Tag: fruit growing

Price Points: Strawberry pots

Strawberry pots | H is for Home

Our summer fruit harvest has been pretty good this year. We have a few strawberry plants that have produced lots of fruit – and now, dozens of runners between them. We don’t want to just cut them back and waste them. Also, you shouldn’t just keep the same strawberry plants, growing on the same plot (or in the same soil) year after year, as they accumulate viruses – and crops diminish.

About three years is the optimum life for a strawberry plant apparently, so we’re going to propagate a few over the coming weeks. We had a look at what the venerable Monty Don had to say on how to go about it – and it’s incredibly easy. You can never have too many strawberry plants because you can never have too many strawberries!

Here’s a trio of different strawberry pots – from less than a tenner to over £50 – which we’ve found that would be perfect for our allotment and garden…

  1. Large 45-litre plastic herb / strawberry planter / grow bag: £7.95, Amazon
  2. Terracotta strawberry pots: £35.00, Etsy
  3. Terracotta strawberry planter: £64.99, Crocus

Gimme Five: Tumbling tomatoes

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Selection of 5 types of tumbling tomatoes

Our potatoes have been chitted & planted out, the first of our veg seedlings have sprouted, it’s time to start thinking about getting some tomatoes started.

Our garden (and allotment for that matter) is really shady, a definite no-no for sun-worshipping toms. The sun only hits our back garden from around 1pm, and only at a height of 4 foot and above. We have a tall, south-facing fence so we’ve decided to try growing tumbling tomatoes along it. We have a couple of hanging baskets and just bought some hanging grow bags.

Mark Ridsdill Smith aka the Vertical Veg Man recommends ‘Cherry Cascade’ for hanging baskets. In a Telegraph gardening trial ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ came out tops. After some research, we’ve come up with this short-list of tumbling tomato contenders.

  1. Tomato ‘Tumbling Tom Yellow’ (10 seeds): £2.25, Marshalls
  2. Tomato ‘Gartenperle’ (25 seeds): £1.49, Crocus
  3. Tomato ‘Cherry Falls’ (15 seeds): £3.19, Mr Fothergill’s
  4. Tomato ‘Romello’ F1 hybrid (6 seeds): £3.99, Thompson & Morgan
  5. Tomato ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ (8 seeds): £3.99, Suttons

Spiced redcurrant & red onion relish

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Spiced redcurrant & red onion relish jar and label

Last week we brought you a sweet, baked redcurrant recipe. This week, some more of our redcurrants are being used in a savoury preserve – spiced redcurrant & red onion relish. We’ve slightly altered a recipe we found on the BBC Good Food website.

We’ve not tried out our relish yet – we’re giving the flavours some time to steep and develop. It’s meant to be really good teamed with a creamy goat’s cheese or charcuterie.

Have you tried this recipe? Let us know how you get on.

Spiced redcurrant & red onion relish

Print recipe Pin recipe
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Servings 450 ml

Ingredients
  

  • 2 medium red onions peeled & sliced into ½cm square pieces
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp dried crushed chillies
  • 2 large garlic cloves chopped finely
  • 1 small knob of fresh ginger grated
  • 200 ml red wine vinegar I used some of our home-made blackberry vinegar
  • 140 g muscovado sugar
  • 1 tsp Chinese five spice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 200 g redcurrants de-stalked
  •  

Instructions
 

  • In a heavy bottomed frying pan, cook the onions and dried crushed chillies in the olive oil over a medium heat until softened
  • Remove from the pan and set aside
  • Without washing out the pan, add the garlic and ginger with half the vinegar, bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes
  • Add the cooked onion & chilli mix, sugar, Chinese five spice, salt and the remainder of the vinegar
  • Bring back up to the boil then simmer for about 5 minutes until thickened
  • Add the redcurrants and simmer for another 5 minutes, or until some of them have burst and the liquid has become syrupy
  • Remove and pour into a sterilised, 450ml heatproof jar
  • Screw the lid on tightly while still hot. Once opened, it keeps in the fridge for up to 3 weeks