Beeksteak tomato

SOW : Planted in May - bought from local nursery.

HARVEST : Picked the first of my beefy tomatoes today. What a wopper! Grown with its back against a south facing brick wall - all cosy and feed weekly with tomatorite and watered every two days or so.

EAT : Slice in to thick steaks, black pepper, Maldon sea salt flakes, olive oil, fry it off gently to get a little colour but keep its form.  Add some basil and parsley and enjoy by itself or in a burger for all those veggie people. Yum.

Cactus, cucumbers & frigid melons

SOW -The only thing looking perky in the conservatory during these lovely hot days we are having at the moment is the cactus. Loving all the sunshine and 45 degree heat. Look at all those flower buds then look at my poor cucumber looking so sad and hot and bothered. I was so concerned I put up a few parasols to shade the cuttings and give the gorgeous beastie a little relief. We have been so lucky with fruit- 7 cucumbers so far- long and firm and tasty. My sister Lindy chose the plant from the nursery and she did a fab job. I planted it in May, then only about 6 inches high, directly in the soil which had manure dug into it and then I watered it. I watered it a lot, probably a bucket worth every day but no special tending (except the parasol spa treatment) No feeding or pollinating or tying up...not like the MELONS. What a bunch of wasters they are! I was tempted with the fabulous picture on the plant -all orange juicy flesh. I was so excited, I googled it and cared for it but what work. Apparently you have to pollinate it yourself as they can't do it themselves (weirdos) so you have to wait until the female flower (you know its female because it has a mini melon behind the flower) which is a fantastic rich sunny yellow and as big as a dinner plate, opens at the same time as the smaller male flower. But they never open at the same time! I am running about doing my homemade cryogenics by putting male flowers in the deep freeze and using the pollen when I need it but that didn't work. 

Catching bees to do the job for me but they did not seem interested. I guess they thought forced labour was a bit below them and they buzzed off. I tried not doing anything - thinking that I was maybe interfering too much and that they might like a bit of alone time to work it out together. Then I thought maybe I wasn't pollinating it right and little Barry White, some low lights and a little something in the drink to help things relax a bit. But I had no results - the melon would grow to about the size of a golf ball and then shrivel and fall off. Frigid melons !Then one day …..a female and a male flower opened at the same time! The moment had arrived.  No time for foreplay. I picked the male flower, tore off its petals and stuck its little pecker into the female's soft thick stamens. It was all over in an instant. Blatant open sex at mid morning before we have even had our coffee break. 

HARVEST - Well we will have to wait to see what happens with the melons but the cu's have been wonderful. One every 4 days or so. Just cut it off with a small sharp knife et voila !

EAT- Cucumbers are lovely in a salad warm from the plant. But if you find that you are harvesting too many then you can make a sweet pickle with dill seed, white wine vinegar, mustard seed a little sugar. Slice the cucumber quite thinly and put it in a sterilised jar (just put it in the dish washer and use it straight away) and top up with the pickling mix. Lovely served with hot or cold salmon or in a salad with fresh BBQ seared tuna. 

What are these boys doing in the female flower ?

Golf ball size melon. Will we eventually taste that sweet flesh ? Tune in for the next installment of My Melons (Over 18's only please)

Charlotte Potatoes - second earlies

SOW  -March saw these little beauties lounging about the potting shed on their black apple tray like young adolescents on the sofa, doing nothing and waiting to be looked after and cosseted.  Eyes up taking in the cool spring light these couch potatoes were minding their own business but all attention was on them.

Mimi, my mother showed me how to “chit” potatoes which is a process of placing them in a cool, light and airy place to let them sprout. This gives them a head start rather than just planting them straight into the ground. It also gives, I think, the impatient gardener something to do in the spring rather than just looking at the awful English weather. It takes about four weeks to chit a Charlotte so Mimi says, but once the first growths had begun there was no holding me back. Monty Don said it was too early – the soil wasn’t warm enough. Mimi nodded in sage agreement. “The temperature of the soil must be taken like the water of a baby’s bath – with your elbow”.  WHAT ! Not me. It was sunny, the potato bed had been ready for ages , the chitting was done as far as I was concerned so in they went in to much tutting from Mimi.

HARVEST - Monty and Mimi were of course completely right. Nothing happened at all for about 6 weeks. Angst days were spent staring at the bare soil with much misery as thoughts of rotting came to mind until one day…hooray! a small green leaf then wafts of leafy foliage, then they flowered and then bingo fabulous new potatoes falling from the fork. You could chuck a potato on a compost heap and it would probably bear fruit without any mortal intervention at all but I did feel a little smug.

EAT - My husband Laurence is a chef and he gave me various tempting recipes but the best of all is new potatoes boiled with a sprig of garden mint ( I use spearmint because its just outside the kitchen door) and served with real butter and freshly ground sea salt and Jamaican black pepper. These Charlotte potatoes were the best I have ever tasted not because they are waxy, buttery and yellow – they are all these things but because I grew them and worried over them, dug them and cooked them. Delicious !

Welcome to SowHarvestEat !

The tide of life swept me on to the unexpected shore of my mother's house; a Georgian pile where six generations have lived and where still their spirits are warm and comforting about us. My mother known as Mimi to her family and Mrs Wright to most other people is a dynamic 84 and a force to be reckoned with on the dance floor, in the garden and as matriarch of our family. She tired of her veg patch and so I took it over and this is my story.