Just a small selection of the fresh vegetables
from Harry’s market stall in Muff last week.
Bedding plants
It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for the bedding plants this
year. They had a bit of a tough time of
it at the beginning of the season. The
plants we had in hanging baskets on the garage wall have not done too well,
they appear to be scorched and starved of nutrients even though the roots
haven’t filled the space inside the containers where the soil is. My theory is that the constant rain has
washed all of the nutrients out of the soils and left the plants just sitting
in something that just holds the roots in place. The window boxes on the other hand have done
really well. The only plants to get
leggy are the pansies, but they do this at any time of the year regardless of
them being summer/spring or winter varieties.
The good thing about pansies is they will give you plenty of flowers no
matter what conditions are thrown at them, as long as they are deadheaded.
Going Crazy in the Garden
Things have gone crazy in our vegetable plot this week, so
much so we can hardly get into it. It might be the great weather we have had or
the fact that the copious amount of well rotted horse muck has kicked
everything into action, courgettes are growing in front of our eyes, the
lettuce is reaching for the skies and the slow to start broccoli leaves could
be used as umbrellas.
The manure might be a bit too much for the peas, the lush
growth is extremely impressive but at the expense of the crop I fear. We are not sure if they are peas or mange
tout though as for the third year running we forgot to label them when they
were planted into the ground, thinking that there was no way we would forget
which ones are which. The crop we are
getting is all being eaten like mange tout and everything is being scoffed.
I’ll let a couple of them mature enough and see which one produces the peas in
a few days, but regardless of which ones they are they are still delicious.
One of the glorious things about this productive time of
year in the vegetable patch is being able to keep things simple and not to rely
on anything processed or tinned. If you
haven’t grown any vegetables this year then you might like to know about the
new exciting venture from Harry’s Restaurant in Bridgend. By the end of this
month Donal from Harry’s will have set up their own market stall at the restaurant
selling all of their own home grown crops from their walled garden.
Harry’s Market Stall
Donal initially took the market stall out for a test run
last week and set up in the Squealin’ Pig car park , Muff as part of the
festival . Donal was amazed at the response.
"The stall went way better than expected" he tells me. “Most customers came because they saw us
advertising the stall on facebook and twitter and everyone was commenting on
how hard it is to get proper vegetables.” Donal gave customers a taste of
things to come “We just had to give people a taste of a proper season tomatoes
and they were sold (they are as sweet as strawberries)!”
“We will definitely be doing it again. We are going to start
a weekly vegetable and food market in Harry’s every Saturday morning. There
will be an added bonus of a few other Inishowen producers coming along and
selling quality produce too,” he tells me. “With the help of other local
growers including An Grianan Farm and Whiteoaks we hope to offer year round local
vegetables from the weekly stall.”
Donal also thinks that their own grown chemical free produce
from their own walled garden is why the restaurant received the accolade of
“The Best in Ireland” food award last year and has been nominated in the Food
& Wine Magazine Awards. Donal tells
us more “The magazine announced that we are the ONLY Donegal (or Derry)
Restaurant Nominated this year in any category! Our Head Chef Raymond Moran is
up against the cream of Ulster in the "Best Chef" category and we are
up for "Best Restaurant" in Ulster Category! We are also one of 10
shortlisted in the ALL-IRELAND "Best Casual Dining" category. "Growing
our own food is the best thing we have ever done in the restaurant and has
lifted the quality and flavour of all our dishes."
It’s taken a couple of years but the walled garden has
reached the stage where the fresh herbs and vegetables not only supply the
restaurant, they have a surplus to pass on to customers. No additives, no chemicals, no refined sugar
or added salt. Just fresh tasty food ranging from a great selection of salad
crops to tomatoes, turnips, beetroot, scallions, cucumbers, courgettes, spinach
and broad beans. The stall will be open
before the end of the month so check out their facebook and twitter pages to be
kept up to date.
