New Home for The Little Balcony

Sadly last weekend The Little Balcony was packed up and taken to a new location. Our current London flat was sold, which we had been planning for a whole and in a very mad last minute rush, due to a last minute change, we moved to a new rented London flat, which unfortunately does not have a garden or a balcony, as I had hoped.

During the move, I had to get rid of all the vegetable plants, which included the last of the Tomatoes, Chilies and Courgettes; luckily it was coming to the end of the session so these were ready to be thrown away. Otherwise along with the Herbs, the Brussels Sprout plant, which is still growing away and the Strawberry plants, these were all taken to my mum’s house up north in Chester, which will be their new home.

I am a little sad about this, as I won't be able to plant anything new next year, but it will give me time to start on the cook book, which I've been trying to get off the ground for the last couple of years. Hopefully we will be moving somewhere new in about six months and a garden/balcony is high on my list.

Having said that I did manage to keep a few plants, which hopefully will survive indoors on the kitchen windowsill, I have a Lavender plant, the Vietnamese Coriander plant, a Parsley plant and two Chili plants, which are still flowering and then all the other house plants.

New Herb for Me: Vietnamese Coriander

The last couple of times I've been to my local garden centre, which I only discovered last year, they didn't seem to have a large variety of plants, but this might have been due to the summer season ending.

A couple of weekends ago I headed down there to find a great variety of flower plants, vegetables, trees including fruit and a large section full of herbs, some of which I never thought I'd see there, including the Vietnamese Coriander plant which I picked up for £1.49.

I've done a little research on this, and I found that some other buyers have struggled to look after this plant as it is meant for a much hotter climate, so it is best to bring this in doors once the cooler weather comes in, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I manage to keep this alive. It also needs a lot of water, as I found out over the last hot weekend.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 21 August 2012

Even More Courgettes

We had lovely weather over the past weekend, very warm and humid but great for all the vegetables which seem to blossom and enjoy the splash of heat that's finally arrived. I had a little nosey around the vegetables to see how everything was doing and I notices one long Courgette as least 6cm in size and then another four just starting to form behind this.

I'm really really excited as last year it was very disappointing, due to only getting one Courgette from four plants, so I'm overjoyed that this one plant has so many Courgettes on, they obviously love there new place on the Balcony.
 

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August

First Round Courgette

This year I decided to try a different variety of Courgette, instead of just planting a few of the normal long variety, 'All Green Bush', I also planted some round ones called 'Tondo di Piacenza', which came free in a garden magazine I bought.

Last year I had a bad experience with my 'All Green Bush' Courgettes, out of four plants they only produced one Courgette, which was very dissappointing. But I hoped I could do better this year with two varieties and I also placed these nearer to the front of the balcony, so they could get more sun.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012
The round variety were actually put in a hanging basket, and the results have been great, I currently have several Courgettes coming through, which I am so happy about, they obviously love the hanging basket. The normal long variety plant is in a pot near to the front of the balcony and this has tons of flowers on, which have just started to open, so fingers crossed I'll have some Courgettes coming through soon.

This Years First Tomatoes

Over the last couple of months the Tomatoes have been outside, growing away and enjoying the lovely sunshine we've had now and then, when it's decided to show itself. The first two Moneymaker Tomatoes were removed earlier this week and were a gorgeous red colour, they're skins were a little bitty, but this might be because I haven't feed them enough over the last few weeks, which I have now been doing for the rest.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

The other two varieties, Gardeners Delight an Roma VF, are now happily growing away also, I was a little worried for a while as the leaves were going crazy and lots of flowers were coming through, but no Tomatoes, but having had a look this week they now seem to have gone crazy.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

Chilies Planted Up & Growing

This years Chilli plants have been planted up in their final place for a few weeks now and are now sitting comfortably on the Livingroom windowsill. We have one Thai Dragon Chili plant, one Hot Chili Pepper 'Apache' plant (store bought) and one Inferno Chili plant. The non-store bought Chili plants were grown from seeds from last years plants, and as stated in an earlier blog, I'm not sure what these will come out like, due to the pollen of the plants being mixed together, but I can't wait to see how they grow and also how hot they may be.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

I've also planted and finally managed to germinate some Cayenne Pepper Chili plants, which I have three and also the Hotscotch (Hot) Chili Pepper plants (no photos), again I have three of, these are all nicely planted in two big pots and sitting on the windowsill of the spare bedroom, they get great late evening sun there.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

At the moment the three in the livingroom are growing really well and already have a lot of flower buds on them, which hopefully will turn into lots and lots of Chilies and then I can get on with another year of making Chili Jam and my lovely boyfriend Zac, can test out a few more versions of his Hot Sauce.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012
 

Plaiting Onions

After leaving the Onions to dry out in the small greenhouse over the last few weeks, last weekend I finally got around to trying out how to plait these, now I've never done this before, as this is my first batch of Onions, but I thought plaiting them would be better than just storing them in a bag.

Having consulted my garden books, it looked like plaiting was the best way to store them, but they didn't explain how, so off I went to the internet, as always this is a great place to find a few videos of people demonstrating this, and I found a great video called HOW TO PLAIT ONIONS which really helped me.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

It took a while and a few attempts at starting the batches off, but I finally managed to plait two batches of Onions, a small and large version. I'm very proud of them and they are currently hang up and waiting to be used.

Preserves: Garlic Pickle

Having harvested my Garlic a few weeks ago, these have been drying out outside for a few weeks now with the Garlic. I've never had so much Garlic so I was a little unprepared to what I could do to store this. I know Garlic can last a long time, but as I left mine in the ground too long and I've managed to destroy the outer layer and exposed the cloves, I wanted to see if I could preserve these some how.

So the trusty Preserves book came out again and I found a Pickled Garlic recipe which is perfect for my small batch of Garlic. I have kept four of my best undamaged bulbs complete, as I'd like to use these for planting next year and also use some for cooking, plus they small delicious and look great.

                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

500g Garlic
200ml Cider Vinegar
50g Granulated Sugar
A good pinch of Saffron
12 Black Peppercorns
2-6 Bay Leaves
Half a teaspoon of Fennel Seeds
x2 Small Jars & Lids

Firstly I sterilised the jars, by washing them in the dishwasher. To prepare the Garlic, this was washed and then placed as bulbs, in a pot of boiling water for one minute to loosen the skins, they were then dried off and each clove was peeled and placed in one of the warm jars. The recipe says to use 3 jars, but as I didn't have the 500g Garlic, I was just slightly under; I only managed to fill two.

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

Once all the Garlic is in the jars, the fennel, black peppercorns and bay leaves were added to the jars as well, I still used the same amount of these as the recipe stated, but I only added 2 bay leaves to each jar. The cider vinegar, sugar and saffron were then added to a pan and brought to a boil over two minutes and then left to boil for two minutes and then added to the jars, were the lids where put on and the jars were left to cool down.

Once sealed they need to be used within a year.

Delight of Spring Onions

Yesterday I decided to look into what may be in a few pots that I planted up last year. As I didn't label them, which is always a big mistake, I had thought I'd planted both Spring Onions and Leeks into these pots, but none of the growing plants ever looked like Leeks.

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

So, I decided to investigate and dig into these pots and see what I actually had and to my surprise I had three pots of Onion (Spring) White Lisbon Winter Hardy, 22 in total. Not sure what happened to the Leeks, they may have died off, but these looked great.
 

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

And they came in very handy last night as we used them in our Chinese crispy shredded beef we had for dinner, very fresh and delicious, another must have for next years garden.

Weird Garlic

I've been harvesting the Early Purple Wright Garlic this weekend and I may have left them a little too long in the ground or maybe done something wrong along the way. On realising a lot of other people have been harvesting these, I decided to pull them up and found that most of them were slightly deformed.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

When I say deformed, I mean even though they have grown to a reasonable size, they don't seem to have fully formed into bulbs, as a lot of the cloves are sticking off the outside of the main bulb, but the cloves have fully formed so I'm sure they will be fine to use.

                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

I've left the bulbs to dry out over the mini-greenhouse, these will be plaited and hung in the kitchen for when I need to use them, I may even try and see if I can save a couple of bulbs to keep for planting for next years harvest.

Harvested: Garlic & Onions

Over the last few weeks I've been harvesting the Radar Onions I've been growing since October last year. I started with pulling up around six for my first batch, then nine in my second batch and the rest I picked today.

                                                   Photo: Laura  Lunt  Date: July 2012

At the same time as planting the Radar Onions, I also planted some Early Purple Wright Garlic and as with the onions, I've been busy harvesting the rest of these today, and hanging them for drying out.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

The mini-greenhouse has been very handy to use as a dryer, but this wasn't big enough for all of them, so I had to use a metal hanger to hold a few of the smaller onions. Hopefully I can leave all of  these for a week or two and then plait up to keep and save for when I need to use them.

From what I've read Garlic is fine to leave in the house after plaited at room temperature, but Onions are meant to be left in a shed or garage at a cooler temperature which I don't have, so I may have to find an alternative way to keep them.

Courgettes Two Types

It didn't take long for the Courgettes to start growing, once sown. Within a week two of these were popping out of the propagator soil, I have one Courgette 'Tondo di Piacenza' which is a round variety and one Courgette 'All Green Bush', which is a normal long variety.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

These have now been planted outside, as I lost a couple of the Strawberry plants, I've placed the round Courgette variety in here and potted another one up in another individual pot.

                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Brussels Sprouts Not Lost

For a while I thought I'd lost the Brussels Sprout plants I've been growing, they seemed to have suffered a lot while I was away on holiday for a week, but it looks like I may have actually had a few survive, which I re-planted up a few weeks ago.

I originally grow so many that I gave a pot full to my mum.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

In total I managed to save four of the plants, one I've planted on its own and the other three in a long pot, they are very small at the moment, but hopefully they'll grow and I'll have some sprouts ready to eat at Christmas.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

First Strawberries of the Year

Last year I created some Runners from the 'Alice' Strawberry plants I got from Thompson & Morgan, see blog Strawberry Runners for Beginners. The new Runners were left in my mini-greenhouse to over winter and around April they were planted up into hanging baskets.

                                            Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Unfortunately I started with four plants and lost two while I was a way on holiday at the end of May. But within a few weeks the others started to show some Strawberries coming through and this week I managed to pick the first four which were ripe to eat... delicious.

                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

Cheating Peppers (Sweet)

Not sure what's been going on this year, it might be the weird weather we've been having here, but I've tried to sow a couple of batches of Pepper (sweet) since February and I've had no luck, so much so, that I decided to give up a couple of weeks ago and buy a couple from my local garden center.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

These have been doing great over the last week or so, and are happily sitting on the south-east windowsill growing away.

Onions Almost Ready to Harvest

Last October I planted the Onion sets I bought outside on the balcony, these have been over wintered and growing ever since. I noticed over the last few months that the Onions have been developing just above the soil and they've been getting bigger and bigger every time I've popped out to check.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Today I couldn't wait any longer and I harvested the first of the Onions for drying out. I carefully used a trowel to take out the six biggest just to see how they do, leaving the rest to continue to grow. I've left the lifted Onions on top of the mini-greenhouse, to dry out for the next week or so and then I'll hopefully be able to store and eat them soon.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Cabbage Growing Stronger

I may have had a few down turns with the Cabbage to begin with, I lost around 6 of my batch when they were first planted out, but they seem to going from strength to strength now.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: April 2012

I have six plants growing away at the moment in two different spots on the balcony, some in a pot near the back, which I need to constantly water and a couple in the large tub hanging over the balcony, which get a lot of water from rainy May/June months we've currently having.

                                                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

All doing well I'll have some great Cabbage to share with the family soon.

Linguine & Chargrilled Veg in a Passata Sauce

1 Pepper (sweet)
1 Courgette - sliced with a potato peeler
1 tbsp of Chili Oil
1 Jar of Roasted Passata Sauce (see Recipe)
1 Large handful of Linguine Pasta
Salt & Pepper to season

Heat a griddle and add the Chili Oil, cut the pepper into large slices and grate the Courgette lengthways, to create large slices. Add these to the oil once smoking and cook till they are tender and brown. Remove and place to kitchen towel to drain excess oil and leave to cool.

I've used Linguine pasta, but any pasta will do. Place the pasta into a pot of salty water and cook as directed, for the Linguine I tend to snap this in half, as I don't like the pasta too long. Once cooked drain and run through cold water.

Add the Roasted Passata Sauce to a large pan and heat slowly over a medium heat, after a few minutes and when the sauce beings to bubble, add the Courgettes and Peppers (sweet) which can cut into smaller pieces, to the sauce, warm for a few minutes and then add the pasta, season with salt and pepper as required. Once everything is boiling away and heated through, pour into a large bowl and enjoy.

As a side dish, why not try my Homemade Chili and Garlic Bread:

Slices of French bread
Butter
Chopped Garlic
Chopped Chili
Dried or Fresh chopped Mixed Herbs
Salt & Pepper to season

This is very simple to make and you can make as much or as little as you like, mix the butter, garlic, chili and mixed herbs together to make a paste, then season as required and then spread onto the French bread, which has been cut into circular slices. Place on a baking tray and cook in the oven until brown.

Another great recipe for the Cook Book.

Blooming Hot Sauce

As mentioned on my TLB facebook page recently, I've started to put a plan together for selling a few jars of the preserves I've been making, such as Chili Jam, Tomato Chutney and even the Passata Sauce and to my surprise my boyfriend, Zac, suddenly decided he wanted to make and sell Hot Sauce.

For those of you who have read about the Chili plants I bought for him last year, we ended up growing quiet a large amount of chilies and we found it really hard to decide what to do with them. But making Hot Sauce now seems like a great idea, Zac found a really easy recipe online and from this he adapted the recipe to fit the types of chilies he bought (at the moment our plants are very small), for his tester batch. He used x3 medium green chilies and x4 small Caribbean scotch bonnet Chilies.

I left him alone with the ingredients in the kitchen one Saturday afternoon and a couple of hours later we had a large amount of Hot Sauce, all bottles up and ready to test. Which we did the following day and I must say it was surprisingly tasty and really not that over powering in hotness, we love it so much we've been using it with everything.

                                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 29 April 2012

This can only mean that test no.1 was very successful and once we've finished off this batch, it'll be onto the making of the next one.

Strawberry Runners into Plants

Not wanting to buy any new Strawberry plants this year, last year I decided to pot up some Runners from the 'Alice' Strawberry plants I bought. Luckily all four plants grew really well and were eventually individually potted up for over wintering, during our colder months in my little greenhouse.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 15 April 2012

Winter is now over and the runners have established into great new plants with health leaves, so a couple of weeks ago (late April) these were potted up into their final growing places, two hanging baskets with two plants in each. The baskets were lined with new moss and new vegetables compost was added, with a few water crystals to help with watering.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 15 April 2012

These already a few flowers showing, so hopefully I'll have some Strawberries in early summer, ready to pick and eat.

Spring Tidy Up - April

A few weeks ago I managed to get out onto the Balcony, the sun was even shining, and do my spring tidy up after the mild winter we've had. I wanted to create a lot more space, as it seems the balcony has been taken over by a lot of garden waste, so I started with this first. I've been collecting a couple of bags of waste, old soil, leaves, so these were the first to go.

Next was the greenhouse. I've had this for a few years now and you can tell as its looking a little old, but its still handy to have. Its plastic cover was ripped to pieces, this has gone, so now it can be made better use of, by using it as shelves for the smaller potted plants. The inside of the greenhouse was cleared out, so old pots and canes were sorted out, stacked and generally tidied up into a smaller area.

For the Balcony itself, this had a good brush and clean, as lots of dead leaves and debris had managed to cover the balcony floor. Pots were then moved around to create more space and I also came up with an inventive way to help with watering some of the larger pots, by creating some homemade water holders out of all plastic bottles, these were added to the Onion and Garlic large grow bags.

Vegetable wise, the netting on the Garlic and Onions was removed and packed away, to give the vegetables a chance to grow naturally and continue to flourish in their final months. I also noticed that I've managed to lose quiet a lot of the cabbage plants I had re-potted, I'm down to just 6 now, which does come in handy for space, as the Brussels Sprouts are really to be placed outside, but it is a shame as I may have planted them out too early.

Aloe Vera - New Shoots

My Aloe Vera plant hasn't been looking too good lately, but I noticed the other day that there was three new shoots coming off the plant, which I carefully re-potted over the weekend, hopefully these will survive. I mixed the old soil from the plant with some of the vegetable compost, which will hopefully give them a little feed to encourage some growth.

                                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

As for the old plant I'm hopeing to save the nurishing liquid from its leaves, as its great for burns and other healing methods... I just have to figure out how to do this, so I guess I'll be hitting the old gardening herb books, as well as my new book Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong, to see how I can use this.

Re-potting in March: Part Two

Sunday was a beautiful day, so I took the opportunity to re-pot some of the vegetables I have on the windowsill at home. Most of these had now grown to a good handling size, so they were easy to transport to their new pots. Soil wise, as I still have a whole bag of the Grow Your Own Vegetable Compost, which contains 6 months of feed, I mixed this with some of the water crystals I have and filled up the 20cm pots I bought last year with the mixture.

For the Tomato varieties, Moneymaker, Gardeners Delight and Roma VF (Plum), I selected the three strongest shoots and placed one in each pot, making sure each was firmly fixed into the centre of the soil. These were all then carefully labeled, placed back on the windowsill and watered.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

The same process was done with the Brussels Sprout seedling; only these were a lot smaller and needed a lot more care when re-planting. I picked only the best and strongest looking shoots, making sure each had at least three or four leaves, which were a bright healthy green colour. I placed ten seedlings into two of the 20cm pots', making sure each shoot was firmly put into place, so it didn't fall over easily and carefully trickled some water into each pot.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

These still a few more vegetables on the windowsill slowly growing away, I've even seed a few more Chili seedlings starting to come through, but the Peppers (sweet) and Aubergines are still struggling a bit and I'll also be potting up some Courgettes very soon.

Re-potting in March: Part One

It was a little chilly and also a little rainy on Saturday, but I managed to pop onto the balcony and re-pot a few of my vegetables from the mini-greenhouse, which have been overwintering for a few months now and the Sweet Pea plants, which I've been growing in doors.

Last weekend I bought a new large pot with a lovely red flower design on it, which I filled with Grow Your Own Growbag compost from HomeBase, as this has up to 6 weeks feed within the soil and some water crystals. I planted the seven Sweet Pea plants that have grown to around 20cm tall, at the back of the pot supported by small canes and at the front of the pot I planted four of the thirteen Cabbage plants with collars, which have been overwintering in the mini-greenhouse.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date March 2012

As for the rest of the Cabbage plants, these were re-planted in the long tube that recently held my herbs. Along with some of the old compost from the herbs, I added the last of the organic compost I had, mixing this together and then I added a top layer of the GYO Growbag compost, with some water crystals added for extra help with watering. The last nine cabbages were then planted around 10cm a part, with a Cabbage Collar added to each plant.

On the balcony itself, I re-potted the Carrots and Leeks, which have been slowly growing and again have been overwintering. The Leeks were separated and around 5-7 Leeks were added to each pot, as for the Carrots, these were carefully moved into larger, deeper pots for better growth, and all of these again contained the GYO Growbag compost and water crystals.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

To help some of the other plants feed better, I also added a Miracle-Grow Controlled Release Tablet to each of the Garlic and Onion bags, as these will slowly feed the vegetables when they are watered for up to six months.

And all of the plants and vegetables on the balcony were then well watered.

First Attempt at Garlic

Last year my boyfriend Zac bought some Garlic plants that had already been started off, at the local garden centre. I planted them in one of the large pots, but they never seemed to do anything. Eventually they all died off except one, which just wouldn't give up.

This ended up in a pot on its own and left over winter and a couple of weeks ago it started to look a little bit straggly, so I took the bulb out to dry out and this is what I was left with.

                                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

More Garlic has been planted for late last year, so hopefully attempt number two will be a lot better.

The Last of the Spicy Tomato Soup

That's it today for lunch I ate my last batch of the Spicy Tomato Soup I made, with last years home grown tomatoes. Luckily, I've recently sown all my summer seeds including three varieties of Tomato, so all's I have to do now is wait for them to grow, so I can make more.

                                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

The First Sow Of The Year

Over the recent snowy weekend, I started to sow my first batch of seeds of the year, which I always start at this time of the year (mid February). Having already sorted through all the seeds I've managed to collect, earlier in the month, I then got to prepping for this years vegetable sowing.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

Tools
6cm Pots
Compost (peat free)
Spoon
Watering Can
Newspaper
Label Sticks / Pen
Seed Trays

As I only have a small balcony, seed sowing for me, usually happens on my dinning room table, which is covered with newspaper. Having selected the types of vegetables I wanted to grow (see picture & list below), I would have normally sown these into my propagator, into individual pods, but this year I have decided to sow the seeds into small 6cm pots, as I have a lot of different vegetables I'd like to sow.

I filled each pot with peat free compost, leaving a 1.5cm gap from the top, watered them and then added 5-7 seeds to each separate pot, making sure I added a label stick so I knew what was in each pot. A small layer of compost was then laid on top of the seeds and these were then placed into a seed tray. After all the seeds were sown, and they had been carefully placed in seed trays and then placed on a south-east facing windowsill, around 2cms of water was added to the trays, and has been carefully topped up when needed.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

Vegetable Seeds
Tomatoes (x3 varieties) - Moneymaker / Gardeners Delight and Roma VF (Plum)
Chilies (x5 varieties) - Thai Dragon / Inferno / Tabasco / Pepper (Hot) Hotscotch and Pepper Cayenne
Peppers (sweet)
Parsnip Duchess F1
Brussels Sprout Evesham Special
Sweet Pea (Old Spice Mixed)
Aubergines Black Beauty Organic

Herb Seeds
Chives
Basil Sweet Genovese
Dill

I haven't covered these with any form of lid, as I'd like to see how they do without this, and as they are in the sunniest part of the flat, over a radiator, I'm sure it won't harm them. In fact, its now been a week since these have been sown and I already have Sprout and Sweet Pea seedlings appearing.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

The herb seeds were sown into re-useable herb pots, which my boyfriend bought last year. The pots were put through the dishwasher, before being used again. As with the vegetable seeds these were also filled with peat free compost, watered, seeds added and then filled with more compost, and then watered again.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February

Now everything is happily sitting on the windowsill and I just have to wait for even more little seedlings to appear over the coming weeks and the sun to come out.

Chili & Pepper (Sweet) - Mystery Seeds?

It seems though I thought I'd be doing a great thing by saving my Chili and Pepper (sweet) seeds, it has been pointed out me to that these may not be exactly true to type, when it comes to sowing them. Some very good advice from a fellow UK Veg Garderners gardener has let me know that as a rule of thumb, different varieties of Chilies and Peppers (sweet) should either be planted at least four miles apart or they should be grown under insect proof nets, for the plants to produce seeds true to type.

I've planted my 'so called' Chili and Pepper (sweet) seeds under their original names but it seems, I may actually end up with very different varieties such as 'Thai Tabasco' or 'Inferno Dragon' and maybe even a not so cool Pepper (sweet).

I'm very excited about this, as I had no idea about the possibility of it happening, but everything is now planted and all's I have to do is just wait and see.

Preserves: Roasted Tomato Passata

Last year I grew a lot of Tomatoes, so I decided to create some Tomato Passata. I've never done this before, so after some research on the internet, including watching a few cooking demo videos,  I decided to use the recipe from the book 'Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No2', which I'd recently bought.

This Roasted Tomato Passata recipe makes 2x 500ml Jars:

2kg Ripe Tomatoes
200g Shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
3-4 Garlic Cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
A few Rosemary, Thyme, Basil or Oregano sprigs
1tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
1tsp Sugar
50ml Olive, Sunflower or Rapeseed Oil

Pre-heat oven to 180c / gas mark 4

Firstly cut all the tomatoes in half, place them cut side up in a single layer in a large pot. Then scatter the shallots, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, sugar and oil. This then needs to be roasted for 1 hour or until everything is well softened. Remove the pot from the oven and rub the entire content through a nylon slieve or puree with a passata machine or mouli.

                                                                                 Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: September 2011

Make sure you have the hot sterilised jars ready, put the tomato puree into a sauce pan and bring it to a boil, once its boiled pour into the jars, filling them to the brim and seal, depending on the jars.

Stand the jars in a large pan with a towel at the bottom and over everything with warm water, bring to a simmering point (which is 88c) over a period of 25 minutes, using a thermometer will help here and then simmer for 10 minutes.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: September 2011

After simmering, remove the jars from the pan and stand them on a wooden surface or folded towel. Leave undisturbed until cold, then check the seal. These can be stored and used within 12 months. Once opened, refrigerate and use within a few days.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: September 2011

Collecting Chili & Pepper Seeds

In a bid to save on buying seeds or new plants, this year I've tried to save some seeds from a few plants I've grown. I've specifically planned to save those from my different Chili varieties and Pepper (Sweet) plants:

Thai Dragon Chili Seeds
Tabasco Seeds
Inferno Seeds
Pepper (sweet) Seeds

Saving these was very easy, for the Pepper (Sweet) when going to cooking these; I saved as many seeds as possible from inside the Pepper, placed them in a small open bowl, left them in a light but not sunny area and waited for them to dry out naturally. The same was done for the Chilies, but I did allow some of the Chilies to dry out naturally before de-seeding.

Drying out took a few days to a week, and they should stay the same natural light colour as they were inside the vegetable, I have done this before and by mistake placed in direct sun, to which the seeds burned and turned a dark brown colour, not good. Also, it is handy to label the bowls, I forgot to do this and ended up having to lick a seed to see if it was a Pepper or Chili seed, turned out to be Chili and it was very hot.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: January 2012

I now have a lot of seeds collected and some will be sown for this year, which I should hopefully to doing very soon. For the rest, I've decided to create a little seed collection gift pack, which I'll be sending out to a few family members and friends, and hope they have fun growing them this year along with me.