A childhood memory

Source: https://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/123890316.jpg

I was thinking about my garden the other day, and out of a sudden a memory of the garden in my childhood home popped to my mind. 

When I was little, my parents, both young teachers just a couple of years out of university, got jobs in a primary school and a preschool in a small village (pictured above) not far from where I was born. The jobs came with a house: a very old, neglected, pre-WWII house typical for that part of the country, which had been German up until the end of the war. The house was attached to the primary school; in the picture below the school building can be seen on the left, the house is in the middle, and the building on the right is a barn.

I spend most of my childhood there, from the age of 5 to 18. 

Source: an old German postcard

There was a really big garden there, probably four times the size of the garden I have now. We had a huge strawberry patch, with probably about 100 plants; several black, red and white currant bushes (white was my favourite!), a large Japanese quince bush, five or six peach trees, a very old and huge pear tree, loads of tomatoes, courgettes and cucumbers (all out in the garden, no greenhouse!), wild strawberry bushes dotted all over the place and probably many other things I can no longer remember. The gate was guarded by a giant mulberry tree, very popular with all the school kids. Behind the garden, there was a large and old orchard, a real jungle after many years of neglect. We had apple and plum trees there. I remember sitting high up on a branch and eating apples straight from the tree!

Being a kid, my only job in that garden was weeding (and harvesting - but that was pure pleasure!). I didn't realise it at the time, but my parents must have put an awful lot of work into it - the soil was very poor and sandy (the opposite of the heavy clay I have now); I remember them making buckets of nettle 'tea' and getting bags of manure from the nearby farm to improve it. In addition, the hot and dry summers meant long hours of expensive watering. My parents were both raised in cities, without much gardening knowledge or experience, so they learnt everything on the go. It is only now that I have my own garden that I can fully comprehend the importance of all the hard work they did - and I can sort of understand why, when my parents moved to the house they live in now, my mum decided not to grow any more vegetables and only keeps ornamentals now.

It's a very fond memory, as are all my memories from that time. I don't think I fully appreciated it when I was a kid, but it was a truly great place to live, and I think deep inside that was the reason I always wanted to move back to the countryside. I am so happy that dream has now come true!

Garden update: new additions, changes and insane weather!

This winter has been very mild; we have only had a few frosty nights and zero snow. For several weeks the weather was very spring-like, and the plants in my garden started waking up. 

My apple tree has quite a few big, fat buds on it. 

The rhubarb has shown its face. 

The flower bulbs I found buried in the potato planter, and scattered all over the garden back in autumn, have all sprouted. I'm not sure what they are, possibly daffodils, but it definitely looks like I'll have some flowers this spring! 

The garlic and the onions I planted in October seem to be doing particularly well, although I am not sure if they are supposed to look like this in the middle of the winter! This is my first year of gardening so I really don't know if I should be happy or worried...

Buds on the apple tree

Garlic jungle! No picture of onions as their bed is covered with fleece.

Baby rhubarb

Daffodils (I think??) 

There are a few new additions to my garden as well. I  wanted to grow kale, and while researching the subject I discovered a perennial variety of this lovely vegetable. It's called Daubenton's Kale, apparently a very old variety, and is supposed to be very hardy. When I bought it online, the orders were limited to 1 plant per customer, which was a bit disappointing, but then it is supposed to grow very tall (up to 2 metres!) so if all goes well I should have enough leaves just from this one plant. I can also propagate it from cuttings if needed. At the moment it's sitting in a fleece tent, to protect it from slugs and snails until it's established and starts growing.

Another newbie is a second apple tree - Golden Delicious. We love apples so I thought doubling my chances of getting a decent crop would be a good idea :-) I don't expect much from them this year, but hopefully by 2018 they will be established enough to start producing.

And lastly, not a plant but certainly a very important part of my garden - a compost bin. It's a 300-litre bin, which I hope will be enough for our needs. So far the council has been collecting all of our green waste, but no more, I shall start producing my own compost now! Although first I need to find a good spot for it. The first place I put it in didn't quite work - the bin (weighed down with several bricks, mind you!) got blown away last night by the insane wind (or was it a hurricane!) that's been torturing us for a couple of days now. There's been some damage to the garden but I have rectified all that I could, and I hope the plants are resilient enough to survive.

Daubenton's perennial kale, resting under its fleece tent

New apple tree - Golden Delicious

Brand new compost bin

Christmas presents and cooking with Outlander

Santa was very good to me this Christmas, I got a tonne of books! As a fan of the Outlander TV series,  I was very pleased to discover the entire collection of the books it's based on, as well as a beautiful cook book featuring many of the dishes mentioned throughout the story. It's full of photos, excerpts from Outlander and recipes that I know I am definitely going to try. I have already made two things from the book: oat & honey bread (and rolls) and bridies.

The bread recipe yielded 6 rolls and 1 small loaf of bread. They came out really nice, soft, slightly sweet and full of oaty goodness. Great with cheese and pickle! I will definitely be making them again soon!

The bridies (filled pastries) were surprisingly simple to make. This recipe is supposed to make 8 six-inch bridies: 4 vegetarian and 4 filled with beef. I managed to get 12 and was still left with a huge amount of the veggie filling (enough for at least another 4!) but ran out of pastry. I think I will make them again as they were utterly delicious, hot or cold, but I will adjust the quantities of ingredients.