Pickled Beetroot with Shallots

Today I have pickled my own homegrown produce for the first time. The remainder of my modest harvest of baby beetroots have been preserved with a couple of our homegrown shallots. Here is the Fresh as a Daisy recipe:


Pickled Beetroot with Shallots
(Makes 2 jam jars worth)

350g of raw beetroot
2 shallots
350ml red wine vinegar
1tsp whole peppercorns
1tsp whole coriander seeds
1 bayleaf
A pinch of crush chillies
1 tbsp sugar


Trim the beetroot, leaving a small amount of stall at the top, carefully wipe off any clumps of dirt but keep the skins on (Be careful not to trim the stalls too close to the root or pierce the skin as the colour will bleed during cooking)

Place the roots in a large pan of water, bring the boil and cook for 30 minutes (this amount of time was for baby roots - larger roots may need longer than this)

Drain and allow to cool enough to handle. Peel away the skins with your fingers, cut off the stems at the top and halve any larger baby roots.

Peel and thinly slice the shallots, then layer the cooked beetroot and shallots into two sterilised jars.

Place the red wine vinegar in a small saucepan and add the herbs and spices and bring to the boil. Pour the hot vinegar through a strainer into the jars, covering the beetroot and shallots completely and seal the jars immediately.

Label when cold and store in a cool, dark place. Allow the pickles to rest for a few days, however with this recipe the pickles do not need to mature over a long period of time. They should keep well provided that is always totally immersed in the vinegar.

Layering the beetroot and shallots in the jars

I found it easier to pour the vinegar into one jar, seal that then pour the rest in the second jar

Et voila, two jars of pickled beetroot with shallots - yum!

Slugs: The battle continues

Slugs have been our biggest problem in the garden so far. We haven't seen any aphids this year, escaped the dreaded potato blight and we only began to get black fly on the broad beans towards the end of their season (tip from a veggie-growing friend, once your broad beans begin to come into flower, pinch out the tops of the plants and this is supposed to prevent black fly..... don't ask me how, that's just what I've been told.)

As we garden organically, we have tried to deter them in the kindest possible way as we are conscious that although they are a real nuisance, they do form part of a food chain and we shouldn't just kill them.

Firstly we used organic slug repellent granules around the base of the broad beans. These are reasonably effective, however they do need replenishing occasionally, particularly after long bouts of heavy rain. We've also tried using nematodes to treat the raised bed known to us as the salad garden, along with copper tape around the top edge of the bed. It appears though that we have some military-style hardcore slugs that can handle the copper tape and get over it.

My next trick is to try a combination of slug defence gel around the base of and around the inside edge of the bed (in case they negotiate their way over the copper tape, which some do) and if they still insist on eating all my young seedlings, a barrier of organic slug repellent granules around the seedlings.

If that doesn't work, I wonder if the urban frog we plan to attract might help by eating them? Do frogs eat slugs?

Restocking the cold frame

As we are still unsure how safe the seedlings are from slugs in the salad garden, today I have sown some backup salad leaves in the coldframe, just in case. I've also sown a few final peas and also some winter hardy salad onions, which will be transferred into one of the raised beds when they are big enough to handle.

In the coldframe, I tend to use lengths of drainpipe which have drainage holes drilled into the them, filled with potting compost to start off rows of seedlings and it does work really well. I'll definitely be stocking up on more drainpipe for next year. They are robust, easy to clean, easy to store without taking up much room as they can be stacked together and they also fit neatly into the coldframe without wasting any space.

Seeds sown in the coldframe today were:

- 1 pipe length of mixed leaves
(Lettuce 'Bergamo', Rocket 'Rucola', Wild Rocket and Spicy Mixed Salad Leaves)

- 2 rows in a length of pipe of Onion 'White Lisbon' (winter hardy)

- 26 x Pea 'Ezethas Krombek Blau' (purple-pod mange tout)

- 14 x Pea 'Ambassador'

The Spicy Mixed Salad Leaves were a packet that came free with 'Grow Your Own' magazine recently. This is a mixture of Mizuna, Mibuna, Mustard 'Red Giant', Greek Cress and Green Pak Choi. I am really interested to see what comes up from the sprinkling just sown - particularly having to try and identify which is which!

Autumn plans and reflections

Life has been rather hectic since moving in here pretty much this time last year. Since deciding to convert the raised lawn area in our new garden into a productive organic veggie garden last Autumn, we have made considerable progress (well, we think so anyway) however, with so much going on over the last year, we struggled to find the time to do as much in the veggie garden as we would have liked.

That said, the raised lawn area was converted at the start of the year into four raised beds and work area to one side. The soil in each raised bed was lovingly double-dug, the drainage improved and the soil was bolstered with organic compost.

A fair amount of seed has been sown and there has been a fairly even split of successes and failures when it came to actually growing things. We have learnt many lessons along the way though, which I think at this early stage of our veg growing life is just as important as actually managing to grow something to harvest and eat from your first attempts.

The veggie garden layout as it is now...

We have struggled to grow enough to fill all four beds this year for a variety of reasons. We also realise now that our original plans for what we wanted to try and grow needed a lot more time then we were able to find over the last year.

So, in an attempt to make more of the small space we have, a slight change in layout is planned. I'd really like to create a backdrop of ornamental planting and learn more about growing various different ornamental plants as well as growing crops for us to eat.

In a few weeks time, the two raised beds at the back of the veggie garden will be removed and one larger border will be created in their place. This will provide a larger growing area overall and allow us to plant directly into the ground, rather than in a raised bed. This border will be a mixed planting of ornamentals and edibles.

Under the huge viburnum in the back corner, I plan to create a mini wildlife garden by sowing perennials and bulbs for attracting lots of bees and butterflies, allowing plants to run to seed for the birds, create a small rockery for other small creatures to make a home in, provide a small wood stack for more little creatures and also include a basin of water if possible to try and attract an urban frog. I am hoping that by attracting more wildlife to the garden, they will help me to protect my crops from the baddies in the garden (slugs, you know who you are)

The front two raised beds will stay put and will be used more intensively. I will also try to limit the amount of things we will try and grow, for the next year at least, to give us a better chance of success. We can also grow various things in pots on the terrace too.

The planned new layout

Once we have removed the timber from the two raised beds at the back, that whole area will be given a thorough digging then will be sown with hungarian rye green manure to help improve the soil and supress the weeds over the late autumn and winter months. This will be dug in when spring arrives and the border will be edged using the little pile of bricks we have in the garden. We will keep the front raised beds available for winter crops and if any spaces in them become available, they can also be sown with green manure.

The salad garden... take two

It would have been criminal not to be out in the garden today in the glorious sunshine. We did a lot of general tidying up and I spent a good couple of hours sorting out the salad garden.

My first attempt at starting a salad garden was eaten before it started by my nemesis, the garden slug. Determined not to be defeated, I courageously fought back with an army of nematodes and today, I have stepped up the fort by surrounding the top edge of the raised bed with trusty copper tape....

Just you try and get over this then mr slug...

After a good digging over, a variety of salad goodies were sown, some for quick growing/cut and come again crops, others slower growing for the autumn and, if I can actually get them to grow, I'll sow more seed for some winter crops too.

Here is a run down of the seeds sown in the salad garden:

- Kale 'Nero di Toscana' (one of my potential winter crops)
- Lemon Balm
- Leaf Beet 'Canary'
- Lettuce 'Salad Bowl' & 'Bergamo'
- Sorrel
- Corn Salad (another potential winter salad crop)
- Mizuna
- Whale Spinach
- Rucola & Wild Rocket


So, time will tell if I have managed to keep the slugs at bay and I might actually get some crops growing in the salad garden.

Other garden action is that the tigerella and cherry tomatoes are doing well and both producing lots of flowers, some of which I am relieved to see are finally fruiting. I've been spraying the flowers with water to help them set (a handy tip from a veteran allotmenteer friend) and so long as the weather is kind, we should see a reasonably decent crop.

Tomato 'Tigerella' fruit appearing... yay!