It has been an excellent summer for the kitchen garden. A good 3 months with all tomatoes, salads, beans, courgettes, cucumbers, basil and chilli peppers coming fresh from the garden each day. However, even with a small garden, it is possible to preserve and save produce from the garden to last the next 6 months. …Read More about Garden to plate
Diary of a Brussels Kitchen Garden
Summer colours (Tomatoes)
It has been an exceptionally good year for tomatoes (so far) and an even better year for trying out new varieties. The Russian and Eastern European varieties were all started before the European and Mediterranean varieties and are now coming into full bloom while the regular European types are still green. It is amazing to …Read More about Summer colours (Tomatoes)
Summer colours (Chilli Peppers)
It is that time of year when fruit in the garden starts the transition from green to finished colour. With chilli peppers this can be a bit confusing with some of the change in colour looking unhealthy. Chilli peppers move through a range of colours as they ripen on the vine. As long as the …Read More about Summer colours (Chilli Peppers)
Recycling potting soil
What do you do with your old potting soil? The current heatwave is a good opportunity to turn dry dusty old soil into a useful mineral rich medium for use in next month’s winter planting. Ideally is to mix this new medium with matured home made compost but if that is not available then the …Read More about Recycling potting soil
Roasted lettuce
It is important for gardeners to know when to give up. Trying to grow summer salads in trays or containers in heatwave conditions is almost impossible, and a waste of water. The best salads are grown in the spring and autumn anyway. In the good old days Belgium summers were cool and wet and ideal …Read More about Roasted lettuce
Experimental tomatoes
In recent years European tomato growers have taken an interest in varieties from Eastern Europe; Russia, Poland, Ukraine and even Siberia. These sturdy types of tomato are often early starters, late finishers and have increased resistance to tomato blight and other health problems that affect tomatoes grown in poor or unpredictable weather conditions. The many …Read More about Experimental tomatoes