A Frog Was Spawn

Seemingly massive amounts of frog spawn in the pond has now exploded into tadpoles. Frogs are my chief ally in the organic battle against slugs and snails and fortunately there always seem to be plenty in the pond each year. There are some interesting facts about frogs and toads on the BBC Springwatch site.

Here they are basking on some algae at the top of the pond. I guess they might be starting to eat it now:

Here's a close-up:

Most seem content sitting around at the moment, but they occasionally wriggle around a bit. Hopefully they should be fine now if we have a cold snap - I think it's generally just the spawn that gets frosted when it's so close to the surface. I think the snails are getting worried already.

The only downside I've noticed with frogs is that around dusk, in the summer, it's quite difficult to the see them and they have the capacity to scare the living daylights out of me when they suddenly leap out of vegetation or across a path - half because I'm worried about treading on them. Makes for interesting gardening, anyway; and it's well worth it for all the good they do. They look quite sweet in the pond too, bobbing up from under the lily leaves and doing a little bit of croaking now and again. Only about two percent of frogs survive to adulthood apparently, but it still looks like mine should be doing okay if that's the case.

Do you have any interesting frogs or toads in your garden? I saw a couple of small very dark-brown toads in the garden last year (it may well have been the same one twice) that I couldn't identify, because I'm sure there was a red-coloured stripe on each side. It may have been a common toad - but it may also have been a frog because it seemed to be hopping, not walking. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture.

Berry New Year

You may have seen some of your Recruiting Officer's past posts about gardening and Garden Organic etc.. If so you'll know I have been honing my veg growing skills for a while now, concentrating on staying as organic as possible and chiefly growing the stuff that's expensive to buy: peppers, tomatoes, courgettes and so on.

Now I have a good game plan for the veg I have promised myself that this year I will start to get a bit more serious about fruit. The strawberry crops have been reasonable and I am now hoping to build a fruit cage in time to start some raspberries and blackberries. I have fond memories of happy summers, as a child, spent picking strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and the like from the garden.

I also have an established grape vine I am renovating and some more vines in containers I am hoping to plant out this year.

Blueberries and cranberries have become very popular in the UK in recent times - helped much, I'm sure, by the stories about their potential health benefits. In my fruity quest I was reminded that we have the most wonderful grower of blueberries right here in Dorset - The Dorset Blueberry Company. The owners, the Trehane family, introduced blueberries to the UK back in the last century.

And on Monday I spent a very jolly time having a look round their yard and buying some plants. They are in the middle of loads of work and not up to lots of visitors at the moment, building a new farm shop, tea room and all sorts. Not withstanding this they were really helpful and friendly, and the place should look smashing when they are done in a few months. You can also buy plants and an expanding range of other products from their online shop.

I now have some lovely little cranberry plants and two different blueberries - Herbert and Northblue. In the words of Dervla Kirwan, Herbert blueberries are not just blueberries, they are M&S blueberries - the Trehane's sell their crop to the supermarket from July to Sepetmber. I have much learning to do now about how to take care of them, but I can hardly wait for the results!

Back to veg again, briefly: the recent series gardener Carol Klein did on BBC2 called Grow Your Own Veg was smashing - she has such a passion for the subject. If you missed it and can catch a re-run I totally recommend it.

In a Pickle

Preserving food. Yum. This year I was hoping to experiment a bit with different preserving techniques. I have had some success with pickling, freezing and drying and I have made an exceedingly large amount of chutney.

In fact, a comedy amount of chutney. So much so that people will probably be getting chutney for Christmas and it will be forming a substantial part of my winter diet. But I can live with that.

So far I have made chutney with green tomatoes, regular tomatoes, tomatillos and aubergines - many featuring plenty of apple too and other bits and pieces. I think beetroot may soon be on the list too.

Tomatillos are fun. They have probably been in the UK forever, but seem to have become popular again recently. I have mentioned them before and they are another popular Latin American speciality - tasty in fresh salsas etc. I haven't got around to making salsa yet which is a shame, but chutney? Oh yes.

This year I grew an organic variety called Violet - apparently so-called because of the colour they ripen into:


Anyhow, here's a quick run through of some green tomato chutney I made back in September. I adapted the recipe from this one one by Keith Floyd from the BBC website. Most chutneys work along very similar lines though it seems. Firstly, of course, green tomatoes:


A big preserving pan is fairly essential when making chutneys and jams etc. Pop in the tomatoes and onions:


Followed by the apples, raisins, sugar, a little salt and a nice muslin bag full of chopped chillies and crushed ginger:


Lastly, pour in the vinegar and bring to the boil:


After a good long simmer things start to break down a bit and I gather you can just keep going as long as you like really depending on the final consistency you want:


The finished product needs to go in jars of course. Here is some of this year's stock:



Interestingly, I had some jars already although I quickly realised I would need some more. Looking on the internet and in shops I realised that one pound jars with lids cost anything from 40p upwards to buy new. In a perfect example of how crazy this world is, I quickly realised it would be cheaper to buy jars of something cheap and re-use them. Enter Tesco value pasta sauce at 27p a jar. Even bigger than a pound jam jar size and you can do something creative with the pasta sauce too! A good wash out and with the labels removed they are just the job.

It's been really satisfying making things using produce from the garden - especially knowing everything has been grown as organically as possible. As I mentioned earlier, I am now thinking of creative things to do with beetroot. I had no idea beetroot was so good for you. Chocolate beetroot cake is definitely on the list!

Late Summer Garden Update

Overall I'm really pleased with the performace of most stuff this year, considering I did virtually everything from seed and took a punt on lots of different things. The summer launched into sweltering heat and the last few weeks have been such a contrast - not cold, but markedly cooler.

I must admit the watering has been a lot easier this year and I'm glad I did some homework on how much water different plants were going to need. We had virtually zero rain here all summer up to the last few weeks and I kept to a schedule of just giving the less needy plants - root crops like beetroot and onions etc - a watering once a week, whilst the water-intensive crops - tomatoes, peppers, courgettes, beans and squashes etc. - I have done with buried soaker-hose in an attempt to both save time and keep the water where it's needed in a controlled way. On the whole this approach seems to have worked really well.

This is tomato 'Tumbler' I have been growing in pouches on the walls:


Lovely cherry fruits these, with a good flavour - very tempting as you walk past them! Most of the cordon tomatoes have been ripening too, although just yesterday I noticed one of the ground hugging varieties showing sign of the dreaded blight, so I am preparing to launch into green tomato chutney mode if things spread sooner rather than later.


I've also grown tomatillos this year - often also called husk tomatoes and good used for salsa. This is a variety called 'Violet':


One thing that has taken a real beating is the broccoli. I love butterflies, but the cabbage white's passion for my broccoli could literally be described as 'all-consuming'.


The numbers have been so great that although repeated attempts have been made to remove caterpillars to keep numbers down, i have decided the only real solution will be to cover them in future.

I also purposely let the squashes ramble a bit, but think I might reign them in a bit in future, although the frogs have absolutely loved the shady, moist habitat they've created. I have vegetable spaghetti and butternut squash on the way - and these are a nice compact pumpkin called 'Potimarron'.


My huge collection of pepper plants are now finally coming good. I was really concerned that the sweet peppers might not have a great time outside. It was so windy after they went in, immediately followed by the extreme heat and they seemed to take a real hit. The good news is though that apparently peppers are difficult to kill off - they might go dormant for a bit and then grow on when things improve, or even be a little stunted, but they are fighters. They are in full flow now and I'm hoping to keep them going as long as I did last year. This is a sweet pepper called 'Doux Long des Landes':


And this is a sweet bell-shaped variety called 'Purple Beauty':


It's not all veg though, some flowers too - and you can't beat dahlias for an assortment of colour:


I haven't covered all the garden here so I may do another update before long. I have already been pickling cornichons and various chutneys are definitely on the cards so I might do a post on that soon too!