What's In My Veg Box - This Week?

My veg box has just started including salad leaves, even though it's not yet salad season. A mixture of spinach, rocket and various other leaves and this being a small world they're from Fletching Glasshouses - owned and run by a business colleague I met a couple of years ago who has recently moved down to the area.

What's In My Veg Box?

I never quite know what's going to turn up in my veg box each week and sometimes there's a surprise or two. A strange looking vegetable or a bag of leaves which I either have no idea what it is or what to do with.

Thank goodness for the internet and Veg Box Recipes. It's usually possible to track down a photo that matches and find out the best way to cook it.

Marmalade

I've been making marmalade. Very satisfying pouring the lovely sweet smelling, unctuous liquid that has been filling the house, into a variety of glass jars. All done according to Delia's best recipe and in two stages.

Yesterday was the initial slow boil and chopping up of the oranges and lemons. Removing the pulp and then extracting every little last bit of the pectin. Boy did those scratches sting with the ascorbic acid.

Now I have several jars of lovely, thick, dark marmalade to keep me going over the next year. Mmm - what's next ... chutney

Early Sprouting Rhubarb

The rhubarb is starting to sprout. I saw small pink shoots emerging a few days ago and had thought about forcing it until I was listening to GQT (Gardener's Question Time) and heard that if you force it, you need to rest the crowns the following year and maybe even the second year as it takes a lot out of energy out of the plant.

It's been so mild that things are starting to sprout and even the rosemary has flowers on it.

January Update

There's not a lot happening out in the garden at the moment. My purple sprouting broccoli hasn't sprouted or at least the little seedlings that emerged haven't grown any further, so no luck there.

The baby squash remained babies and the cold, wet weather has now put paid to them. Will certainly get them planted out earlier this year.

The cats are continuing to use their large litter tray but at least it keeps them out of the rest of the garden. I finally picked a handful of the small red chillies but haven't used them yet. Tiny but they could pack a punch.

Now - I suppose I should be starting to get some of those seeds planted.

Tidying Up

I cleared out the square foot garden of all the bean poles and carefully covered it up with netting, knowing full well that the local neighbourhood cats would be delighted with the large litter tray that had now appeared. And so they were. The netting didn't deter them in the slightest - they just did their business right on top of it.

Little b*****s

Sprouting Broccoli

Planted up my purple sprouting seedlings this weekend. Still pretty small so they have a way to go before they'll get planted out in the square garden.