We love garlic and use it pretty much every day in the kitchen, so ‘G’ just had to be garlic in our ‘Allotment A-Z’. Last year we had great success with some very tasty garlic called Spanish Roja (an over-winter hardneck variety that packs a huge flavour punch), so we decided to grow it again this year!
We saved some bulbs and planted out the biggest cloves last autumn and now, here we are in spring, and the garlic is looking good. I’m loving the great circle of life…
I love beetroots! They’re so easy to grow and are a totally gorgeous colour. We’ve been experimenting with beetroot in our breakfast porridge and this is the result. ‘Ta da’… delicious pink porridge!
I used organic beetroot powder for this one, but have also made it with fresh beetroot juice and both work really well. We all skipped out the door this morning. Yum…
Not only do they taste great, French Beans also make a brilliant fruit & veg ‘creature’ for the local village show! They were one of the first things we grew on our allotment and remain one of our superstar favourites – there really was no competition when it came to choosing ‘F’ for our ‘Allotment A-Z’. We love French Beans!
There are loads of fabulous ways to use these beans in your kitchen – delicious raw in a salad or dipped in houmous, lightly steamed on the side, baked in a slow-cooked stew or juiced for breakfast, the versatile french bean is also a doddle to grow. We’ve grown green ones, yellow ones, mottled ones and a gorgeous purple one that looks amazing, tastes great and stores well. Can’t ask for more than that!
‘F’ is for the fantastically flavoursome French Bean…
A friend asked me to create a banana-free ‘cheesecake’ for those that don’t do bananas… so here it is! Just as yummy and just as good for you with a little tropical twist and not a banana in sight. Dairy free, gluten free and with no refined sugars, this is the perfect guilt-free pud that won’t give you or the children a sugar-rush before bed. Yay!
A homemade and healthier version of an old homegrown favourite! We’re just finishing off the runner bean chutney that we made last summer and are really going to miss it. Especially good with cheese or ham, our chutney is free of refined sugars, very tasty and a fantastic way to make the most of your bountiful runner bean harvests.
I love making chutney in a slow cooker, but this recipe also works brilliantly on the hob. You’ll be dreaming of summer whilst eating your runner bean chutney in the depths of winter. Yay!
This was a tricky one! We don’t grow damsons, daikon or dragonfruit on our allotment. We grow lots of daisies, docks and dandelions and seriously considered ‘D for dandelion’ (so tasty in spring salads), but in the end it was the dainty and delicious dill that got the honour of being included in our A-Z of favourite allotment fruit and veg. Hooray!
We grow dill as a companion plant and edible herb – its fresh, zesty flavour and versatile seeds make it a brilliant addition to salads, soups and chutneys and an excellent defence against caterpillars! It’s well worth saving a space in your garden for a lovely little patch of dill…
Last week was school half-term and an opportunity to get stuck into some really fun projects with the children, like making this smoke-box for our cheese! I’ve always loved the taste of a good smoked cheese, so it was exciting to see how this turned out.
We got some beautiful cheeses from our local organic farm shop – a mild cheddar, a vintage cheddar and an amazing halloumi cheese, all made with raw milk from the farms own herd. They’re already delicious, but we were interested to see what the smoke-box would do!
Such an underrated veg, the plain old cabbage is anything but plain, especially in colour! I love growing this ‘Red Drumhead’ variety because it looks fantastic and makes the prettiest coleslaw (as well as an awesome natural electric-blue dye!).
Easy to grow and simple to cook, cabbages come in loads of different shapes, sizes and colours and can be grown all year round, so you need never go without a tasty homegrown cabbage in your kitchen! Definitely worthy of their place in the ‘Allotment A-Z’.
‘C’ is for cabbage! Yay…
This is one of our favourite meals for eating al fresco down at the allotment garden. We marinate our halloumi, get the little allotment stove going, pull up a couple of fresh beets and away we go. Really simple, really good for you and really tasty. Yay!
Fantastic served on the side or as a main, the herbs and spices bring out the amazing earthy flavours, the nuts and seeds add protein and extra crunch, whilst the cheeses are deliciously creamy… and it’s a spectacular colour too!
Two down and twenty-four to go in the ‘A-Z’ of our favourite homegrown fruit and veg! This was a tricky one, because there are so many lovely fruit and veg starting with ‘B’. Broccoli, broad beans, blackberries, brussel sprouts and blueberries to name just a few, but when push came to shove it was beetroot that earned its place in the allotment garden ‘A-Z’. So many different varieties, so easy to grow, so many different ways of eating it, juicing it, grating it, baking it and masses of health benefits too…
‘B’ is for the beautiful, bountiful beetroot!
Oh my golly gosh! Delicious. A really simple, seasonal dessert using local apples, that won’t give you or your children a frenzied sugar rush before bed! Woohoo. Dairy free, gluten free and free of refined sugars, this is a traditional pud with a healthy twist!
Very tasty with apples, but works equally well with other fruits – try an autumnal version with pears and plums or a tropical one with mango and peach. Sometimes, you’ve just got to eat cake…
Well here goes! This is the first of 26 ‘A-Z’ posts about the fruit, veg and flowers that we love to grow and eat on our allotment. Planting tips, growing guides, natural remedies, health benefits and tasty recipes, always with organic principles at heart and a biodynamic twist!
‘A’ is for apple! Hooray…
We were back late this evening after a hectic day and threw together this amazingly quick and delicious meal! Nipped down to the allotment to gather some fresh homegrown veg (peas, spinach and onions), collected the eggs and then felt inspired by the pretty jar of tri-coloured quinoa on the kitchen shelf! Quinoa is quicker to cook than brown basmati rice and a serious powerhouse in the protein department. Perfect….
The health and happiness of our little flock is top priority to us. I think our girls live a near perfect free-range life in the allotment garden – they’re free to come and go from their coop whenever they like, there are lots of different herbs growing in the run for them to peck at, there’s lots of space, lots of greenery and big bushes that offer protection from the sun, wind and rain. If I could speak chicken, I think they’d tell me that they’re very happy….and happy hens lay happy eggs.
Happy hens are healthier too. In our experience there are a few simple things that can make a big difference to your hens health – fresh water, fresh food and a spot of ‘dust bathing’!
If you feel the need for a bit of extra ‘zing’ in your life, then this super tasty, raw and healthy treat will really hit the spot! It has that slightly naughty, decadent taste of fudge and a definite fudgy texture, but none of the unhealthy ingredients. No refined sugar, no dairy and absolutely deeeelicious. How perfect is that!
Right now, springtime gardening is fabulously full-on, home-schooling is wonderfully all-consuming and keeping the family happy and healthy is a joyful juggling act. Life is crazily busy, but great!
Bring on the healthy fudge…
I bet that someone, somewhere in the world is picking some homegrown green tomatoes right now! This is my recipe for an amazingly delicious and much healthier version of a traditional allotment chutney that contains no refined sugar.
It’s late-Spring here, we’ve just finished our last jar of chutney and the tomato seedlings are getting big. I can’t wait to make some more in a few months time…
A few weeks ago I posted the recipe for our rye sourdough ‘starter’ and thought it was high time I followed it up with the recipe for our amazing rye sourdough bread! We experimented for months to get the best balance of ‘crust and crumb’ and I think we’ve pretty much cracked it!
Sourdough bread is the oldest and most original form of leavened bread – made with wild yeast, packed full of tangy taste and much easier on your digestion than a regular loaf of bread. It contains loads of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, plus uniquely balanced proteins and fatty acids and is massively more nutrient dense than commercially produced, highly processed breads.
We make two rye loaves a week and haven’t bought a loaf of bread in ages. It’s delicious fresh out of the oven or toasted with anything and everything on it! I really can’t imagine life without it…
Despite their weedy, stingy reputation, nettles are actually a really useful addition to your garden. Yes, they can be a pain to get rid of (and certainly painful if you get stung!), but they’re also jam-packed with nutrients like iron, potassium, magnesium and calcium.
You can add nettles to your compost heap to boost vitality or make potent fertilisers that your plants will love. The minerals in the nettles will encourage super-strong, healthy growth, making plants less susceptible to disease and definitely less attractive to pests. Hooray!
Here’s how to do it…..
By mid-spring most of the seedlings have made the big trek down to our greenhouse, which is now absolutely rammed with fresh new growth. I usually feel like there’s not enough time and definitely not enough space at this time of year….
This is the second in a series of posts about the joys of springtime gardening on our organic allotment. Sowing new crops, hardening off, planting out and the first harvests. Life is good….
Having planned out the space for our allotment garden and cleared most of the weeds, we were now ready to tackle the beds and fencing. Luckily our children were on hand to help…
Raised beds: To raise or not to raise, that is the question?! We knew right from the start that we wanted to build raised beds, mostly because our allotment garden sits on a heavy clay soil and raising the beds would help with any drainage issues, but also because they’re easier to weed, there’s less bending over (slightly!), watering is more efficient and we could fill them with top-notch soil to get our growing season off to a flying start. Although raised beds would be an extra expense, we knew we’d also get a longer growing season and that eventually the outlay would repay itself in homegrown veg! Plus they’re really fun to play on….
I love every season, but I think Spring has to be my favourite. There’s just so much anticipation in the air, from the first bulbs of early-Spring to the luscious blossoms of mid-Spring and the definite ‘no-turning back’ growth of late-Spring. Everyone and everything has an extra spring in their step….
This is the first of three posts about the joys of springtime gardening on our allotment. It started out as one post, but was just getting crazily long, so I decided to split it – early, mid and late spring. Happy days and happy gardening everyone….
‘Free range’ children? What ARE they? I put this question to a group of parents, who said it conjured up images of children running around in the fresh air, nature, fun and laughter. And yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I think being a free range child is about fresh air, connecting with nature, rain, sun, mud and water, but I think there’s more to it than that. For me, free range also means FREEDOM. Freedom for children to think for themselves, freedom to be themselves, freedom to discover themselves and their place in this complicated world and, crucially, freedom from the concerns and worries of adulthood. So how can we as parents support and encourage this type of freedom?
Homegrown Kate 