Tag Archives: Potatoes

Quick and Easy Leek and Potato Soup Recipe

Quick and easy, and very 'leeky' - our leek and potato soup recipe.

This leek and potato soup recipe has become a seasonal staple for us. Leeks are reliable, low maintenance and easy to grow. They remain ready to harvest for long periods at a time, meaning that we can enjoy regular harvests for many weeks. We began using them in soups – a delicious warming meal that is perfect for workers returning from a cold plot. But leeks can easily get lost in a soup. We wanted our homegrown leeks to come to the fore and be the stars of the show. We also wanted this soup to be quick and easy,…

The first harvest of this year's winter squashes.

August has been a very enjoyable month for us. We’ve been merrily harvesting and weeding, and enjoying some lovely weather whilst we’ve been doing it. The month started with us away for the weekend camping, which naturally meant that it rained, and so our garden and allotment got a good watering. From then on the weather was a bit up and down, some wet and almost autumnal days, but some gloriously sunny days, including the hottest August bank holiday on record! Our biggest regret this month has been not getting more crops sowed, as we still have some unused space…

Another young squash fruit at the allotment. I think this one is a Sweet Dumpling.

Attentive readers may have noticed that there was no growing update for the month of June. We just about managed to get on top of things in the garden and at the allotment, but unfortunately I simply ran out of time to write the post. We were busy every weekend and we spent much of our free time during the week watering, weeding and planting. By the time I had enough spare time to write the post it was so far into July that I thought we may as well combine the two months into one post. June was a…

Our bath tub containing the last of the leeks and carrots harvested from the allotment.

I started last month’s growing update with the old proverb ‘March winds and April showers bring forth the May flowers’. Well March was windy enough, but April brought us precious little rain. No April showers this year. We had so little rain that digging the fast-draining soil at the allotment has seemed like an impossible task. The first couple of weeks of April were very warm and dry and we started hardening off our tomato plants. But then arctic winds came in, and with them frosts, so we took to bringing our tomato plants indoors of an evening to protect…

Windfall quinces - thank you Storm Angus!

The end of October was a pleasantly autumnal affair, with some nice autumn sun and cool, but not cold, temperatures. That was true right up until the evening of the final day of the month. Then as of the morning of the 1st of November it became bitterly cold and we were hit with several days of morning frosts! This caught us unprepared, and so we were in a panic to harvest the last of our more temperature sensitive crops. The main crops that we were desperate to harvest before the frosts caused severe damage, were the last of our…

An early autumn treat - the biggest pumpkin we have ever grown.

September is already coming to an end. It’s been a great month for us in the garden and at the allotment. We’ve had some exciting harvests and we’ve been enjoying the changing of the seasons. The month started with weather cloudier than we had experienced in August. It was still warm, but there wasn’t as much sun, and the days were getting noticeably shorter. We had a fair bit of rain in the first week or so, which prompted another surge in courgette production. But it did give us cause for concern regarding our drying Martock field beans and Boddington’s…

Mature Martock field beans growing in our garden.

What a contrast July has been when compared to June! Almost every day this month has been warm and sunny with very little rain. It’s been a very busy month for us. We’ve transformed the allotment and the plants there are thriving in the warm weather. It has meant that we’ve had to spend a lot of time watering the plants this month, and even more time weeding. In the garden the legumes bed has been very productive. Our Martock field beans have produced such a crop that we’ve had a couple of plants bend in two under their own…

Visually pleasing and deliciously sweet - our Fragoo Deep Rose strawberry plants.

Well, what a strange month June turned out to be! The most exciting news is that we now have an allotment! After that the biggest news has been the weather. The month started with a mini-heatwave which decimated crops in our plastic greenhouse, forcing us to get a move on and finish planting everything out. Then the wind and rain wreaked havoc with the plants once they were out! It hasn’t felt like June. Early in the month (after the few hot days), it was quite cold. It may as well have been April. It’s warmed up somewhat now, but…

Just some of what we grew and produced this year. Top left - bottom right: winter squashes, parsnip, kohlrabi, a batch of jam, mushrooms, spiralised courgette ('courgetti'), plums, tomatoes and courgettes, squashes in our pumpkin patch.

This year was our first in our current home with our rather large garden. We moved into this house in May, and although we were late out with many of our crops, we’ve had a very successful growing season. In this post we’ll look back over the year and share where we feel we were successful, and where we were not. Soft Fruits By far our largest and most used soft fruit crop was our plums. We can’t really take much credit for this crop, as all of the trees were already here when we moved in, and we have…

All from the borders of the vegetable patch - great fun for adults and younger helpers alike!

I took a day’s holiday from work today as we had things to do in the morning. We had finished all of the important things we had to do by late morning, so we took the opportunity to get the kids out into the garden to harvest some soft fruits. We have several plum trees in and around our garden that are laden with ripe plums. In truth there are too many, they are mostly self-seeded and are too close together. Lately when I’ve been working in the garden they’ll be a small thudding sound every five minutes or so,…

Slightly Self-Sufficient

Tasting The Good Life

Tag Archives: Potatoes

Quick and Easy Leek and Potato Soup Recipe

August 2017 Growing Update

June and July 2017 Growing Update

April 2017 Growing Update

November 2016 Growing Update

September 2016 Growing Update

July 2016 Growing Update

Late June 2016 Growing Report

2015 – The Year In Review

A Fun Day Harvesting in the Garden