What’s for dinner?

For those people who think it’s all work and no pleasure on the croft, I present one of our rewards—a home-cooked meal made entirely with meat and vegetables produced by ourselves. We enjoyed French-style sausages (pork with garlic, thyme, bay, pepper and wine), mashed potatoes (Cara), purple sprouting broccoli and boiled baby beetroot (Cylindra) with butter and pepper. Both the broccoli and beetroot were picked less than an hour before dinner, with the beets the result of a cunning plan. I sowed a couple of rows of Cylindra towards the end of last summer, allowing just enough time for the plants to form small roots. When the plants went dormant for winter, I heaped a vast amount of straw over them and kept my fingers crossed. We didn’t have any prolonged hard frosts (ie below -10C), so come the warmer weather I was able to remove the straw and we enjoyed fresh baby beets four weeks later. Of course, it was only one meal’s worth of beets, but it was a delicious treat and a nice change from stored vegetables and brassica. And we’ll have the beet leaves for breakfast in the morning—sautéed with onions and caraway seed.

Cloud spotting

The Wee ‘Un and I were working in the vegetable patch under a clear, blue sky when the wind freshened dramatically, the temperature dropped, an armada of cloud swept down from the north-west, and we had to bolt inside to escape a five-minute hail storm. As the storm passed, the sky cleared again and the Wee ‘Un and I had an excellent opportunity for one of our favourite “games”—cloud spotting.

Spring in the vegetable patch

Spring is finally upon us in north-east Scotland and while a late frost is still possible, the plants have decided it’s time to grow. While we were working in the vegetable patch today, we took a few photographs. First, the rhubarb.