The Secret Garden Club

Primroses at Crews hill

2012-03-07T07:19:00.001-08:00

Zia and I visited Crews Hill this morning to buy plants and garner inspiration. The last couple of days I've had Jim the Irish carpenter doing a bit more work in the garden; he finished off the last raised bed framing them with recycled wooden sleepers. He can't properly finish the work however as a ton, yes literally a ton, of rubble has been tipped into the corner of my garden by one of the characters who lives next door in the council flats. This guy is a hoarder and deposits his 'finds' in the local area, like a magpie. The council are dragging their feet about removing the rubble. So we wait.
I'm a big blousy girl and I think Zia is a little more classy than I. I've recently ordered clematis, which are a bit of a fetish with me, and everytime I go for the big garish blooms with Stupa like layers, extraordinary and surreal, whereas Zia veers towards tinier daintier flowers.
I got a kick out of these vibrant primroses this morning. There is something very 50s and suburban, a little bit municipal even, about these flowers in their Mad Men colours. I'd quite like to do a whole garden like that, in really 'bad taste'.

I also invested in some corms, a word I've only just learnt but it means tubers or roots. Again Dahlias, totally effing love them! I've got a hat that looks like a dahlia so I'm growing some in the same shade of Schiaparelli pink.

I saw some triffid like carnivorous plants.

I bought a kumquat for £25 which I have to keep inside until the end of May. Groan. I loathe indoor plants. But if I want kumquats for my saumon en papillote dish then I must put up with it.

March 18th: another smoking workshop

2012-03-02T01:30:00.000-08:00

It may be Mother's Day and playing about with fire and food might be considered Man's work, but both men and women are welcome to come and learn how to smoke at our next Secret Garden Club event: How to smoke. Tickets are £60, you will learn to hot, cold and tea smoke with a bare minimum of equipment and then enjoy a smoked supper cooked by MsMarmite.
Last time there was a smoked lemonade cocktail, hickory smoked salmon, smoked cheese and garlic toasties, marinated smoked tofu and pumpkin, and smoked baked apples.

Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137628

Spuds you like

2012-02-28T01:41:00.001-08:00

We were filmed by the BBC on Sunday. Zia, in her nervousness, forgot to get her wellies on. She doesn't always garden in Kurt Geiger heels! Watch us next Sunday on BBC breakfast news talking about potatoes and Pop ups!

Zia Mays

The Secret Garden Club met on Sunday February 26th to discuss potatoes - including a look at heritage varieties, some tips on growing in restricted space and how to raise a successful crop out in the open ground. The afternoon began with a potato vodka cocktail garnished with potato crisps before moving out into the garden.

I'm afraid I drank it before I could take the picture! But revelation! Potato vodka is soo much smoother than grain vodka. I bought Chase, the only potato vodka available in the UK.

There are something like 450-500 varieties grown in the UK, but only a few of these ever make it into the shops. To find some of the more unusual potatoes, you’ll need to look online for mail order suppliers, at Farmers’ Markets … or grow them yourself.

Clockwise from top right: Golden wonder, Orla, Salad Blue, Highland Burgundy, Mayan Gold, Pink Fir apple (centre left). Am I the only person that didn't know Golden Wonder crisps were named after the variety of potato? (MsM)

On Sunday, we looked at some heritage varieties all grown in the UK, but generally only available to grow or from specialist suppliers such as Carrolls.

Highland Burgundy – a close relative of ancient South American potatoes, but this particular strain was probably cultivated around 80 years ago.
Mayan Gold – these have been bred specifically in Scotland from an ancient Peruvian potato, Solanum phureja.
Salad Blue – the deep blue colour comes from anthocyanins in the flesh. Bred by the Victorians in Scotland
Golden Wonder – a very floury maincrop potato. Great for baking and chips … and used to make potato crisps!
Pink Fir Apple – originally imported into Britain in 1850 and bred for its fine flavour. Unusually, it’s a maincrop potato which boils well and is great for salads.

Here they are cut up: amazing colours!

Potato jargon

Terms like waxy and floury refer to the texture of the potato. Waxy potatoes have the texture you associate with new potatoes and potatoes in salad. Floury is that fluffiness you get inside baking and roasted potatoes when cooked.

These textures are determined by the water content of the potato. A high water content makes for a waxy spud. High dry matter makes the potato floury, and floury potatoes are generally not good for boiling: they will break down in the pan.

A common complaint of potato growers is that the potatoes break down in the pan when they boil them, even if they are Charlottes, or another salad type. The likelihood is that the growing conditions were just too dry – they didn’t get watered often enough.

The terms 1st Early, 2nd Early and Maincrop are often used to describe seed potatoes and simply refer to the amount of time take to mature.

First early potatoes produce usable tubers in 100-110 days after planting;
Second earlies in 110-120 days;
Early maincrops after 120-125 days;
Maincrops produce tubers after 125-140 days.

So, for example, you can plant early potatoes in late summer in order to have freshly dug new potatoes on Christmas Day. They are still early potatoes, regardless of the type of year they are planted.

There’s no doubt that growing potatoes in the open ground, whether a garden bed or an allotment, takes up a lot of space. And a lot of space is usually something the urban gardener doesn’t have.

However, you don’t have to grow them in the open ground at all. You can grow potatoes in a container. Because of the way in which potatoes are looked after while they’re growing, the best type of container to use is a strong sack … or indeed, a bin liner.

You might have seen advertisements in the Sunday magazines for special potato sacks, but you don’t need them. A nice strong black binbag will do. Or a compost bag, so long as it has that black lining inside. The black lining is to keep the light out, so that the potatoes inside don’t go green.

Growing in a container

The potatoes we planted in the compost bags on Sunday are a variety called Lady Christl and they are my favourite new potato. They are always ready nice and early, they have beautiful, unblemished yellow skins and creamy white flesh. The potato is firm with a delicate nutty flavour and they make a delicious salad.

When we planted them, the Lady Christl potatoes had little shoots emerging. This means the potatoes have been chitted, ie, stored in a light cool place so that the shoots develop. Note, a light cool place. If you want to store potatoes for eating, keep them in the dark. If you want to store them before planting, keep them in the light.

It’s not essential to chit potatoes but it does get them off to a head start in the ground. It also helps you when you’re planting them out as you can see where the shoots will develop and plant them the right way up.

Each compost bag will take three seed potatoes, seed potatoes being the starter which will grow into new potato plants. From each seed potato you should be able to harvest around eight or nine eating potatoes.

It’s not just the space-saving aspect: there are lots of advantages to growing potatoes in a container:

Less hard work – no digging;
Portability 1 – if you get a bad weather warning (eg, frost) when the plants are young and tender, you can move them indoors/under cover;
Portability 2 – you can place the bags more or less wherever you like.
Less risk of disease – your purpose-bought compost shouldn’t be harbouring blight spores, eelworms or any other nasties;
You don’t need to dig out the potatoes with a fork or spade, so there is little or no chance of damaging the spuds when harvesting;
Gardeners often miss very small potatoes and leave them in the ground over winter. By growing them in a bag you can ensure you harvest your entire crop.

1) The first thing to do is to put about three inches of compost in the bottom of the bag, spread evenly. Make it easier for yourself by rolling the sides of the bag down so that your bag is about six inches tall. You’ll want the sides rolled down anyway after you plant the potatoes – if you keep the bags at full height your potatoes will never see the sun and they won’t grow.

2) Next you want to take a sharpened pencil or sharp stick and make some drainage holes in the bottom of your potato bag. This is very important – you do not want waterlogged potatoes. They will rot, and they will stink while they’re doing it.

So, make about 5-6 drainage holes at the foot of each bag.

3) Now place three potatoes into the bag. Space them out evenly.

Always use seed potatoes, ie, bought from a nursery or garden centre specifically for growing. Seed potatoes should be guaranteed free from viruses, which culinary potatoes won’t be. Potatoes in the shops may have been sprayed with a shoot suppressant.

Potatoes in the shops may not have been grown in the UK and so may not be well adapted to grow here. Many, if not most, of the seed potatoes grown in the UK come from Scotland and are bred to grow well in our conditions.

4) The potatoes should go into the sack with the chits uppermost.

Yup, see them little roots...they go upwards, those will be the shoots growing above the ground to grab some sunlight for the plant.

You can grow potatoes without chitting them first but they take longer to get going. You can also cut seed potatoes up into divisions each with its own little chit and plant them individually, but you do get bigger plants and more potatoes by planting the whole spud, chits and all.

5) Once the potatoes are in, cover them with more compost: aim to have a layer of compost about 2-3 inches thick over the chits.

6) Finally, water them lightly. They don’t need to be soaked. Check that water is seeping out of the drainage holes.

7) Put the potato bag outside somewhere light and somewhere reasonably sheltered.

You’ll need to bring the bag inside if a frost is forecast. It’s not unusual to get frost in March in London; much more unusual in April, although we’ve had late frosts in each of the last two years.

8) After about 2-3 weeks you’ll see the dark green leaves poking up through the soil surface. Once the leaves are about 3-4 inches above the surface of the compost, add more compost to the bag, until the green tops are only just visible above the soil surface.

You’ll probably need to starting unroll the sides to accommodate the new compost as well. This is an ongoing process. Every time the plant grows so that you have about 3-4 inches of stem and leaves above the surface, unroll the sides a little more and add more compost.

If it rains a couple of times a week, you probably won’t need to water them. But do check your compost: if it’s very dry, then water it. Make sure any excess water is running out through those drainage holes. If it rains a lot and you put your hand in and the compost is sodden, move the bag under cover for a few days to let it dry out a bit.

These are early potatoes, so will take about 100-110 days to reach maturity.

So, in about mid-June, you can put on a pair of gloves and stick your hand into the compost. If the lumps are still tiny, leave them longer. If you can feel that you have big potatoes, start harvesting.

Other signs are also useful: once the potato plant is flowering you can try digging up some spuds, or your deep green foliage might start turning yellowy and begin to wilt.

The best way to harvest here is simply to up-end the bag on to a surface and pick out the potatoes. Put the rest of the plant on the compost heap and spread the compost on your garden beds.

You can store your potatoes for quite some time. Don’t put them in the fridge (that will turn the starch in the potatoes to sugar), but do put them somewhere cool, dry and dark. If you keep them out on a rack they will go green, and they will start to sprout. Neither of these is any good for eating.

Growing in the open ground

However, there are good reasons why you might want to grow potatoes in the open ground, if you're lucky enough to have the space.

You will get higher yields, ie, more potatoes, from a plant grown in a proper bed.
They need less looking after – no fiddling around with bags.
A potato bed is more attractive than having plastic compost sacks around the place.

There is also a well-known maxim among gardeners that potatoes help to break up your soil. They’re a popular choice for growing in new territory for that reason. I have my own thoughts on this. I don’t think it’s the potatoes that break up the soil at all. I think it’s you, the gardener. Growing potatoes here in the open ground involves hard manual labour.

You have to dig a trench. You add organic matter, or fertiliser, maybe.
You earth up several times.
You dig deep again to harvest the potatoes.

So, yes, potatoes are a great crop for breaking up the soil. But it won’t happen by magic. It will be your hard effort that does the work.

One extra benefit of growing potatoes in new ground, though, is that they have big leaves and plenty of them, which makes for a good natural weed suppressant. Weeds tend not to grow underneath.

The first step is to dig a trench. Anywhere from 3 to 8 inches deep, say about five inches is best.

You might like to add some potato fertiliser to the bottom of the trench. It may well help to increase the yield. Fertiliser formulated for potatoes will be high in nitrogen, so any nitrogen-rich fertiliser will do fine. Incidentally, potatoes like slightly acid soil. If you’re gardening in London and you have heavy clay soil, you should be fine, as clay tends to be slightly acid itself.

The potatoes we planted on Sunday were Pink Fir Apples. This is a maincrop potato, and normally you would plant maincrops in April, and start harvesting in August or September. Planted this early, they will need some protection against cold.

Lay your potatoes, chits uppermost at the bottom of the trench. The potatoes should be 12-18 inches apart and the rows should be spaced 2ft apart. Water lightly.

Cover carefully with soil. Ideally you want to finish off with a little ridge where the plant will emerge – your first piece of earthing up (it also helps you to remember where the plant is as it takes about 3-4 weeks for the shoots to appear above ground).

Once the plant has two sets of leaves, start earthing up. Earthing up involves drawing, with a hoe, soil from the area between the rows to cover most of the stem of the growing plant. Earthing up encourages the plant to produce more tubers and keeps them in the dark. The developing potatoes will turn green if exposed to the light, and the green bits are poisonous. To get a good crop of healthy potatoes, keep them dark and undercover.

In practice, earthing up isn’t essential if you have other ways of keeping potatoes under cover. Mulching the crop with grass cuttings is one way to keep the potatoes that developing dark and it’s much less strenuous than earthing up. This is also practical because the potato plants are growing as the same as your lawn starts growing, so you will have a weekly supply of grass cuttings just when you need them.

Potato problems

Potatoes grown in open ground are also more susceptible to diseases and disorders.

Blight
Eelworms
Wireworms, slugs
Frost damage

Blight

Blight is probably the most common problem. It’s a fungus-like organism, which first shows up as brown patches on leaves and blackening of the stems. If you catch it very early and remove and burn the affected material you may be able to stop it from spreading down to the tubers underground.

Blight is prevalent in summer, from about July onwards, and will spread when it’s cloudy and humid – as it often is in July. If you grow potatoes in a garden and there aren’t many other potato growers nearby you may escape blight altogether – although beware as it’s the same organism that attacks tomatoes, so you also need to have no tomato growers in the vicinity. On an allotment it can spread like wildfire.

But there are preventative measures. Early potatoes should be ready by the end of June so should avoid blight altogether. Constant checking and removal of any blotched leaves will help check the spread.

There are also blight-resistant varieties of potatoes, notably Sarpo. Sarpo Mira is well thought of – again, not a variety you’ll find in the shops but a good one to grow.

Potato eelworm

You might also get potato eelworm cysts. You dig up the crop and instead of potatoes you have tiny white or yellow cysts on the underground stems. There’s no chemical treatment available: practise good crop rotation. Eelworms don’t move much so just because they’re in one bed doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be in the next-door bed. Again, grow only earlies. They’ll be ready to harvest before the eelworm reaches the harmful phase of its life cycle. There are some resistant varieties: try Sante.

Wireworms and slugs

Wireworms will drill thin holes in your potatoes. They are thought to be a problem mainly when you grow on new ground, so constant cultivation should reduce wireworm attacks.

Slugs are more likely to be a problem if you leave the potatoes in the ground only digging them up when you need them. Try lifting and storing the crop all at once.

If slugs are a big problem, apply a nematode solution on the patch before you plant the potatoes.

Frost damage

Another potential problem which should be taken into account is frost damage – potato plants are vulnerable to frost and so can be affected by a late frost. There was one very late frost in London in May in 2010 – wiped out my early potatoes, and this year, I lost 2-3 plants to a mild frost in April.

That April the maincrop potatoes were still underground and hadn’t yet sprouted. They were fine. It was only the earlies which were affected.

Having said all this about hard work and diseases and problems, I’ve made growing potatoes sound like very hard work, and it’s true that they do require a certain amount of physical effort to grow outdoors.

But of all the problems I’ve outlined above, late frost is the only one I’ve ever personally suffered from.

And of course if you grow in a container, these problems shouldn’t arise at all.

Menu for tomorrows potato Secret Garden Club

2012-02-25T04:05:00.001-08:00

Sweet potato cocktail (if this sounds bizarre, remember that vodka is often made from potatoes)

Red, white and blue chips. (A diamond jubilee tribute in potato form)

Aligot (French potato dish from the Auvergne. With Tomme. Divinely stretchy and cheesy)

Truffade (served in a cast iron pan. Lovely crunchy bits at the bottom)

Chocolate Potato Cake

Still tickets left for tomorrow, book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137626
£45 for workshop and meal.

The BBC are coming to film tomorrow too!

Red, white and blue - the amazing variety of heritage potatoes

2012-02-22T14:05:00.000-08:00

Clockwise from the top: Highland Burgundy, Salad Blue, Mayan Gold, Golden Wonder and Pink Fir Apple. Potatoes supplied by Carrolls, apart from the Pink Fir Apples, which are the 'model's own', as they say.

Why bother to grow potatoes, you might wonder, when they are readily available in the shops all the year round and relatively inexpensive.

Well, aside from the obvious reasons - knowing the provenance of your potato, knowing that they haven't been sprayed indiscriminately, the wonderful just-dug-up taste of new potatoes out of the ground - growing your own enables you to explore the many different types of potato you can grow easily here in the UK.

The types of potato stocked in the shops and supermarket barely scratch the surface of what's available. There are something like 450 varieties of potato grown in this country alone. Types such as Kestrel, Desiree and Romano are prevalent in the shops because they are so versatile and are equally happy to be chipped, roasted, mashed or baked. For salad potatoes, you would be forgiven for imagining that Jersey Royals and Charlottes were the only types in existence.

In fact, potatoes come in all different shapes and sizes, from the long and knobbly Pink Fir Apple, to the tiny round Whitchhills. Their flesh has different textures, from waxy new potatoes, such as Lady Christl, for salad, to fluffy insides, like Golden Wonder, ideal for baking. (Golden Wonder is, needless to say, the variety used to make a certain type of potato crisp.) They also come in different colours, as the photo above shows. British bred potatoes tend to be white or creamy fleshed, while South American (also Spanish) potatoes are much more yellow in colour. But potatoes can also come in surprising colours: dark indigo blue, or crimson, for example.

I've been tasting some of the more unusual varieties in advance of the Secret Garden Club afternoon on potatoes this Sunday. I first roasted each of the varieties here with a little olive oil and salt for 30 minutes at 200 degrees C. Next, I cut a second batch into chips and fried them in vegetable oil for around 12 minutes.

Golden Wonder - very soft and fluffy flesh - in a good way. Would make soft pillow-like mash.
Mayan Gold - more like a new potato, nutty flavour. Mayan Gold is a new variety, bred in Scotland from an ancient Peruvian strain, Solanum phureja.
Salad Blue - I fancy I can taste the blue: that very slightly iodine note you get in red cabbage and beetroot, but I'm not doing this blind, so I could just be suggestible.
Highland Burgundy - the least flavoursome, which is disappointing as they are probably the most attractive to look at. Texture is almost fudgy and taste is bland.
Pink Fir Apple - an old favourite. A waxy new potato texture (not so pronounced at this time of year) and light nutty taste. They roast beautifully, especially if you leave the skins on and let them crisp up with salt.

Come to the Secret Garden Club on Sunday to join in our heritage potato taste test, along with tips on growing potatoes, ideas for growing them in a (very) restricted space, and MsMarmiteLover's inspirational potato-themed feast to finish off the afternoon.

This Sunday, a potato workshop with aligot

2012-02-22T02:03:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, Zia Mays will be giving a workshop on all the different kinds of potatoes you can grow: from earlies to lates, russets to purples and whites, in gardens or allotments or even on balconies, followed by a meal at The Underground Restaurant. I'll be cooking one of my favourite French potato dishes...aligot.
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137626

Aligot: in this Auvergne regional French potato dish the potatoes are not sautéed as in Truffade but mashed. It lines your stomach like a four-tog duvet against the winter cold.
Mashed potato doesn't really cover it as a description: although the potatoes are mashed, combined with a local cheese... a fresh 'Tomme'. You work the potato and other ingredients together until it's stretchy. It's known rather romantically in France as the 'ribbon of friendship'.
In Aubrac and Aurillac (where they have an annual street theatre festival) it's sold in the market place in huge cast iron frying pans or deep pots, lifting it again and again, displaying it's gaping trails of cheese...

Here is the recipe:

1 kilo of floury potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
2 crushed cloves of garlic, peeled
100g of butter
400g of fresh Tomme cheese, cut into small slices (leave it out of the fridge for at least two hours before using); up the proportion of cheese if you like it really stretchy!
200g of thick creme fraiche

Salt and Pepper to season

Boil the potatoes in salted water with the garlic cloves for 15 -20 minutes. When cooked, take out the garlic cloves.
Put the potatoes through a ricer (better than a masher as it stops the potatoes becoming too glutinous).
Keep back a little of the cooking water to obtain the correct consistency. Aligot is all about texture, it really depends on the type of potatoes you use too. It must not be too liquid or too stiff.
Then progressively add the butter, creme fraiche, cheese over a simmering flame. You must whip the ingredients together with a wooden spoon energetically, working it back and forth to aerate the mixture.
You season and can add some more crushed garlic at the end.
My pictures don't really do justice to this dish, I should have shown the elastic quality of the cheese but only had one set of hands!

Hand carved wooden spoons by Terence McSweeney.

Review: Making A Garden, by Matthew Wilson

2012-02-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

Matthew Wilson's Making A Garden follows his Channel 4 TV series Landscape Man, which aimed to do for gardens what Grand Designs did for building houses, with Wilson himself as the Kevin McCloud of the herbaceous border.

Wilson's writing is always considered and mainly enjoyable to read. I loved his description of Aloe vera and Agave americana: "thick fleshy leaves that feel more like polished wood, plastic or old burnished leather to the touch than living plant material". There are occasional odd turns of phrase: I think I know what he means by "potential buyers would be abhorred by the garish colours", but I'm not sure that's what he says.

It also takes a very sensual approach to garden design: Wilson considers not just the visual aspect of a garden, but its fragrance, varying the textures of plants and hard landscaping features, the effects of light and also sounds: running water, the tinkle of wind chimes or bird song. The author also pays particular attention to the type of urban garden that I and many of his readers will have: a narrow rectangle with little in the way of borrowed views or focal points. His notes on exploring different shapes within the garden and ways to make the space seem bigger are designed to avoid what he calls the washing machine effect, where plants are pressed up around the edges of the garden, leaving a blank space in the middle.

Wilson's own thoughts on planning a garden are interspersed with commentary on the couples featured in Landscape Man. It makes for quite a juxtaposition at times, since the Landscape Man couples are all attempting something on a very grand scale indeed. Less forgivably, there are two dozen pages of sketched-out garden plans at the back of the book. In vain did I try to find out some context here - where the gardens were, what was the budget, and crucially some photos of the finished article to see how the plans were realised. Frustratingly,there simply aren't any.

Herbs and medicinal plants

2012-01-30T14:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday’s Secret Garden Club afternoon explored the world ofherbs and medicinal plants. We looked at how herbs have been used both forculinary and remedial purposes, what herbs can be successfully grown, bothindoors and outdoors, how to raise them, harvest them and store them. We alsogave a brief historical overview of the use of herbs through the centuries andwe were particularly lucky to have Natasha McEnroe, the director of theFlorence Nightingale Museum, on hand to give a short talk on the contentsof Miss Nightingale’s Medicine Chest, which contained the remedies, mainlyherbal which she took to the Crimea with her and which now resides in theFlorence Nightingale Museum itself.

The workshop was not intended to attempt any sort ofdiagnosis or prescription for herbal remedies – none of us are qualified to dothis. It is always important to seek the advice of a trained professionalbefore taking any kind of medicine and herbal remedies must be used in thecorrect way and the correct dose. An overdose (or ingestion where a remedy ismeant to be used topically, for example) could be dangerous and/or toxic.

Herbs have been used both for culinary purposes and for thetreatment of ailments for centuries. Writers describing the Hanging Gardens OfBabylon, which were supposed to have been constructed around 600BC,included thyme, coriander, saffroncrocuses, anise, poppy, rosemary, and hemp among the plants theylisted.

People have been reserving patches of ground to cultivateherbs for hundreds of years. In this country, the physic or infirmary gardenwas an important part of the grounds in a monastery. Monks not only cultivated fruit, vegetables and herbs fortheir own use, but often for the wider community as well. The monasteryinfirmary treated the sick from the villages nearby and remedies made from thephysic garden were the main means of treatment.

Herbs grown for culinary and medicinal use in the mediaevalmonasteries included cumin, fennel, comfrey, feverfew, yarrow, pimpernel,rosemary, sage, rue, lavender, rose, iris, mint, lovage and pennyroyal. You’dalso find mint and wormwood in the kitchen garden

Recreations of monastic herb gardens can be found at

As long ago as 1652, Nicolas Culpeper, a herbalist whoworked in London – and a radical who was way ahead of his time in many respects- wrote two books, The English Physician and The Complete Herbal, whichdocumented the herbal medicine used at the time and was hugely influential.

Culpeper was a radical in many ways – he was accused ofwitchcraft during the English Civil War – one thing which shows the state ofmedicine at the time is that he was considered highly eccentric because heinsisted on examining his patients instead of just examining their urine.

The herbs

I've documented the individual herbs in the Secret Garden in the Plant List page. At the moment, the garden contains:

Bay
Dwarf comfrey
Echinacea
Fennel
French marjoram
French tarragon
Golden thyme
Japanese parsley
Lavender
Lemon balm
Mint
Moroccan mint
Oregano, also Golden Oregano
Parsley, both flat-leaved and curly
Pineapple mint
Rosemary, both Rosemary 'Gorzia' and 'Miss Jessopps Upright'

and also Aloe vera, which isn't, of course, a herb, but certainly counts as a medicinal plant.

Coriander, grown as microleaves

Coriander has a tendency to bolt, ie, set seed before it's produced much in the way of leaf. My solution to this problem was to grow it to harvest as microleaves.

You’ll have seen microleaves on your restaurant plate or inthe supermarket. Coriander is a goodherb to try this way, because you get all the flavour of the coriander even though you are harvesting it when the leaves are still very small. Long before you get to the bolting stage, anyway.

The plants will be grown for just 4-6 weeks so you don’twant to waste a load of compost on a deep pot. I find using an ordinary seedtray works perfectly well. Make sure it has the drainage holes at thebottom.

Fill with compost, water it well and let it drain.

Firm it lightly, then sprinkle over your seeds. You can sow more thickly than you usually would, because you’re not trying to raisefully-grown plants. Cover the seeds lightly with soil. Then – if you're sowing early in the year - cover the seed tray with a plastic bag or its own lid (from April onwards, you won't need the protective covering). Put it ona sunny windowsill and wait for the seedlings to come up – from 3 days in spring and summertime to aweek or 10 days if you sow earlier.

Once they’ve germinated remove the lid. The next day, checkto see if they need any more water. If in doubt, don’t water – you are morelikely to drown emerging seedlings than to starve them.

Start cutting when the leaves are substantial enough – whenthe plant is about an inch or two high. Don’t be tempted to let them grow on –the tray is too shallow to let the roots develop properly and you’ll getstraggly plants which bolt.

I usually keep a couple of trays going at once to keep thesupply going.

Growing basil

After a fair bit of experimentation, I’ve decided basil isbest grown indoors in the UK. It’s not so much the climate as basil’sfatal attraction to aphids, or greenfly, when grown outdoors.

Basil is also one of those herbs where you want lovely biglush leaves – outdoors, basil always gets straggly very quickly.

So, it’s pots on the windowsill within arm’s length so that you can snip offleaves whenever you want.

Basil likes lots of light. It’s very early to sow basil inJanuary and it won’t really get going until the days get longer in March. But you’ll still get a head start.

Fill your pot with agood rich compost – multipurpose is fine – and firm it lightly. Water well andlet it drain. Sprinkle the basil seeds over the compost, and just cover –very thinly – with soil. Put the pot on a sunny windowsill.

Seeds will germinate within a week – in about 3 days in highsummer.

Let each plant grow until it has at least 4 leaves beforecutting any and always leave each stalk with at least 2 true leaves to enableit to regrow after harvesting.

One of the questions I’m often asked is “Why not just grow basil from a pot bought at the supermarket?”

The answer is that supermarket pots of herbs are grown purely to produce a crop of leaves for a single occasion – the time that you buy it. The plant will have been raised under intense lights to grow as quickly as possible. It will not have been given time to put down a proper root system so the plants are essentially weak.

The soil it’s in is almost certainly sterilised: the last thing the supermarket wants is for you to find greenfly or other bugs in there. So there won’t be much in the way of nutrients to sustain the plant after you get it home and starting cutting its leaves off – which will reduce the plant’s ability to photosynthesise.

The plant you raise from seed should keep going all summer. It will have good rich soil, it will have been properly watered, and a decent root system.

And finally, I’ve only ever found ordinary sweet basil in the shops, which is a shame, because there are wonderful varieties of basil which are really just as easy to grow.

Having said all that, I do find that Waitrose’s basil pots keep going longer than anyone else’s and I usually buy a Waitrose pot in February and it should last until April when my own homegrown ones get going. Keep watering it well.

Vertical gardening

If you don’t have space to let your herbs spread out, whynot let them grow upwards? I’m sure you’ve all seen amazing vertical gardens atChelsea or Hampton Court Flower show – here’s a very small-scale domesticversion, but it uses the same principle.

This is an effective way to grow microleaves or small plants– thyme, basil, parsley, coriander, chervil, for instance. Take an over-the-door storage hanger, for example, one with slanting pockets for documents, or shoes.Try to get a plasticised one – a plain cloth one will be too leaky and will look very unattractive.

The first thing to do is to make some drainage holes at thebottom of each pocket – this is very important because otherwise you will waterlog your plants. Next add a little soil into each – don’t overfill or you’llspill. Then sow your seeds or insert your seedlings.

Finally, find a place to hang it. On an outside door mightbe the best to get the sun. Indoors, you’ll need somewhere facing a sunnywindow.

This isn’t a long-term herb garden, but it will provide youwith fresh herbs of your choice for the best part of a season in a small space.

Harvesting - general guidelines

Harvest herbs by cutting little and often. Don’t cut theplant right back to a bare stem, or it won't recover.
Harvest before the herb flowers - the leaves will be less flavoursome after the plant has flowered.
Always cut the leaves rather thanpulling at them – you may weaken the plant.
The best time of day to harvest herbs is the late morning –the dew will have dried off the leaves and the sun (hopefully there will besun) will have warmed them enough to intensify the flavour of the volatileoils, but not enough to dry them out.
If your herbs do flower, let them go on to set seed, which you can then save for the next year.

Saving seed

Having successfully raised your herb plants they willeventually set seed if you let them grow. Herbs like coriander, dill, fennel have seeds which are usedin the kitchen as well as the leaf.

Even if you don’t eat them, you can save the seeds to grownext year. This is one way to ensure that over the generations you get seedwhich is perfectly adapted for your conditions.

Let the plant grow and flower, after which it will set seed.Cut the seedheads before they fall to the ground. You might want to put thewhole seedhead in a paper bag and snip the stem to ensure no seed is wasted.

Next, remove the chaff – bits of stalk and seedcase. Put the seed in a jar and seal. Label it carefully.

Store seed somewhere cool, dark and dry.

There are excellent detailed instructions for saving seed from all sorts of plants, not just herbs at the Real Seed Company's site at http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html.

Storing herbs

When fresh herbs are unobtainable, or not at their best, it's good to have some preserved for use at any time. There are a number of ways you can do this.

Drying

Some herbs dry better than others: oregano, tarragon, bayleaves are all good. Basil is useless, and I can’t really get on with driedparsley. Thankfully parsley freezes well.

To dry herbs, pick a big bunch on long stalks. Remove anybrown or damaged leaves and check over for insects and mites. Wash and dry ifnecessary. Tie the stems together and wrap loosely in muslin or put them inlarge paper bag. Close the bag around the bottom of the stems and punch someair holes at the top of the bag.

Find somewhere warm, and well-ventilated without beingdraughty, where you can hang your herbs up. If you can’t hang them up, then laythem out singly with space around each stem on a tray. Under the rafters in the loft, an airing cupboard, or acupboard under the stairs are both good. I dry most things over the cooker hood.

Leave the herbs until completely dry, then transfer to ajar. Try not to break up the leaves – they will retain their flavour better ifyou crumble them just before you use them. Seal tightly and store in a cool, dark, cupboard. Remember to label them properly: dried herbs do not look the same as their fresh counterparts. Use withina year or they will lose flavour and start to taste of dust. Ideally, use them withinthree months.

Freezing

Some herbs freeze very well: parsley for instance, and basilis OK as well. You can either freeze the herbs in a bag, or in ice cube trays.

When you freeze herbs in a bag, you can keep them dry.Choose the best leaves or sprigs and lay them out in a single layer, nottouching, on a tray. Place in the freezer and leave until frozen. Transfer to afreezer bag and seal. (This 2-stage freezing keeps the leaves separate in storage: if you put the leaves in the freezer bag all at once they will freeze together in a clump.)

To freeze in an ice cube, chop the herb finely, then squishinto ice cube trays. Carefully fill the tray until the herbs are just covered.Freeze, then remove from the freezer and top up each cube with water. (Again this is a 2-stage process: when you initially freeze the chopped herbs in water they will float to the top and be partially exposed to the air. Adding the extra water layer on top ensures the herbs are completely sealed in ice.) Push the cubes out of the trays, transfer to a bag andreplace in the freezer.

Frozen herbs should be used within 3 months.

Oils, vinegars and butters

You can also make herb vinegars, which are fantastic forsalad dressings, herb oils, or herb butter.

Herb vinegar is very simple – tarragon, fennel or rosemarymake gorgeous vinegars. Tarragon vinegar makes the best Bearnaise sauce.

Wash and dry the leaves, then bruise them slightly. Put themin a sterilised jar, cover with your base vinegar (could be wine, orcider vinegar) and leave somewhere warm for 2-3 weeks, giving it a good shakeevery now and then.

Strain the vinegar through a fine sieve or muslin intoanother sterilised bottle. Seal and use when required.

Herb oil is a little more complicated because there is asmall but real risk of botulism. Anything with any moisture content can contain Clostridiumbotulinum, the bacterium that causes botulism. It develops in anaerobicconditions, ie, where air is excluded, so moist herbs covered in oil could well be a breeding ground for the bacteria.

To make herb oil safely: use fresh herbs, infuse in the oil,refrigerate and use within a week. Or, dry the herbs thoroughly first, then addto the oil. More generally you can also eliminate the risk by adding acid –you’ll find a lot of commercially available garlic-in-oil uses garlic which has been preserved invinegar first.

Herb butters are delicious and deceptively simple to prepare. You can use them straightaway, orfreeze them for up to six months. First, get your butter out of the fridge to soften.Chop about a tablespoon of your chosen herbs - chives, parsley, dill andtarragon are particularly good – for every 125g of butter. Mix in well and adda little lemon juice – about a teaspoon.

Chill the butter until it’s hard enough to be shaped. Then rollit into a cylinder and wrap in clingfilm. Place in the freezer. You can then slice off a disc every time you want some herbbutter to add to your meat, a tureen of vegetables or your corn on the cob.

The Herb menu

2012-01-30T04:32:00.000-08:00

MsMarmite here: I woke with a streaming cold with the urge for an Asian style hot spicy soup. The herbs I used here, coriander and mint were part of the herb growing class that Zia Mays gave. Lemongrass on the other hand, is apparently easier to grow than one might think.

The meal was fusion in style, I was flying around my kitchen trying different things.

We started with a hot gin, lavender honey and lemon juice toddy, perfect for the frosty January weather. While the others went outside for their tutorial from Florence Nightingale museum's Natasha MacEnroe and Zia Mays, I rolled and baked the lavash, a typical Persian flat bread. In the Middle East they have an appreciation of herbs to the point that they just serve a plate of unadorned different herbs including coriander, dill, parsley and coriander which you simply wrap inside the bread.

Another herb 'by product' is fennel pollen, a fashionable ingredient amongst chefs presently. Instead of the classic blood orange and fennel salad, this time I dosed the thinly sliced orange discs with pomegranate syrup and fennel pollen. Very effective.

I had half a kilo of fresh ricotta in the fridge and mixed this with eggs and a little cream with torn up sage leaves, spooned into a muffin mould and baked for 15 to 20 minutes. They didn't last long at the table.

We finished with bay leaf and nutmeg icecream in a cornet.

Guests were lovely, the January light dimmed as we chatted over food and the fire was lit.

I'll leave Zia to describe the gardening 'arm' of our operation in the next post.

Hot sour coconut soup

Blood orange, pomegranate syrup and fennel pollen salad

Lavash with herbs

Poppy seed lavash

Sage and ricotta bakes

Secret Garden Club: My birthday competition!

2012-01-22T17:50:00.000-08:00

Spikenard

It's my birthday today. The week after, we are hosting a special Secret Garden Club (workshop and food) all about herbs or 'erbs as the Americans call them.
Astrology and herbs have strong associations: Nicholas Culpeper writes about them in his Compleat Herbal.
My sign, Aquarius is linked with
Anise (star), Curry, Spikenard and Wisteria according to this site.
To celebrate my birthday, I'm giving followers and readers a present!
To win two places please follow this blog and comment below, explaining why you should win a place at The Secret Garden Club on the 29th of January. (Leave your email).
(The date is non transferable.)

January: Culinary herbs and Medicinal Plants Workshop and Tea

2012-01-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

Another Secret Garden Club: January 29th: Herbs and Medicinal plants.

Herbs are easy and rewarding to grow, especially if you don't have much garden space. They don't need good soil. They will make the air fragrant as well as giving a lift to your cooking. They have health benefits too. We have known about medicinal plants for hundreds of years and we are in danger of forgetting their qualities.

£45 for the Sunday workshop and tea. Starts at 1.30pm
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137624

As for the tea....some ideas include:

herbal cocktails
little herb 'sandwiches' like I've seen in Persian restaurants using fresh leaves and lavash
sage and butter pasta
all kinds of pesto: from the classic basil to wild garlic
coriander and lemon grass hot and sour soup

and for the sweets:

Bay leaf ice cream
Chocolate mint leaves
Using the sweet herbs such as basil in desserts...rhubarb and basil crumble.
Blood oranges with rosemary

and of course mint tea.

The Allium family

2011-12-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

The Secret Garden Club workshop on December 21 discussed planting, growing, harvesting storing and cooking with alliums.

There are approximately 750 different varieties of allium, ranging from ornamental plants grown for their striking spherical flowerheads, to edible crops including chives, garlic, shallots, onions and leeks. The distinctive onion taste comes from sulphurous compounds found in the bulbs and/or stems of the plant.

On the whole, alliums are straightforward to grow and to look after. You'll be rewarded by always having onions or garlic on hand, as they store well, or by being able to snip a few chives from a plant growing in a pot or in the kitchen garden.

Leeks

You can buy leeks as seedlings but they are easy (and much cheaper) to grow from seed. They are usually started off in a seed bed – an area of well-drained, fine soil.

The main benefit of this is that it saves space in the spring and summer when you might need it for other veg. Starting the plants off in fine soil also helps to grow straight, undamaged plants.

Sprinkle seed evenly in the seed bed. Thin as soon as the seedlings are big enough to handle (and use the thinnings in a salad).

Traditionally you plant out leeks on the longest day of the year (ie, June 21), or most gardening books will suggest, when they are the thickness of a pencil.

When you transplant leeks you use a technique called ‘puddling in’. With a dibber, or a trowel handle, make a hole deep enough to take about two-thirds of the leek seedling.

Drop the leek in and fill the hole with water. Don’t firm the soil around the leek, just let the water and soil settle around the plant naturally.

Leeks like rich soils and plenty of water and regular feeding. Seaweed extract is excellent for them. Actually seaweed extract is excellent full stop.

Like other alliums they should be weeded regularly. Because they are tall thin plants, they don’t offer much ground cover.

Weeds compete with your crops for the water and nutrients in the soil. If they get really big they may compete for light as well, so keep the ground around the developing leek plants clear, preferably hand-weeding so that you don't damage the leek stems.

You can start harvesting leeks as soon as they look good to eat. So you can start with baby leeks in late summer and leave some to fatten up over the autumn.

Do not try to pull leeks from the top. All that will happen is that the leaves will break and leave you with a ragged stem still in the ground. Always take a fork and lift them from the bottom.

Leeks are very hardy. You can leave them in the ground over winter and they won’t come to any harm, although if the ground is frozen they will be difficult to harvest.

Here you can heel them in – this means lifting them, then laying them down side by side and covering shallowly with sand or fine compost. They’ll be quite happy like that and it will save space on the plot if you need it.

Garlic

Garlic is grown by planting individual cloves in the ground. These develop and mature as bulbs made up of many cloves themselves. Folklore has it that you should plant your garlic out on the shortest day of the year and harvest it on the longest. The development of the garlic plant is affected by day length - the increasing hours of daylight stimulate the development of the bulb - so it makes sense to plant before the days start to get longer.

It's tempting to simply plant out garlic that you buy in the supermarket – it’s cheaper than buying garlic from a plant nursery and there’s no visible difference.

You can certainly try planting culinary garlic. You’ll probably get good results. There are two reasons why you might not, though:

1. Supermarket garlic may have been imported from Spain, or France, or simply not be a variety that’s bred to thrive in our climate.

2. If you buy garlic for planting from a reputable nursery, it will be guaranteed to be virus-free.

Some soil preparation might be needed. Garlic doesn’t need very rich soil and it doesn't like fresh manure. The Secret Garden Club's soil is sticky clay, it’s a good idea to lighten the soil a bit by digging in sand, or kitchen compost, or leaf mould, or just the multipurpose compost you buy at Homebase.

Take your garlic bulb and separate it carefully into cloves. Don’t peel them.

Push each clove into the ground, upright, with the root end at the bottom. The cloves should be buried about 6mm or half an inch deep.

Firm the soil lightly over the top … and pray for cold weather. Garlic likes to chill for a while after planting before it sends out green shoots above ground. These shoots should start to show about the beginning of February but much depends on the weather conditions.

From now you don’t really need to do anything except keep the garlic bed as free of weeds as you can. Like all alliums, the way the plant grows upright means there is no ground cover to deter weeds. Hand weeding is best: if you're tempted to use a hoe, you run the risk of slicing through your developing garlic bulb.

Don’t water the allium bed either unless you are in the grip of a prolonged drought. A wet crop is more prone to softening and rotting than a dry one.

There is only really one other maintenance job to do: if you see a flower head forming, snip it off. You want the plant to focus on producing a nice big bulb, not flowers.

Have a look at your garlic on midsummer’s day – if the bulbs look plump, they can be harvested.

Shortly after midsummer, the plant will start to go brown and wilt. The leaves will almost certainly develop some rust – orangey brown spots. The collapse of the plant is a god sign that it’s ready to harvest.

Pull or dig the bulbs up straightaway. You can use them in cooking immediately, but if you want to store them to keep into autumn and over winter, they need to be dried first. Traditionally, the plants are left, unwashed, on racks in the open air to dry out and ‘bake’. This is all very well in the south of France, but given the UK's unpredictable climate, you’re better off finding somewhere sunny and well-ventilated, but indoors. A conservatory, or under a kitchen skylight, or in a greenhouse with the door and vents open are all good places. I hang mine in a plastic patio greenhouse with the door open.

After about three weeks, the skins will be papery and the stems dried out. To prepare for storage, trim the roots, and rub off the dirty outer layers – don’t peel or expose the cloves.

Tidy up the stems and leaves and trim to about 8 inches. Now the garlic bulbs can be strung up, or plaited, and hung in a light, well-ventilated place. They should last well into the New Year (if you don’t eat them all by then).

There are some intricate plaiting techniques and nothing looks better than a fat sturdy garlic plait. This website has good photo instructions for making a classic plait - of onions, but it works for garlic (and shallots as well) that looks good and will store your garlic tidily.

Onions and shallots

Much of what we’ve already discussed with garlic also applies to other alliums. Onions and shallots also like a light, well-drained soil. Don’t use manure, but add organic matter such as leaf mould, compost, or sand, to heavy soils such as London clay.

In a domestic garden, we’d recommend shallots over onions. They tend to be more expensive than onions to buy in the shops; also they are more space-efficient. One shallot set planted will split and give you many shallots to harvest. One onion set planted will give you one mature onion bulb.

Onions can be grown from seed, or from sets (miniature bulbs). Most domestic gardeners choose sets:

1. Sets are easier, less time-consuming and less susceptible to pests such as onion fly.

2. Shallots grown from seed won’t split into multiple bulbs.

There are two main advantages of growing from seed:

1. More varieties available.

2. A seed-grown onion is less likely to bolt, ie, to produce a flower head instead of a bulb. In practice you can buy heat-treated sets which are also less likely to bolt.

You can plant overwintering onion sets out in the autumn, particularly Japanese varieties. These will be ready to harvest in early summer, but they need to be used quickly – they don’t store well.

The other time to plant out onion sets is in early spring – February onwards. These onions will be ready in late July/August and can be stored for use over the autumn and winter.

Both onions and shallots should be planted out, base downwards, so that just the tip is visible above the soil surface. Unfortunately, birds seem to find these tips irresistible and will pick them out of the ground. The don’t eat the sets, but leave them lying around.

Experts like Bob Flowerdew says plant them back in again, and I’m loath to disagree with him, but I’ve always found the up-ended sets don’t replant well, so instead I cover newly planted shallots and onions with a net. Once the sets have rooted and sprouted the net can be removed.

Onions and shallots can be harvested like garlic. Leave the stems to dry out in an airy well-lit space. Then clean carefully, separate the shallot bulbs, and string up or plait. You can also hang onions and shallots up in nets if the idea of stringing or plaiting is too daunting.

Onion and shallot problems
These are not usually troublesome, usually a low-maintenance crop apart from the weeding.

If you grow from seed, onion fly can be a problem when thinning or transplanting. Some people suggest planting parsley around onion seedlings can mask the smell.

White rot can be a big problem – it’s a fungus which will persist in the soil. You'll find fluffy white mould around the base of stems and skinny, sometimes non-existent, bulbs. The crop will be unusable.

There are a couple of things you can do to fight white rot.

First of all, as soon as you find you have white rot, wash and disinfect all your tools so that you don’t spread the spores. Remove what remains of your onions and soil around the affected bulbs and incinerate it all.

Then get some Armillatox (patio disinfectant) and following the instructions for diluting it to the letter, liberally soak the affected bed. Leave it for at least three weeks before growing anything in the bed. See the Armillatox website for more information.

A less scary but more long-term possible solution works best when you are in the first few years of cultivation. Where you want to grow onions, dig out the existing compost to a depth of about a foot and start again, either with very well-rotted manure or commercial multi-purpose compost. Create raised beds for your onions and operate a no-dig policy. Avoid using the originally affected bed for onions for a good seven years. (This is what Zia is currently practising with some success on a white rot-affected site.)

Grey mould is a distinctive grey fur, and associated with onion neck rot where the bulbs go soft and brown. Excessive feeding with high nitrogen fertilisers is a strong contributory factor for this – another good reason to practise benign neglect on your onions.

Rust – some rust spots developing on garlic, onions and leeks as the plant matures is very common and needn’t be a problem.

One thing worth mentioning is that alliums don’t like acid soils. If you suspect that your soil might be acid, you can add lime to it or in a raised bed, use spent mushroom compost which has a mildly alkaline effect and is also very good for lightening heavy clay soil.

Problems with leeks

You may have problems with leek moth, which is prevalent in the south of England. The first thing you’ll notice is your leeks look ragged and stop growing. If you look closely you will see what looks like webbing or cocooning in the middle.

The best thing to do is to prevent leek moth damage in the first place. When you plant out your leeks, throw a very fine net such as Environmesh over the crop. This can be safely lifted in November when the moth is no longer active.

If you find a leek moth infestation has already taken hold you can rescue your crop. Cut the plants right down to the ground, so that you cut out all the damaged foliage and remove the caterpillars. Burn the cuttings (don’t compost or the caterpillars will survive to create another generation).

Your leeks will grow again. They won’t win any prizes at the show, but you will get edible leeks.

These leeks were trimmed to cut out evidence of leek moth and regrew quite happily.

Allium folklore - true or false?

You should plant garlic on the shortest day and harvest on the longest.

True-ish. Your garlic won’t come to any harm if you do this. Ideally plant before a cold spell (so, late autumn). Take local weather conditions into account before sticking too closely to any rules.

You should bend over the stalks of onions/garlic to help them mature.

False. Don’t do this – it will damage the stalk and could let in disease, affecting the storage life of the bulb.

You should plant onions around your carrot crops to deter carrot fly.

True-ish. This is known as companion planting and many people swear by it. Be aware though that the distinctive allium smell may also attract its own pest, the onion fly.

If you rub the cut side of an onion over a bald patch, your hair will regrow.

False. No scientific basis for onion as hair restorer.

Placing a cut onion in a room will absorb germs and bacteria.

False, although this legend is very persistent. It was a preventative used in times of plague in both UK and US when they believed disease spread through foul air or ‘miasmas’.

Other types of edible allium

Chives

These grow easily in a pot or on the open ground. Kept near the kitchen door, you will always have chives on hand to snip into salads, or on omelettes or scrambled eggs, giving your dishes a distinct but mild onion flavour. The attractive pink flowers are also edible.

Garlic chives

There’s quite a lot of confusion over plant names in the Allium family, but I’m pretty certain these are the same thing as Chinese chives. They’re certainly multi-purpose in that you can add them authentically to Chinese food but also use them interchangeably with ordinary chives. And the white flowers are also very attractive – and edible.

Egyptian walking onions

Or 'tree onions', but let’s face it, Egyptian walking onions is a much more evocative name. Now these are weird: the bulbs (or more correctly, bulbils) develop at the TOP of the stem. At the end of the season, you can harvest your onions from above ground, then gently bend the stalk over to the ground to plant one remaining bulb. Hence the plant will eventually ‘walk’ around your plot.

Sweet onions
There are sweet onions which can be eaten raw, like an apple. You can buy them in the UK – Sainsbury’s stocks them in their Taste The Difference range - but it is the Americans who are the connoisseurs of sweet onions and who selectively breed many varieties of onion specifically for their high water and sugar content.

One of the most well-known of these are Walla Walla sweets. They look just like an ordinary yellow onion and grow in or near Walla Walla in Washington State. Walla Walla sweets were originally brought to the US from Corsica at the beginning of the 20th century. They’re been selectively cultivated ever since to maximise their sweetness, which is down to a low sulphur and high water content.

Wild garlic (ramsons)
You’ll know the smell of this – it’s that gorgeous green garlic aroma you get in damp woodlands in springtime. Wild garlic has no fat bulb – you eat the leaves which have a distinct but mild garlicky taste. It’s a seasonal treat only and can be tricky to cultivate, although once it’s established it will spread very easily.

Elephant garlic

Not strictly speaking garlic, but a type of leek, elephant garlic looks to all intents and purposes like a huge bulb of garlic, made up of enormous cloves. The flavour is not as strong as 'ordinary' garlic - they are fantastic roasted underneath a joint of meat with the garlic flesh then crushed and creamed.

All about alliums - or onions without tears

2011-12-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

The roses were still in bloom in MsMarmiteLover's garden last week as we prepared for next week's Secret Garden Club, all about sowing, growing and cooking with the Allium family - garlic, onions and shallots, leeks and other less well-known relatives. Join Zia Mays and MsMarmiteLover next Wednesday for an afternoon in the Secret Garden followed by a special allium-themed afternoon tea - bookings can be made here, or from the link above.

Learn to smoke

2011-11-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Secret Garden Club returned on November 20 with a session on techniques for smoking food. Taking in tea-smoking, hot-smoking and cold-smoking, Zia Mays explained the principles of each method, using a wide variety of ingredients, while MsMarmiteLover turned the smoked foods into a delicious smoky-themed tea for everyone.

Guests were welcomed with a vodka and smoked lemonade cocktail, before the fires were lit in earnest and smoke wafted into the air.

Smoking techniques
Tea-smoking is a method of hot-smoking, ie, the food is cooked at the same time as being smoked. It uses a mix of tea leaves, brown sugar, raw rice and optional aromatics as the smoking medium. With the mix set in a pan under a steamer, the smoke generated infuses foods in the steamer basket with a delicate, elusive tea-smoke flavour.

Secret Garden Club tea-smoking mix:
Half a (US) cup of Lapsang Souchong tea leaves (about 30g)
Half a (US) cup of brown sugar (about 75g)
Half a (US) cup of raw long-grain rice (about 75g)
This was used to smoke:
Trout fillets - marinaded for one hour beforehand in whisky;
Tomatoes - cut in half hemispherically and lightly roasted in the oven for 20 minutes before smoking.

Also good with chicken - use thin fillets to ensure they are cooked through, duck, quail. With tea-smoking, less is definitely more: over-smoke the food and you'll be left with a distinct aftertaste of fag packet.

Hot-smoking over wood applies direct heat to soaked woodchips so that they smoulder gently. The wood and the food are both in a sealed unit so that the heat and smoke permeate the food to cook and smoke it at the same time.

Important: when smoking food with any kind of wood, it is vitally important that the wood is raw, and untreated. Any sort of treatment, coating, glue or varnish will give off potentially toxic fumes when smoked - NOT what you want coating your food. If the wood you want to use has been cut with a chainsaw, beware - there could easily be oil residues on the wood from the chainsaw. It's highly satisfying to use wood that you have chopped or sourced yourself, but you must be 100% certain that the wood is free of any chemicals.

We smoked vegetables in the hot-smoker:

Sweet peppers;
Pumpkins, cut into thin wedges and marinaded for two hours beforehand in a mix of soy sauce and maple syrup;
Chillies;
Tofu, cut into thick slices and marinaded for two hours beforehand.
Sweetcorn, on the cob;
Apples, following a baked apple recipe but with added smokiness.

Basic marinade for the tofu, pumpkins:
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp maple syrup
A dash of sesame oil
A dash of olive oil
Half a teasp of English mustard powder

The sweetcorn and baked apples were particularly successful. We've had variable results with tofu: firstly, try to get firm tofu so that it doesn't disintegrate when you try to handle it. Tofu definitely needs to be marinaded first for a good two hours - and a more Japanese style marinade with mirin and wasabi would also work well here.

Cold-smoking is the technique we associate most with fish - think smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, smoked haddock - and meat - smoked bacon. However, it's also used to smoke cheese (such as applewood-smoked cheddar) and bulbs of garlic. When you expose food to cold, or cool, smoke, the food does not cook, although the smoke will penetrate the food more thoroughly than when hot-smoked.

Fish (and meat) will need to be salted, or brined, before it is cold-smoked. To salt, say, a side of salmon, cover completely in salt and keep it, weighted down, in the fridge for around 18-24 hours. Brining it creates a sweeter cure: make up a salt/sugar solution, completely immerse the fish in this and store, covered, in the fridge for around eight hours. (Smaller fillets may take less time.)

Simple brine

100g brown sugar

75g salt

1 litre water

Plenty of other flavours can be added to this, eg, fennel, onions, garlic, herbs.

Reasons for brining:

· The salt and/or sugar in the brine help the preserving process;

· Salting/brining inhibits bacteria which might otherwise multiply while the fish is being smoked;

· Both salt and sugar add flavour to the fish;

Once salted/brined, rinse the fish well to get rid of excess salt, then dry it, ideally for a couple of hours or so, in a cool, well-ventilated place. Only then it is ready to smoke. We also smoked cheddar cheese and garlic bulbs – these do not need brining or curing but can go straight into the cold smoker.

With cold-smoking, the challenge is to generate smoke that is cool when it reaches your food. The ideal temperature range in the smoker is between 26 and 30 degrees Celsius (80-90 degrees Fahrenheit). If the temperature exceeds 37 degrees C (100 F), then the fish will get too warm. It will lose moisture and may start to cook.

An obvious way to do this is to burn your wood in one place, channel the smoke through piping so that it cools as it goes, and direct it into a smokehouse. But if you just want to try out some cold-smoking, this is quite a cumbersome operation. Remember also, your fire needs to burn wood only (see warnings about wood-burning, above), and your piping and smokehouse should be lined with non-reactive material.

Costs can be kept down by making your smokehouse from household items such as an old fridge (cut a hole in one side to take the piped smoke, or a filing cabinet (popular because the file rods are handy to hang fish fillets from), or even a cardboard box (remember, the smoke is cool when it reaches the box).

We demonstrated a method which is quick to set up, and uses everyday items so is handy for anyone who wants to experiment but isn’t sure that they want to spend time constructing a semi-permanent smokehouse. In this option, we use the smallest possible heat point to generate a comparatively large amount of smoke.

You will need:

A deep-based, or kettle barbecue, such as a Weber

A soldering iron

A tin can, eg a Baxters soup tin

Woodchips (see notes, on sourcing wood, above)

Silver foil

A standard outdoor thermometer (recommended)

A bag of ice (may not be necessary but have one on standby)

A power extension cable

Note: the soldering iron must have no solder on it AT ALL. This is your heat source and smoking lead is a very bad idea indeed. Best to buy a new soldering iron for about a tenner and use it exclusively for cold-smoking.

Many tins these days, especially supermarket own-brand cans, are lined. You should use an unlined tin. We haven’t researched exhaustively for suitable brands, but Baxters’ soup tins are unlined, and the soup’s OK as well.

While the tin is still full, make a hole in it at the end (we used a sharpening steel and a hammer), opposite the ring-pull if there is one. The hole needs to be just big enough to fit the tip and arm of the soldering iron. Empty and wash out the tin, and let it dry.

Carefully peel back the lid of the tin using the ring-pull about half way. Fill just over half the tin with your wood chips. Close the lid as far as possible, then push the soldering iron through the hole so that it’s fully inserted in the tin and the arm is in direct contact with the woodchips. This is your ‘firepit’.

Put the tin in the bottom of the barbecue. Lay the food to be smoked on the silver foil on the top rack. Gently ease the soldering iron cable out of the barbecue and plug into the extension socket. Place the lid on the barbecue as tightly as possible allowing for the fact that the soldering iron cable will prevent it from closing fully. Switch on the power to the extension cable. You should start to see wisps of smoke emerge from under the lid within 5 mins.

With tin, soldering iron and food positioned this way, the smoke around the food should stay cool enough to cold smoke properly. We recommend you place a thermometer on the rack next to the food and check the temperature regularly. On a sunny day, the outside temperature may make the barbecue heat up – and it’s not something to do in midsummer. Cold smoking this way is a wintertime occupation. If you do see the temperature rising much above 30 degrees, slide a bag of ice into the bottom of the barbecue. This should bring the temperature down to the safe range and keep it there.

While the woodchip tin is smoking, prepare a second one. The tins will last about 90 mins to 2 hours, so, when the first is exhausted, unplug the soldering iron, remove it and the tin from the barbecue, and switch the soldering iron from tin 1 to tin 2. Tin 1 can now be emptied and reused.

Timings

Cheddar cheese

Lightly smoked: 3 hours

Medium smoked: 6 hours

Garlic bulbs

Light to medium smoked: 6 hours

Salmon fillets

Lightly smoked: 12 hours

Secret Garden Club Smoking Workshop

Menu

Vodka and smoked lemonade cocktail

Tea-smoked trout and tomato, watercress salad

Smoked cheese and garlic toasted sandwiches

Smoked salmon with cucumber pickles

Marinaded smoked pumpkin slices

Marinaded smoked tofu

Smoked sweet peppers and hot chillies

Smoked glazed sweetcorn

Smoked baked apples with Jameson whisky

Welcome to the Secret Garden Club blog

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The Secret Garden Club is a monthly series of food and gardening workshops run by MsMarmiteLover and Zia Mays. Our aim is to show how your garden can easily produce delicious food, from planting to harvest and into the kitchen.

Don't have a garden? Many of The Secret Garden Club sessions are tailored towards working in small spaces, so that if you only have a patio, or a balcony, or just a windowsill, you can still make the most of it.

Attendees can enjoy the relaxed surroundings of MsMarmite's garden, and all sessions include food and drink, plus starter packs to take away.

On this blog we'll post details of each Secret Garden Club workshop with reports and reports from each day. Comments and queries, from attendees and non-attendees alike, are welcome.

Click here for details of the Secret Garden Club sessions and how to book.

Secret Garden Club returns

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Virginia creeper and nasturtiums, autumn in my garden.

A monthly series of food and gardening workshops with Zia Mays held at The Underground Restaurant garden. Makes a great gift. The last one was a huge success!

20th November: Smoking! Time to take up smoking again. A workshop in which you will learn to do both hot and cold smoking with a variety of foods. Also tea smoking....
£60 for the Sunday workshop with drinks and snacks made by MsMarmite. Starts at 1.30 for the workshop then afternoon tea at 3pm.
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137583

21st December: "Plant garlic on the shortest day, harvest on the longest day."Find out all about the allium family from chives, to onions (including the exotic Egyptian walking onions), spring onion, shallots, red onions, leeks, and different types of garlic.
£45 for workshop and mulled wine, mince pies and christmassy things. Starts at 1.30pm. This takes place on a Wednesday but most people will have time off then, so close to Christmas.
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137585

January 29th: Herbs and Medicinal plants. Herbs are easy and rewarding to grow, especially if you don't have much garden space. Don't need good soil. Will make the air fragrant as well as lifting your cooking. They have health benefits too. We have known about medicinal plants for hundreds of years and we are in danger of forgetting their qualities.
£45 for the Sunday workshop and tea. Starts at 1.30pm
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137624

February 26th: Potatoes! Spuds-u-like! You don't need alot of space for them, you can even grow potatoes in bin liners or on your balcony. The low down on the different potatoes: earlies, new, old, blue potatoes, heritage.
£45 workshop and tea: Starts 1.30pm
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137626

March 18th : How to have salad 365 days a year. I'm sure you want to be as happy as these women. Especially as it's Mother's Day.
Bored with lettuce? Japanese, Italian, French salad leaves, good old English lettuce, growing them under glass, in a pot, on a window sill, it's easier than you think.
£60 workshop, tea and a signed copy of my book, the perfect mother's day present. Starts at 2pm after mum's lie-in.
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137628

April 22nd: The three sisters, Cherokee companion planting. Take away a squash plant, sweet corn plant, climbing bean trio. Plus other companion planting tricks to keep insects at bay and make your plants happy.
£45 workshop and tea, will include cornbread.
Book here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/137630

May: Foraging in my garden. Date to be announced.

June: Edible flowers: courgette, day lilies, elderflower, nasturtiums, marigolds, hibiscus, roses, learn to grow and cook them.
Class, elderflower cocktail, food and bouquet: £60 To be announced.