of the Mill and it's history. The Heart of Lincs website blurb says:

In a picturesque setting by the River Slea, this award winning, fully restored and working water mill is thought to be the only Sheriff's Watermill still operating in England. Millers have produced flour on this site for over a thousand years. Organic stone ground flour still produced in the mill is sold in the shop, together with locally sourced goods and produce. Special events and working days are held throughout the year.

So if you're passing - why not drop in?

Right, must get on with making that bread!!

Stephen
in The Church Lane Kitchen

It's that time again...

Gardeners' World Magazine...when the latest copy of "Gardeners' World Magazine" plops onto the doormat. Unfortunately, I'm working abroad this week, so won't get the chance to have a proper look through until the weekend.

That maybe a good thing, as it sometimes depresses me to see how many things I should have already done on the plot and in the garden and haven't quite managed to get round to yet...

Of course we are still in the grip of February for a few more days, so perhaps I will make sure I have done everything from the last issue before I head into the March one.

pippagreenwood.comI must admit that I was pleased to read on Pippa Greenwood's website that I should't feel too bad about being "behind" on things... It's still probably too cold and wet, so there's time. If it's good enough for Pippa it's good enough for me!

Stephen
on The Church Lane Plot

A local hottie...

Infinity - the world's hottest chilli?

Heading down to London this morning, I caught a report on the radio about "...the worlds hottest chilli..." and it pricked my ears as it had been grown in Lincolnshire and fairly locally - just a few miles from me in Grantham.

I must admit to not being a huge fan of hot chillis myself (although I am happy to grow and use them... just a little bit closer to the bottom of the Scoville Scale) and it is a little scary to see that this chilli is nearly as strong as weapons grade pepper spray. Crikey! There is a full report on it here on the BBC website. Have any of you ever tried anything THIS hot before? I'm far too cowardly...

Matron's Bishop's Kiss chilli

I have some rather general chilli seeds which I will be using up this year, but fancied having a go at the pretty "Bishop's Kiss" chilli that Matron has been growing (she wrote about it recently on Down on the Allotment). Chillis come in such a wide variety of shapes, colours and sizes (and heats!) that it seems a shame not to give them a bit of room. Probably on the windowsill in the Church Lane Kitchen I think.

But - back to Infinity. The guy who has developed this killer chilli is Nick Woods of Fire Foods. I'm very happy to promote and support small, family-run, local businesses... although I might not be doing much shopping at Fire Foods myself!

The first post....

Well, here it is - at long last! Of course, if you are reading this you have no idea that it has been a long time coming - but trust me .... it has!

The Church Lane Plot came into existence when I took over the lease of the allotment plot a couple of weeks ago. It's a fairly basic site - not one of your "up-market, hot-and-cold running water, wifi-enabled glamorous plots. It's more your "there's a hedge, some bushes and some soil" kinda place. Salt of the earth. Dirt under the fingernails.

First view of 'The Church Lane Plot'

So here it is in all it's naked glory. Admittedly, there isn't an awful lot to say about it in it's raw state. When I first arrived it was much larger than I had been led to believe, which was certainly a good thing.

The previous incumbent had not been using the plot for the best part of a year, so it has been left fallow. No bad thing I should imagine. Although there was a light covering of leaves dropped from the mature sycamore tree, the plot was fairly clear. A fair amount of couch grass to be dealt with, mainly around the fruit end of the plot, some digging and weeding to be done, and a bit of 'maintenance' to the surrounding hedgerow - but other than that it's a clean slate.

The row of 15 blackcurrants

Perhaps THE most exciting discovery was the fact that, at the end of the plot that adjoins my neighbours plot, there are rows of various fruit bushes - and they are mine! (Well, I have inherited them from the previous chap, which is as good as the same thing!) There are two rows (about 20ft long) of raspberry canes, and a row of 15 blackcurrant bushes, and various other bits and pieces thrown in... some gooseberries, some blackberries and some loganberries. Not a bad haul - and allegedly, they all fruit very heavily. So I will be looking forward to seeing if that prediction is correct later on in the year.

I have lots of plans for the plot, but also lots to do to get it ready for planting. Some of it I have managed to get done already, so I will do some updates in the coming posts.

Thanks for reading! Much more in the pipeline...

Stephen
on The Church Lane Plot