Frozen veg

We had the first winter frost last night and the veg were looking lovely this morning.

Wintry spring cabbage

Overwintering broad bean Aguadulce

The last remaining red cabbage

Pretty secondary cabbage growth

So now it will be time for a taste test to see whether kale, parsnip and Brussels sprouts are really sweeter after being frosted.

Frosted kale

Yesterday the neighbouring farm held a classic tractor ploughing competition and I was tempted to ask some of them to come and do our bottom paddock afterwards. Hope our soil will be like this:

Nicely ploughed

Tomorrow the first of the many black plastic sheets should come off and preparation of a new soft fruit area will begin, using the failed tent boat garage structure as the basis for a fruit cage. There's a use for everything.

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2015 be a bountiful year!

December sunshine

We finished our last onion on 1 December and had to buy some at the supermarket this week. It felt wrong. The remainder of the carrots went into the freezer so we're now down to kale (en masse), spring cabbage, sprouts, leeks, neeps, parsnips, celeriac and Swiss chard. Not bad. From some angles the veg garden still looks really busy:

The busy third of the veg garden

 To my delight, I discovered another Romanesco in the brassica overspill section:

 Hidden Romanesco

All the tender perennials are tucked up in the conservatory where they are doing very well, especially the Vietnamese coriander.

Big Vietnamese coriander and small lemon verbena

Thyme grown from seed

What's not doing so well is my Meyer lemon tree. I think I seriously overwatered it. It has four ripening fruits but only two leaves. I've now moved it into the warm kitchen, on to a sunny windowsill, to dry it out and see if it recovers. Maybe Scottish lemons is pushing it a bit, but you've got to try these things.

Please survive, little lemon tree!

I've had a greenhouse clear-out. The tomato plants are all on the compost heap, and we had the last little green tomatoes yesterday. Now it's all salad in the greenhouse, with a few sweet peas and some perpetual strawberries (will we have a few strawberries for Christmas?). I've potted up a whole lot of quick-growing tatsoi so hopefully we'll get some winter salad leaves or at least early spring ones.

The winter salad project

Inside, the wine keeps maturing, though we've already drunk three bottles of carrot wine (out of five) so there might be supply issues at some stage.

 Rosehip, parsnip and carrot & ginger wines on the go

The felines are still providing excellent rodent control, which is sorely needed. I found one celeriac totally chomped and even saw the blasted vole running off (no feline in sight unfortunately).

Compost cat

Of course, the weather has turned since I took these photos, but it's nice to remember that we had beautiful sunshine at the beginning of December and that it was warm enough to sit out! So I leave you with a picture of the magnificent Russell enjoying the rays.

Sun-loving chickens