Growing Fast

My only complaint is that the vegetables are growing too fast!

I have a friend over having a look at the contents of the polytunnel. “You can eat those,” he says pointing to the tops to the white turnips. “They are not to everyone’s taste but if you add a bit of lemon it takes away the bitterness.” 

Later that day I thought I would give it a go.  These turnips are just one of the vegetables growing at break neck speed in the tunnel.  If this is my only complaint about the recent heatwave and sunny days then I am a lucky man.  My lad says that staring at plants stops them from growing, much in the same way a watched kettle never boils. One day when I have the time I will try and prove him wrong.

Turnip Tops

Back to the turnip tops.  I prepared them in the same manner I do the spinach, which is to rip the leaves up and throw them into a pan after rinsing. I don’t add any more water as this makes the leaves too mushy. Then I cooked them for a while until they seemed to boil down to nothing.  Fresh turnip tops are hairy - and still are when they have been boiled up, combine this with the most bitter “green” taste and the slimy consistency of a slug trail and ‘voila’ you have cooked turnip- tops. I can eat most things that come out of the garden but the green mush ended up in the dogs bowl.

As things are growing so quickly in the glorious sunshine, it’s the compost bin that seems to be devouring most of my produce as the dogs can only eat a small proportion of boiled up leaves.  The quality of the crops isn’t good enough in my eyes to give away to people either. The spinach both inside and outside of the tunnel seemed to go from small fresh salad leaves straight to flowering and bolting without the abundance of growth I expected. I have sown a second batch this week so hopefully these might produce a better crop later in the season. I have had to dig up most of the radish and mustard too as these have got too leathery. 

Manure and the law

I don’t class the produce I compost as wasted though, it’s a green manure which will be ready for next year. I might need more of it some next year as I have heard some disturbing news about a local supplier of my well rotted horse muck.  This very generous man used to leave the muck under some trees down a laneway near his farm so it was accessible to us to collect with bags and throw into the boot of the car.  The council have had a complaint from a passing pedestrian and have made a decision to prosecute him for illegal dumping. In America residents are being imprisoned for growing veggies in their front gardens, let’s hope our local justice system sees sense and the court sees his only action is to help gardeners feed the land.

Boxed in

I like box (buxus sempervirens) especially when grown as a hedge as they are slow to get out of shape.  These tough shrubs, unlike my vegetables don’t seem to grow even when you don’t look at them and are a real testament to patience.  I had two very large specimens on either side of the front door that had probably taken about 30 years to form into two identical looking circular space ships.  As art forms they were fine, but come a wet day and you couldn;t help brushing past them coming through the door, getting everything soaked.  I tried trimming them back last year but they are like a balloon, take away the surface and there’s nothing left on the inside. I don’t want to have to wait years for them to grow back if I cut them right back so out they came. They didn’t put up too much resistance either as the roots were shallow enough. I am keeping the legacy of the box shrubs alive though as I took 40 cuttings before I hacked them back.  I might use them to set a hedge somewhere in the future. The ground where the shrubs are taken out probably hasn’t seen any compost or bulking agents since they were planted so will need a bit of TLC before anything goes in.

It’s a bit strange going out of the door now as it feels very open, but we are getting more light into the house through the door glass and I am sure the bare patches will soon be planted up, maybe with vegetables, as thankfully it’s not illegal here.