Spiralling into the growing season…

I’m so excited! The new apprentices started this week. They’ll be doing the same as I did last year – a six month growing season at Growing Communities’ market gardens. It’s going to be fantastic to have two extra regulars!

While Ru showed them the ropes, I worked with the volunteers on a herb spiral. We’ve put this in the forest garden side of Allens Garden where there was a perfect little spot for it. The purpose of a herb spiral is to be able to grow a variety of herbs together, the different heights mean that you can put those that love drier conditions at the top and then plant those that do better in wetter, shadier soils further down. Another advantage is that you can water the whole spiral from the top. Bill Mollison suggests putting a ‘pond’ for watercress at the lowest point, because water can collect there.

Made from old conveyor belt, ours is a very basic design, with the obvious advantage of being easy to fashion into a spiral. We’re going to put the salt bush at the top as it does well in drier conditions. Ru was keen for us to make the spiral extra high so it would get more sun too, but with the height of the fence behind, I think that was a little optimistic… Other herbs that go well on the higher sections include thyme, rosemary and sage. Mint, parsley and chives do better lower down.

We didn’t have quite enough soil to fill it up, so we’ve put in some leaf mould which is just about ready to use. This will settle down a little and then we’ll fill it up with soil which we’re planning to steal from the raised beds around the site, a little bit from here and there should fill it up nicely.

I’ll keep you posted on how it does once those herbs are planted…can’t wait to get them in.

View from the top

Monthly dressings…

So, last year I brought you leaf of the week. This year, I bring you ‘Monthly Dressing’ to make those leaves taste super good. It’s an idea that Ru and I came up with down at the site earlier this year and we trialled it this week.

We each bought in a dressing that we thought would go well with the leaves that are growing at the moment. Though there are not as many leaves this time of year, we are still managing to get quite a few which make it into your veg bags, if you are lucky!

The leaves that do well in this kind of weather are pretty strong tasting, your mustard leaves, rocket, endive and a sneaky wild chicory that Ru’s been blanching ( = covering with dark cloth so that it loses its bitterness). We also threw in some rouge d’hiver lettuce for its looks.

Three volunteers were on hand to help with the taste test. We shredded the leaves to get a good even mix of flavours in each mouthful (maybe could have been finer) and then split them out into two bowls. Then we drizzled the dressings over the top.

Ru had gone for a sweeter dressing to balance the strong flavours of the leaves. He obviously knows his leaves better than I do, as my delicious basil and sunflower seed dressing just didn’t quite cut it. And even I joined the unanimous vote to make his the first dressing to be featured on these pages.

So, what went in his perfect dressing…

200ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
100ml balsalmic vinegar
Pinch of sea salt
Ground pepper
And, the secret ingredient…1 tablespoon of maple syrup.

Maybe my dressing will do better in the summer months…look out for it!