Archive for November, 2010

The garden in late November

Being the end of November and bitterly cold, there’s nothing much going on in our garden at the moment so I thought I’d post a picture of how the back garden as a whole looks, to put everything in context. I took this photo from the top of a flight of steps leading down from our back door. From the bottom of the steps to the green door is about 4.5 metres. As you can see, it’s tiny by a lot of people’s standards and yet we still manage to grow quite a bit of stuff! I say there’s nothing much growing, but I have still managed to pick a bit of fresh mint to make tea with and I did also pick some Jerusalem artichokes to put in a risotto last night. (In case you’re wondering, you can just about see the Jerusalem artichokes in the photo – they’re the two dead stalks to the right of the compost bin, in the raised bed.) Were I ever to become a proud allotment holder, Jerusalem artichokes would definitely be a “must grow” crop – they’re extremely tasty, and very low maintenance too!

Garlic’s taking its time

Three of the normal-sized garlic cloves I’ve planted have finally poked their heads above the parapet, so to speak.  But no sign of the elephant garlic yet.  I have a feeling that it might be something to do with the torrential rain we’ve been having recently, which has turned the compost in my pots to a sort of spongy mess.   Will leave all the garlic cloves in situ for a bit and see what happens, although surely there should have been signs of life by now?