The Sanctuary Garden

With brooding rain clouds and a forecast that confirmed rain, I moved the workshop into the kitchen. How to cook veggies and use herbs was a big part of the discussion of the last workshop so it was fitting. As I’m a mint fan and not really sure what to use mint with, other than in gin and mint sauce, I decided to find some recipes that used mint. All the recipes are by feel, so there are no real quantities.

Courgette, pea and mint soup.

Sara, my wife gave me the recipe and it is great hot or cold.

Chopped up courgette, I used 2, a hand full of pea pods from the garden, about a hand full or so, and covered with water and boiled gently until the courgette is soft. Emptied the contents into the liquidiser added the leaves of three stalks and wizzed. Served.

Hummus in 2 minutes

Open a tin of chickpeas, drian the liquid and add the liquidiser, squeeze the juice of half a lemon, add a little rind, a fat clove of garlic, a dollop of unflavoured yogurt, a crunch of salt and pepper and wizz. If it’s a little dry add more yogurt. It’s rather nice if it’s not too fine; wizz and adjust taste and consistency. It won the comparison taste test against shop bought hummus.

Beetroot Leaf Pesto

This pesto has been mentioned on many of the podcasts I listen to, so I thought I’d try it for the first time.

Handful of young beetroot leaves, I noticed I have a leaf miner while I was collecting them. Basil leaves, just a few, 100g of pine nuts, but you could easily use half that amount, the top 2/3 of a parmesan (Grana Padano Wedgecheese 160g) wedge, 60-80g as a guess, two fat cloves of garlic, lemon juice from the other half of the lemon and a generous glug of olive oil and wizz to the consistency you like. One of the children who does not like pesto devoured it.

Fresh lemonade

My mother shared this recipe with me, she had it when visiting my sister in law.

2 unwaxed lemons quartered, a generous amount of mint, sugar or stevia tablets (I used about 20) and water. Wizz in the liquidiser until a fine slurry and strain into a jug. Adjust sweetness by adding more stevia or sugar and add water if too sour. Trust me, it is delicious and would probably go very nicely with a spash of gin.

Choc Chip Cookies with fresh mint.

This is a secret recipe, so don’t share it…..;-)

You can halve this recipe.

300g sugar and 300g butter into the mixer and beat until creamed. Add 2 eggs, 3 tsp of vanilla essence, 2 tsp of baking powder, (not bicarb), three or four stalk of chocolate spearmint leaves (or any mint) and beat until mixed. Add 450g of plain flour, 200g of 70% coco chocolate roughly chopped into pea size chunks and mix until just combined together. Roll into balls about with a diameter of about an inch and half or 30/40mm onto baking paper on a tray and bake at 170C in fan oven for 12-15 minutes, just keep an eye on it for your oven. Let them cool, I know it’s irresistible, the chocolate seems to take ages to harden. Viola!

Our Saturday workshop went well, numbers are fluctuating; some folks are going away on much needed holidays. We covered transplanting and spent some time discussing Korean Natural Farming (KNF) and we’ll cover that in more detail next week as we did on Wednesday’s course.

A new member of the Saturday group, is delighted with her strawberries and is keen to learn more about gardening. As always, plants were taken home and I later saw a photo of these pots sitting on slabs. I thought perhaps a raised bed would benefit and help keep her momentum going, aid learning and her mental health.

Today it was installed; 6 bags of compost, three of horse manure and a few veggie plants from The Garden, it was all put together and planted up in drizzly weather. My Vietnamese bamboo hat is fantastic for keeping off rain as well as sun.

All the plants will produce something over the summer keeping her interested and eating a variety of veggies.

Broadbeans, artichoke, purple brusselsprouts, lettuces, cabbage, parsley, chives and rosemary. We’ll replace them with overwintering crops when they are done.

Today was the first food donation from the poly tunnel and included Kale, courgettes (I think the baby ones taste nicer) baby and mis-shapen swede, rainbow swiss chard and some potted parsley.

Cut and delivered within half an hour.

It’s just past the solstice and plants are now producing, growing, flowering and generally looking verdant.

Today was the first weekend class. There were five people who attended, with varying degrees of experience. It was a hands off class, I did lots of rambling.

We covered, pots sizes, potting on, compost and adding drainage and moisture retention, seed sizes, how to pot, separate shop bought herbs, touched on Korean Natural Farming and Bokashi composting. Wandered around the site, showing successes and failures, raised beds and different types of potatoes. It was a pleasure and I enjoyed it too.

We over-ran but it was worth it. Next week is a hands on seedling workshop. There are a few spaces left, so please feel free send me a note, I’m expecting it to book up quickly.

Rather than not expecting anyone to arrive, I was concerned we would be swamped. Turns out there were 10 of us, so under the covid limitation and about the right size. Any more would have been too many, particularly if the rain had stay on.

We covered pot sizes, potting up tiny, medium and large seedlings, potting up a tomato and flat parsley from ASDA. Watering, under and overwatering was discussed and demystified. Seedlings and pots were distributed along with high tech planting tools (teaspoons) and everyone had a go.

My small collection of mint was outside and everyone was invited to pinch off a leaf and enjoy the different aromas. I’ll need to propagate them tomorrow. The chocolate spearmint was popular.

We did a bit of a walk around and I knocked out a pot of Ratte potatoes. They are still wee but it was interesting to see them. It allowed me to talk about overfeeding; nutrient burn, and feeding plant in general.

With trays of seedlings, the gardeners left The Sanctuary Garden. It had achieved one of it’s main goals, lifting spirits. Education although important is not the main goal. My spirits were lifted too, thanks to a wonderful group of people. If you attended today, please would you book your place in next week’s workshop.

Some of the comments included

• I’ve learned more tonight that I have in the past four years
• We had fun
• My plants are still alive

This is 3′ square, knocked together quickly with oiled wood and took three wheel barrow loads of compost to fill. I like using a bucket of water to soak the compost before planting and they I water each of the plants after planting. It’s close to the road so I may lose more strawberries to walkers than birds

The jerrycans need to go to the dump. I wanted to make them into little cupboards by cutting around the edge and attach a hinge and snib and then lining it to house a bottle of whisky and a few glasses

The plants are just exploding in the poly tunnel and the seedlings are all needing to be potted up and planted out. I don’t have any more space so I’m using the lawn outside.

Potted up are swedes and cabbages ready for when the early potatoes are pulled up.

Tomatoes for Africa at the moment. Everywhere you look they are growing and blooming. Tomatoes are due shortly. The broad beans are tall and full of flowers and I’ve noticed more flying insects so I’m hoping they are being pollinated.

There was a small section of the potato bed that I’ve used to plant out Pak Choi, hopefully it won’t bolt too quickly.

The wind managed to knock over a seed tray of onions forcing me to make an onion raised bed. They are looking a little sad but should recover quite quickly

A mixture of relief and delight washed over me when two people arrived for the workshop. Both known plant killers, brown thumbs and unsure about even being at the event.

We went through watering, how to water, when plants need water, watering seedlings and why they die so easily. Then did little on seed size and how to handle them differently. Rootbound pots, what causes it, and how to untangle and pot up the plants. We covered splitting plants, supermarket plants specifically. Briefly covered vermiculite, perlite and compost. I also covered garden tools, and how few you really need.

By then end of the hours discussion, they both left with plants for their garden and windowsills. There was no pressure to ensure they lived, rather just to have a go.

They both seemed to have enjoyed it and learned something new. I enjoyed it too.

My initial plan was to use pallet wood to make beds, however time pressure meant I used what I had at hand. My beds have all been built with bricks and blocks. Until today.

Wood rots, and I did not want to use a manufactured preservative that would typically contain unsavory chemicals that I did not want plants I would eat, taking up. I decided on vegetable oil, it’s cheap and would offer some protection. One post recommended using vinegar with it so I did.

The wood was donated from furniture plus, it’s scrap bed slats. This limited the size of the bed to a bed size but it’s worked out well.