Seedy Sunday

On Sunday 1 February, hours before a huge snowstorm brought southern England to a standstill, I took a train from London to Brighton for the annual seed exchange in Hove. Seedy Sunday aims to promote biodiversity in kitchen gardens by encouraging veg growers to save the seed of unlisted heritage varieties and bring seeds along [...]

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Romanian Courgettes

I notice that C&F is now available in Romanian thanks to Google:

I was struggling enough with Italian, wondering whether to call the Tromba di Albengas ‘Trombi di Albenga’.

Here they are before harvesting – I think the lighter-coloured spots are frost damage:

A further question is what to do with them next, since they look like a [...]

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Tromba di Albenga/10,000 Hits

Looking for a photo of the Tromba di Albenga squash on Google, I was surprised to see C&F come top in the search results. Closer inspection revealed this was because I had misspelt it as ‘Tromba di Albegna’. Anyway, I now have a photograph of my own curly Italian squash:

There are more photos of more [...]

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Early Plums and Second-Generation Potatoes

So much of this year’s fruit crop has disappeared in the interval between it being almost ripe and my next visit to the plot that I decided to act promptly today. I brought all of the Victoria plums home, a few loganberries (which could have done with another day or two) and a couple of [...]

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First Courgette

For the second year running the Italian round courgette Tondo di Piacenza has proved it can be slightly neglected and still fruit, having withstood lack of watering (while I moved house) and the dry and windy plot, to provide my first courgette last weekend. Here it was on 20th July:

And on 26th July:

No wonder they [...]

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New Potatoes and Other News

Last weekend I dug up the first Charlotte potatoes. The picture doesn’t show it, but their flesh is more yellow than shop-bought Charlottes and they have an entirely different texture, making for a heftier mouthful than I expected. They are delicious. Here are some, with spring onions and herbs alongside:

The courgettes are late this year. [...]

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Courgettes Settling In

The broad beans have finally gone in, rather late, next to the overgrown path on the side of the plot:

Is this the most photographed artichoke in Britain? Something has been munching it and it’s looking less appetising by the minute:

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Courgettes (and Squash) 2008

A month ago I planted various courgette and squash seeds into modules (in the waxing gibbous moon, supposedly good for plants with internal seed-bearing fruits). On Wednesday they looked like this:

(Defender, Tondo di Piacenza, Jemmer (yellow) and Black Beauty courgettes – the latter a new variety for us.)
And this:

(Five butternut squash and three Tromba di [...]

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