Garden Layout

After all the work in getting the new beds ready I thought I'd give you a list of what is actually growing in them and also, what is just around the corner...

 

So here is what is actually growing, today, in the garden (in the Ground)...or things waiting to be planted (And almost ready to go in the ground)

 

Bed Number	In the Ground	And almost ready to go in the ground:
Bed 1	Spunta Potatoes Oak Leaf Lettuce
Bed 2	Courgettes Dog Beans (Patrick) Dwarf French Yellow Bean (Sarah)	Bari Cucumber (Kate)
Bed 3	Borlotto Beans Wisley Magic Runner Bean Purple Runner Bean (Sarah) Black Turtle Beans (Kate/Toni)
Bed 4	Spunta Potatoes Binjt Potatoes Lollo Rosso Lettuce
Bed 5	Verte Grande Asparagus  Argenteuil Selection Asparagus
Bed 6	Queensland Blue Pumpkin (Marie-Sylvie)  Butternut squash (André)
Bed 7	Ananas Tomato (chaiselongue) Geant Tomato (Gabriel) Coeur de Boeuf Tomato (Marie-Sylvie)	Purple Ukraine Tomato (Miss Fuggle) Veeroma Tomato (Miss Fuggle) Golden Sunrise Tomato
Bed 8	Glasking Perpetual Rhubarb (Val) White Lisbon Spring Onions Lillia Red Salad Onion Jaune Paille des Vertus Onion Globe Artichoke
Bed 9		Melon Medley Charentais Melon (M.Gary)
Bed 10 (a)	Ian’s Red Cherry Tomato	Yellow Cornos Capsicum (Kate) Kaibi Round Pepper (Miss Fuggle)
Bed 11	Bok Choy	Red Radicchio Cavolo Nero (Kate) Cabbage Broccoli
Bed 12	Douce Provence Peas  Dwarf French Green Beans (Sarah)	Yakon (Patrick)
Bed 13 (a,c,e)	Longue d’Espagne Hazelnuts  Salad Leaves Radish (18 day) Radicchio
Bed 14 - 24	These beds are not yet Constructed
Bed 25	Groeseillier a Grappe Juniper Red Currant Raspberries (André)
Bed 26	Zeva Raspberries Magnific Delbard Raspberries September Raspberries Fall Gold Raspberries
Bed 27	Bay Evergreen Shrub (Still to identify) Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify) Hyssop	Thyme
Bed 28	Cotoneaster Lacteus Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify)	Wild Flower Mix
Bed 29	Cotoneaster Lacteus Kerria Japonica Pleniflora Lagerstroemia Rouge	Wild Flower Mix
Bed 30	Evergreen Shrub (Still to identify) Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify)	Wild Flower Mix
SALAD GARDEN	Oak Leaf Lettuce Joy’s Cos Lettuce Radicchio Radish Broad Beans Garlic(Patrick)      Burgundy Creole      Cuban Purple Creole       Tuscan Ail Blanc de Lomagne Salad Onions Spring Onions Leeks Fennel Marais des Bois Strawberry Gariguette Strawberry	Batavia Lettuce Wild Alpine Strawberry
HERB GARDEN	Basil Chervil Chives Coriander Flat Leaf Parsley Garden Cress Garden Mint Peppermint Sage

 

The Salad Garden seems a bit strange now but it was originally the vegetable garden and it will become more salad oriented as we harvest the existing crops.

The layout for the new garden originally allowed 12 beds for expansion...but I have already pressed one into service to grow Hazelnuts (Bed 13) so there is space for just 11 more.

and here is a sketch plan of the new garden

At last....

Today is a bit of a time for celebration in the Kitchen Garden in France.

Over the past few months I have been constructing several new vegetable beds in a part of the garden that was previously wild.   All together there are 19 new beds in this project and today I finished the preparation of the last of them.

If I cope with these 19 new ones, then there is provision for a further 11 beds to be added next year.... or in the future, anyway.

So, this evening, I have given myself a big pat on the back and even, and those of you who know me will realise how rare this is, even had a small glass of wine to celebrate....  Yes it was a local one.... Bergerac Rouge.

Now I just need to get on with the planting, seed sowing etc to make full use of all this new space.

Soon, I'm going to post an inventory of what I have growing and what is waiting in the wings.

Red Cabbage

I picked the last of my red cabbage a couple of days ago.    You may remember, I was only growing it because I bought it in error, not noticing the hand written amendment to the printed label which simply said rouge (red)!!

I have however been very pleased with the dozen plants I had.  I have enjoyed red cabbage in various ways over the past few months particularly liking the leaves shredded and pickled.

I decided to cut the last couple of heads and pickle them, hoping they'll last a few months longer....

To pickle red cabbage I use a mixture of 50% water and 50% vinegar and boil it with some pickling spice.  I now make my own spice blend for pickling.....

Pickling Spice Mixture

Ingredients: 1 tsp Coriander Seeds 1 tsp Chilli Flakes 1 tsp Mixed Peppercorns 1 tsp Yellow Mustard Seeds 1 tsp Ground Ginger 2 Bay Leaves

I use this quantity for 5 litres (5 US Quarts) of vinegar/water, just crushing the bay leaves and then mixing all the ingredients together.  For smaller quantities, I use a tsp per litre (US quart).

I then bring the vinegar, water and spices to the boil and let it simmer for a moment or two.

I put the shredded cabbage into jars and add a teaspoon (probably slightly less) of sugar to each jar before pouring on the hot spiced vinegar and sealing.

I use some conserve jars that are readily available here in France called Le Parfait.  They are really excellent and available in all sorts of sizes and forms.   I like the screw top jars best.

These jars use a disposable capsule to seal the jar and then the screw cap lid holds everything in place.  The problem, nowadays, is that these capsules are getting very expensive and add significantly to the cost of home preserving.  You need to use a new capsule every time you seal a jar.... and they now cost about €0.75 (US$1.00) per capsule.  Today I have modified the capsule in an attempt to make it reusable although the seal will probably only last a couple of uses but even that halves the cost....    I have drilled a small hole in the middle of the capsule which I have then sealed with wax.  I'll tell you all about it in the future if it works out OK.

Today, 18th April is St Parfait Day...hence this piece.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns are an age old recipe traditionally eaten at Easter in Great Britain, where an old law permits their sale only at Easter and Christmas.  They are now eaten in many parts of the world.  They are basically a spicy, glazed, currant bun with a pastry cross piped on the top... Not strictly pastry, it's often, simply flour and milk made into a firm batter so that you can pipe a cross shape.

Hot Cross Buns, however, don't seem to be available in this part of France, indeed I suspect they are not available in any part of France as the French people I have talked to didn't know about them.   Now I'm usually happy to adopt my French life and go without whatever is not available, except, that this year I have been invited out to lunch on Easter Sunday and thought, "wouldn't it be nice to take a traditional British thing with me"...   So, none available in the shops, I decided I would simply make some.

Well, that was my first error.  There is nothing simple about making Hot Cross Buns.  If you have the choice between making them yourselves, or buying them from a bakery, choose the bakery!  I have spent the entire afternoon baking about a dozen hot cross buns.

First I had to find a recipe.   As usual, I turned to the Internet.

There was a recipe with a beautiful photo on a site from a British magazine called Woman's Weekly.  Woman's Weekly launched in November 1911 and is still being published today.  It does what the title says, a weekly magazine for women and cookery has always been a strong part of it's subject matter so I thought they could probably be relied on to give me a good traditional recipe.  And they did!

Next I assembled all the various ingredients, , nothing very unusual, flour, sugar, spices, milk, an egg, bakers yeast, all of which I had in my cupboard.

Then to start making the buns.  First start the yeast in a milk and sugar solution.

As  soon as that was happily going I mixed the flour, sugar and spices and and then added the yeast mixture and the beaten egg, formed all this into a dough and left it to raise for an hour and a half.

Once it had risen I worked in the fruit and then made the individual buns, before leaving them to rise again for a further 1/2 hour or so

Next I added the cross that gives them their name, then off to the oven.

As they were baking, I started to get the idea that I had chosen well and the recipe was going to be delicious.  The smell from the oven was mouth watering....

The recipe called for the hot buns to be glazed as soon as they came out of the oven which is what I did next.

So, several hours after deciding, I have about 16 Hot Cross Buns.  They look and smell great and I'm struggling to wait till they are cool to try the first one.

 

For the full recipe, go to the Woman's Weekly Hot Cross Bun recipe

Things I did differently:

I varied the recipe a little.  I made my own mix of spices using Ground Nutmeg, Ground Ginger, Ground Cloves, Ground Cinnamon, Ground Mace, 1/2 tsp of each and then added another tea spoon of Ground Cinnamon.  I mixed strong white flour (300gms) and wholemeal flour (200gms) and I substituted whatever fine brown sugar I had in the cupboard. 

And yes, having succumbed to temptation, they were delicious.