Lifting the garlic

Today we lifted all of our garlic. My site had a fair number of bulbs, all most worthy of finding their way into someone’s cooking – or salad, if they dare! The garlic, a member of the allium family, had been planted last year as one of the longer maturing crops which we grew at Clissold Park before I took over there and turned most of it to salad leaves. It is usually planted towards the end of summer, with enough time to bed in for winter. After the cold months it then needs some warmer temperatures for it to put more more energy into making the bulbs swell.

This garlic was pulled up, regardless of how big the cloves had swollen, to make way for the other crops we are planting. Maybe they could have spent a little longer in the ground but mostly they were a goodly size. My garlic joined the garlic from the other sites to go into the box scheme. One of our volunteers trimmed the longer leaves and cut the roots short so they were all nice and presentable.

This year we’ll be planting spring onions…that’s coming up later this month, the seeds are sown and they are just about ready to go into the ground.

May’s Monthly Dressing(s!)

So a whole month has swung round and we were back taste testing salad dressings again this week. This time was a bit of a play off, with the winner of March’s dressing pitted against April’s. The leaves seem to be a little less strong this time of year, but only a little as both varieties of endive we grow, frisee and cornet de bordeaux still feature. And there is a strong brassica (cabbage-y) influence – your turnip tops, tatsoi and komastuna, the last two, delicious oriental salad greens. It was with this in mind that Ru put together his oriental dressing of which soya sauce was the leading actor. While Annie went all out on the mint front, a fresh flavour which really complements the leaves.

We went through what is now becoming a delightful ritual, two bowls of freshly picked leaves, each mixed up with a different dressing which the volunteers then taste-test, ruminate on the various flavours and then cast their vote. And this time the jury was hung. Three votes to three votes. What to do? Should the flavour of the leaves come through the dressing? Should a perfect dressing complement the leaves, like Annie’s minty dressing, or should it flavour them, like Ru’s? These were the questions flung about as we sat in the sun eating salad of a lunch hour.

It was too much to decide. What we did decide is that this time, just this time, we’ll give you both dressings. And let you make the choice…

Into Ru’s oriental dressing goes:
100ml sesame oil
100ml malt vinegar
25ml soya sauce
a sprinkling of ground pepper

And to make Annie’s minty mix:
half a lemon, juiced
1 tsp mustard – dijon
balsamic vinegar – a bit
handful of mint
these ingredients make up about a third of the jar
olive oil – a bit more
the oil makes up two thirds of the dressing.

To try the test yourself, you need the following leaves – turnip tops, chard, endive – frisee & cornet de bordeaux, buckle-leaf sorrel (though any sorrel will do), red orache and wild rocket. If you don’t have these exact leaves, don’t worry, just try anything that is in season at the moment. And enjoy!

Cutting the ribbon…

My site at Clissold Park is the oldest of the Growing Communities sites, but today really felt like a ‘cutting the ribbon’ day. We had a great turn out of volunteers (first Tuesdays of the month are Clissold Park days) which meant my usually rather quiet patch was a real hive of activity. We laid porous pipe for the watering system, prepared a bed and planted catalogna lettuce, planted out herbs, dug in green manures, selected a nettle patch and pulled out the rest (more on that soon!), turned the compost and sowed pennyroyal (a creeping mint) by the shed door. We also claimed the long bed by the butterfly tunnel (this is something the Park runs and is well worth a visit now that the butterflies have finally woken up!) which doesn’t have the best soil. We bolstered it up with compost and planted chard – extra seedlings that had no home otherwise.

But the cutting the ribbon moment to which I refer came when we put up the sign at the site’s gate. This has been lovingly crafted by an old school sign-painter. With the sign firmly up, I really feel that the site’s ready to go.

Here are the two apprentices, three volunteers, Ru the grower and that’s me on the far right.