Note bene, folks!

If you want an exciting brown envelope of seeds (and because I can't resist chucking stuff in envelopes probably tea, stickers, cartoons and whatever I have lying around), you'll have to send me some contact details to:
littleblackfox@hotmail.com
For alas, the only psychic powers I possess are knowing when my cats want feeding (and, lets be honest, that's mostly down to the meowing)

This offer is open to anyone anywhere, and I promise it will not come back to bite you in the arse.

Brown Envelopes

I always forget how much I like February. It's the weirdest word too, with that little r that skulks around in there, presumably Up To No Good. The name February comes from the Latin februum (purification) & the Roman festival of februa or Ritual Purification (which became part of the Lupercalia festival, which was the same sort of thing, but with more nudity & whacking people with thongs).
But February is the month where you start to feel the wheel of the year turning again. The long nights are coming to an end, and the weather is starting to warm up. The electric blanket & hot water bottles are being folded up & packed away until Autumn.
February is also the month when you can actually start opening packets of seeds (mostly tomatoes, chillis, peppers & aubergines, which get sown into seed trays of fine compost & tucked up in a heated propagator, or wrapped in plastic & put on the shelf in the boiler room). And potatoes start appearing in the garden centres & shops, all ready for chitting (there's more spud info in one of my old posts here).

It's the month where the earth seems to be holding her breath & taking it all in, the long year ahead, the first green shoots poking out of the earth to the ripe fruits hanging heavy on the boughs.
Holding her breath & taking it all in, in the moments before it all begins.
And I am holding my breath too. A little impatient, a little restless, waiting for all the world to be green again.

So I pack up seeds in brown envelopes, and give them to anyone who'll have them. Because brown envelopes usually only contain bad news & bills.


So if you want a brown envelope, post a comment (and if there's anything you can't grow, or you don't have much space for growing, let me know, or you'll probably end up with some sort of Jurassic kale of monstrous sunflower. If you want a surprise, or you'd like something in particular (y'know, courgette, wildflowers etc) say so. It never hurts to ask. If you're too shy to post, you can send me an email instead.

Skip to the End

Littlefox, littlefox, where have you been?
Well, not to London, and not to see the Queen either. I've been making the most of the mild (meaning; just above freezing, occasionally into the giddy heights of 4°C) weather by doing ground work in the garden. January & February are usually the best times to do laborious jobs like digging over beds, path laying & site clearance, before March & the sudden tidal wave of seeds to be sown, pricked out & potted on, potatoes to chit, plant out & shore up, cuttings, prunings & propagation's and let us not forget the endless bloody weeding.
It took a solid week of digging, put I managed to pull up 3 concrete fence posts, and the lumps of cement they were embedded in, which were added to the big pile of rubble I had unearthed from the garden in the autumn.
Then I got myself a 5 cubic yard skip. Woo!


For those of you not in the UK, I don't mean the method of getting about by repeatedly almost falling over that is so popular with small girls, or skipping rope, which is also popular with small girls (and, a little unsettlingly, wrestlers*), I'm on about skips, large metals containers that you hire out & fill with rubbish (usually from house renovations, but occasionally from moving bloody great piles of crap from the garden), which then get taken away, and the contents sorted through & recycled (the contents of my skip will become hard core, and used in the foundations of a road or building somewhere in Lincolnshire, which is a better use than sitting in a heap in my garden where I'd rather have a few fruit trees).
The cleared ground then got dug over & all the nettle roots removed, and is all ready for the chickenproof fence to go up, which will have an edible hedge planted in front of that (more on the edible hedge another time). There's still a fair amount of clearing to do, and no doubt plenty more rubble just under the soil (along with more nettles), but it feels like less of an impossible task.

I'd say that it will be done by the end of the month, but there's nothing like announcing your plans to make the gods start gut-laughing (and send rain. Lots of rain).
Then there's the path to lay down, and Tomato Mile needs digging over, and ten thousand other things to do before spring finally gets here. But for now there's 5 cubic yards less of problematic crap in my garden, and seed potatoes to be chitted.
Small pleasures, my friends. They're what makes the world worth all that spinning.

*Though it's not certain whether wrestlers also sing about teddy bears going upstairs.

I Will Turn The Soil With My Hands & I Will Make My Home There

There's a song that's been going around in my head (and for a change it's not Amanda Palmers Ampersand) for days now. An odd little song about leaving the world behind & making an island garden. So maybe the long, miserable winter is losing it's grip on North Lincolnshire, and this little fox's thought turn to the garden.

The last week has been spent digging. The soil is still heavy & wet, but I've been forking spent hops (one of the benefits of working in a brewery - spent hops are an excellent addition to soil in the garden, working along the same lines of a green manure, they add organic matter & improve drainage, especially useful if you're soil is on the heavy side) into the raised beds, pulling up the inevitable weeds (that didn't seem at all bothered by the month of snow & ice) & raking it all down to a nice tilth. The potato beds still need going over, and the allotment doesn't bear thinking about.
The little Polytunnel has been cleaned out (and sad wobbly-lower-lip moments were had over the Alstromerias & Geraniums that haven't made it through the winter) & dug over. There's still Pak Choi & Salad leaves growing merrily away in there (of all the things to survive the winter, it would be salad), and shallots & garlic cloves in modules of compost, which will get planted out in the spring.
MikeyFox stopped playing Red Dead Redemption long enough to build a couple of compost bins over the weekend, which are in place & ready to be filled. After what feels like forever, the garden is actually starting to look like a garden, rather than a heap of rubble & nettles.

Being a bit more organised this year, I've got all my seeds ordered, and packed into a big wooden box (I remember when my years supply of seeds fitted into an old boiled sweets tin. Then a pretty green wooden box decorated with flowers. Then a shoebox. Now they all just squeeze into a wooden medical case. By the end of the year, there will only be a few packets of salad & half open beetroot seeds floating around in there. Funny how all this started out with a weekend in London, and a market stall selling yellow courgettes.

So here's my annual round-up of Places To Get Seeds From.

The Real Seed Catalogue: Still the bestest place to get seeds from. They have a wonderful range of non-hybrid seeds, as well as advice on seed saving & Mad Science (AKA breeding your own varieties). The seeds are excellent quality, with a pretty much 100% germination rate & a consistently good flavour too. Go & buy something from them, you won't regret it.

Nicky's Nursury: I've been buying seeds from these people for almost 10 years now, and they have never let me down. Whether you're after peculiar stuff for traditional Mexican cooking or just a pack of runner bean seeds, they're excellent quality, well packaged (each pack comes with a plant label! Eeee!) and nigh on 100% germination rate. They also have a beautiful range of wildflower & herbs seeds too.

Plants of Distinction: Good quality seeds & interesting & heirloom varieties. If you love growing familiar veg in unusual colours, this is the place to go. They also a have a good selection of podding beans (dwarf or climbing beans where the seeds are harvested rather than the green beans). The Yin Yang dwarf beans are especially good, and this year I'm trying the Jacobs Cattle Gold.

Sea Spring Seeds: A little company that specialises in Chilli & Pepper seeds, though they also have a range of vegetable seeds. Now that I have a polytunnel and Nothing Can Stop Me*, 2011 will be the Year Of Chillis. It was inevitable, really.

And, of course, garden centers!

*Muahaha!

Budín on the Ritz

When I think of pudding, what comes to mind is steamed, syrupy sponges or bread soaked in egg & milk & baked until crusty & golden. I completely forget about steak & kidney pudding, about Yorkshire pudding. Haggis, Kugel & pease pudding all slip my mind. Even the Spinach & Stilton bread pudding that I sometimes make (which MikeyFox would gladly eat every day, but I only ever make in early summer when there's an excess of it in the garden) is forgotten. Why do I have it stuck in my head that pudding is sweet?
In Mexico Budín (from the French boudin - pudding) can be both savoury & sweet too.

There are desserts like Budín de Limon, a rich sponge pudding made with ground almonds & lime zest.
But there are also the savoury vegetable dishes (no, I'm not making it up. Savoury. Vegetable. Puddings) such as the Sopa Seca (which means 'dry soup'. They're not dry, and they're not soups either, but rice, pasta or tortillas cooked in a rich sauce until they absorb all the liquid. So they start out soupy & end up dry) budíns; layers of tortillas, salsa & vegetables (usually mushrooms or sweetcorn) topped with cheese & baked in the oven until the tortillas have absorbed the sauce and softened, like a sort-of Mexican lasagne. One of my favourite things to make and eat.
And then there's the other budín. The one that resembles Southern USA's Spoonbread. Light, almost souffle-like, with a little bit of wobble to it. Kind of like a quiche without the pastry.
And that's what today's recipe is.

Budín de Calabacita (Courgette pudding)
225g Courgette, grated
50g Pumpkin seeds
50g Breadcrumbs
50g Masa Harina (or fine cornmeal)
1 egg
1 Onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
125ml milk
1 tsp oregano
1tbs oil
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
Fry the onion in the oil until softened. Add the garlic, then remove from the heat & stir in the courgettes. Add the breadcrumbs, masa harina, pumpkin seeds (saving a few for decoration), herb & seasonings. Add the milk & mix well. Spoon the mix into a greased flan tin & top with the reserved pumpkin seeds. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown.


Serve with salad, steamed veg, a rich mole or as a not-entirely-guilty late night snack (it is made of vegetables after all!).
This is a good recipe for mucking about with. Courgette flowers are a classic ingredient, as is sweetcorn, but any veg you have lying around will work. Brussels sprouts are surprisingly good, especially is you add a bit of blue cheese. If you fancy something a bit spicy, a teaspoon of smoked paprika would go down well. Or substitute the milk for fromage frais, cream cheese or quark.
Om nom nom!

The Morning After The Night Before

MikeyFox & myself woke up this morning feeling a little on the, um, delicate side (damn you, Talisker, and your dubious yet irresistible charms). Despite really wanting to flop on the sofa all day & drink tea, we hauled our sorry arses out of the house and down to the allotment for some fresh air & exercise.
The sudden bad weather has not been kind to the plot. The Oca has turned to mush (there's not enough fleece in the world to protect it against -18C nights), and the leeks are in a sorry state. But the kale & brussells are all holding their own, and the ground had thawed out enough to dig up some Jerusalem Artichokes (which MikeyFox made into soup - yum!)

I was a bit saddened to have lost all my Oca, though I will be growing it again next year, as they're really tasty. So to cheer myself up, I decided to do some messing around with wheat gluten and some beetroot that I had dug up from the garden and roasted the day before.
Yes, I have been making more Beet-Meat, behold!

BEET RIBS!

They're made using one of those health grills (I say health grill, I mostly use it to make cheese & chutney toasties), the gluten mix is seared on the grill and then baked in the oven, slathered with barbecue sauce, until they're nice & chewy. I really love how the grill gives them a dense texture without being tough & chewy seared ridges, and the barbecue sauce caramelises in the oven and gives them an addictively sticky coating.

1 1/2 cups wheat gluten
1 tsp vegetable stock powder (I used marigold, but any will do)
2-3 beetroot, roasted & peeled (you can use a couple of those cooked vacuum packed beetroot that you find in the salad section of the supermarket, just make sure it's not in vinegar)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup water
1 cup barbecue sauce (I used Jack Daniels barbecue sauce, as it's not too sweet, but use whatever you like the taste of)
spray oil (or a little vegetable oil)

Preheat the oven to 200c/400f & grease a cookie sheet or large pan. Plug in the health grill to give it time to warm up.Put the onion, garlic, beetroot, vegetable stock & water in a blender with 3 tbs of the barbecue sauce & blend until smooth. Try not to think about John Carpenter films. Especially not The Thing. Put the wheat gluten into a large bowl & add the alarmingly red blender gloop & mix. Don't spend too long mixing it, or it'll get tough & rubbery. Divide into 4 pieces and flatten each piece into a rectangle about 1cm thick. If you have spray oil, give the grill a light spray. If not, pour a little oil onto your hands and rub each piece of gluten to cover it.
Slap your gluten on the grill (you should be able to fit two pieces in there, but don't worry if there's only room for one) & leave for around 5 minutes, or until the surface is seared and browned (don't try any yet, it'll all be uncooked dough under that crust!).

Lay on the cookie sheet & score with a knife into rib-sized pieces (you don't want to cut all the way through, just perforate it enough that when it comes out of the oven you can tear it into rib strips). With a pastry brush or a spoon, cover the ribs in barbecue sauce. Put in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes are up, flip the ribs over & baste the other side in barbecue sauce, then it's back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
Serve with mash & seared sweetcorn, in a bun with lots of coleslaw, or straight off the tray whilst watching a guilty pleasure on TV (hello, new series of Primeval!) and don't be shy about licking your fingers.

And A Happy New Year

So this should be a post looking back on 2010, and looking forward to 2011. But I've never been the kind of fox who makes new year resolutions or picks over the past. 2010 was full of joy and misery, good days with the sun on my back and a spade in my hand, and bad days when it felt like my heart would just stop beating. 2011 will probably be similar, only I'll have cleared more rubble from the garden.

The snow has finally melted, and the ground is very, very squelchy. Still, I managed to get a bit of time in outside to check over the soggy mess that is my garden. The snow was sudden and unexpected, so a lot of things have been killed (and despite storing my geraniums and alstromerias in the polytunnel, the -18C temperatures were too much). But I'm optimistic, and won't chuck everything in the compost yet. We'll see what happens in spring.

But when the skies are filled with tentacles and we're battling giant radioactive scorpions, there will still be parsnips. And turnips. And even my beloved beetroot. After a month of freezing nights, dense fog and snow, I expected all my root veg to have turned to mush. But no, they're all fine.
And they. Are. Huge!

Currently in the oven, with mustard and maple syrup. Yum!

I may seriously consider using the Lincolnshire parsnip as a unit of measurement.

Once these guys have been eaten (with a tamale bake, om nom nom), MikeyFox & myself will wrap ourselves up nice and cosy, and venture across the fields to our local pub (an hours walk away, but it's a lovely one) and will get slightly squiffy.

Happy New Year, folks. May the new year treat you kindly.