In March 2013, after years of talking about it we eventually sell up and move out of the city with our 2 year old, Gracie. We both grew up in the countryside and this is what we want for our daughter. So we swap a 2 bed flat in London for a small country pile on the west coast of Scotland that needs a lot of work. I've done a bit of interior design and my partner, Ed has a good knowledge of the outdoors – but we're on a tight budget and we've both got a lot to learn. It's a life time's project and this is a record of our adventure…
Our first strawberry patch is yielding a bumper harvest. Ed planted 4 long rows last year – Gracie loves strawberries! – and they’re doing extremely well. They taste deliciously sweet but we’ve more than we can eat and pick – and if we don’t get to them in time the heavy fruit at the bottom starts to rot where the berries touch the damp soil.
Straw is the answer, according to Ed’s dad, which is why many people think they’re called ‘straw’berries. Although it’s more likely that the name comes from ‘strew’ or ‘spread around’ to describe how the wild plant’s tendrils grow – and named long before strawberries were cultivated. As the straw needs to go down just as the flowers finish, we’ll have to wait till next summer to give it a try.
After last year’s club root disaster (see Club foot! Aug 24, 2013 ) Ed bought resistant strains and this year brilliantly all the brassicas have come through.
The onions were kept in pots too long before they were planted out so ours didn’t do well at all. Luckily we are sharing everything and Mr C planted his out at the right time…
We’ve had a glut of courgettes (we have 3 kinds) and tomatoes – they just keep on coming. So I’ve been making batches of soup to freeze and tried my hand at ketchup as it uses up nearly a kilo of tomatoes per bottle (it turned out a bit runny for ketchup – I blame the sieve – so I’m calling it relish).
We’ve discovered that runner beans and peas need to be picked at just the right time – otherwise the beans are stringy and the peas go powdery.
We have curly kale and cavalo nero – the curly kale tastes a bit earthy but the cavalo nero is delicious.
We also have house stores. We pulled up all the beetroot which are now buried in a bucket of sand – and all the carrots which are now buried in a box of compost. All the potatoes – we have 2 kinds – are sorted and in sacks for the winter.
We have more lettuces and parsley than we know what to do with. The spinach is now coming through, as are the leeks – and the parsnips will be next. It’s been a bumper year and now we know what grows really well the next skill to master is ‘succession’ – so we have year-round veg.
