Free seeds on vegblogs.co.uk

Always magpie for bargains, I came across this site that says they give free seeds twice a year to anyone who blogs regularly on their blogging system.

Since I already blog, I thought I'd give it a try and have just set it up so I could get a regular supply of seeds. Their next seed allocation is in October, which is a while away, but at least will give me plenty of time to figure out what grows well and what we use regularly from the garden in our kitchen.

Hopefully it'll be worth the wait and effort to maintain two blogs but it's also a good little setup worth knowing about benefitting both gardener and seller.

Plants from Queen's Park farmers market

The market today was packed with people and 4 stalls of plant sellers, which is a lot more than usual. Even though I have started sowing seeds, many are still little seedlings, so it was too tempting not to buy a few that are all leafy and ready to use! We bought one that we've never had before, tree spinach, but sounds delicious.

 

top left clockwise: tree spinach, mizuna, parsley, lollo rossa

Bolo de arroz (Rice cakes)

Today the temperature went up a few degrees and the sun was out so finally, for the first time, we were about to have breakfast on the terrace!

First meal on our terrace

We made a traditional Portuguese pastry called "bolo de arroz" which translates to rice cake. Not the usual crispy buscuit like ones on sale here in UK supermarkets. These are proper cakes with sugar, eggs, rice flour, plain flour, butter, and lemon zest. We made them in muffin trays but traditionally they are made in narrow tall paper containers, a bit like panettone.

Bolos de arroz

And they tasted like the real thing! 

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Broa de milho (Portuguese corn bread)

Broa is a traditional Portuguese corn bread, usually made with a mix of corn flour with white flour and/or rye flour, and sourdough. According to my mom, my grandmother used to bake several loafs of  this bread every week, so I decided to try to follow tradition and gave it a try.

With a few hints from my mom and a recipe we found at a blog (in Portuguese) this is what came out from our oven.

Broa de milho

Ingredients:

• 350g maize flour
• 175g white bread flour
• 175g rye flour
• 200g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
• 2tsp salt
• 450ml boiling water
• 50ml water

Method:

Add all the flours to a large bowl and mix them together. Add the salt to the boiling water and add it to the flours, mixing with a spoon. Let the dough cool down until its temperature is below 40C. Mix the sourdough and the remaining water and add it to the dough. Mix with your hands for a few minutes, until everything is well incorporated, adding more water if necessary - the dough should be quite sticky. 

With wet hands, smooth down the dough, and let it rest for about 2 hours. The dough is ready when it has risen and cracks appear on the surface.

To shape the dough sprinkle a clean bowl with maize flour, put the dough inside the bowl and sprinkle with more flour. Toss and rotate the dough in the bowl until it is shaped into a ball.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220C for 40 minutes. 

Broa de milho - crumb

The broa should have a thick, crusty crust, with a moist dense crumb. It goes well with strong flavours, like a nice smoked ham, or an extra virgin olive oil. Enjoy!

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Free seeds with Daily Mirror

I was asked a few months back at work to design for a Facebook promotion campaign for "Free Seeds". So naturally I requested if I could have some. And today, they arrived! What a treat!

My box of free seeds

A fairly big box with about 50 seed packets from two companies: Suttons seeds and Mr Fothergill's, comprising of a variety of herb, vegetable and flower seeds. Will start sowing some in my seed propagator and newspaper pots today. 

Plants from Portugal

Every time I go to Portugal I take the opportunity to collect as many plants as I can. Previously, I only brought back indoor plants but now I can go a little crazy and get outdoor ones! Of course I have to limit myself so I only brought back edible producing plants.

The previous owners left some strawberry plants but I couldn't resist bringing back more especially a different variety. 

Strawberry plants

Raspberry plants were such exciting find. These were in our aunt's garden which no one in her family are that keen on and she thought they were something else when she planted them! She says they fruit 3 times a year, always too much fruit for their need and grows like a messy weed. All things I don't mind if they produce anything edible.

Raspberry plants

Bay is another we brought back. I've considered buying a bay tree as we do use bay leaves in cooking, so it was a great joy to find that my in-laws had some in their garden from wind blown seeds and they didn't want them. For such little plants, they had very long and strong roots!

Bay trees 

So I've potted all these up and we'll see how they fair over the next few months.

Potted strawberry plants

Potted raspberry plants

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DIY propagator update

It's always a bit nerving returning back from a trip away from home. We've had a few experiences with dreaded leaks and other unwanted issues so it was a relief nothing drastic awaited us. Of course, there are always a few plants that don't survive too well and the old flat hardly got any sun so lack of water was never too much of an issue. But I should confess, I didn't do a thorough watering with the usual the rush to leave on time.

So amongst the few shrivelled plants which will maybe resurrect, I was looking forward to what I had sowed in my homemade seed propagator. 

Steamy propagators

The two boxes were filled with condensation and I was fearful everything would just be covered in mould but to my joy, there were quite a lot of seedlings emerging. So far cherry tomatoes, peas, chilli, okra, oregano.

First seedlings

A fifth of pots had a layer of mould on them but they should dry and die off in time. I'm pretty excited but not sure if I should leave the lids on or off.

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Baking in Portugal - Bread Rolls

In Portugal, it's very common to have bread at the table (plus rice, plus potatoes!). Usually we make one big loaf for ourselves but in our Portuguese household, individual rolls seem to be the preferred choice so we tried some. First lot was made with maize flour, white flour, dried yeast, salt, water

In the oven

Tried a different method and ingredients another day.

White flour, fresh yeast, salt, sugar, water

We didn't have enough trays so we had to use muffin tins.

Shaped like a muffin

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Garden in Portugal

This weekend (plus a few days extra) was spent in Portugal visiting family. It's always nice going there especially when the weather starts warming up as the family has two plots of land for gardening. This time of the year in early spring, we should have been able to pick broad beans but with the late start to spring, they weren't ready. The neighbours did have a couple ready to be picked as they sowed them earlier.

Broad bean

There were however still lots of tangerines. 4 trees in total but only 1 was still producing fruit juicy enough for juicing. 

 

Lots of little tangerines on the tree

Basket of tangerines

There was also an orange tree with very good oranges which was also less work to get some juice out of.

Orange tree

Juicy oranges

4 oranges made 3 small glasses

The pear trees were in bloom, as were the cherry trees and neighbours quince tree.

Pear tree in bloom

Also managed to help plant some potatoes which was incredibly hard work! But glad I was able to help (even though just a little) and have a better idea on how to plant some for the future.

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Foraging for a salad

It was a little treat to go foraging with Urban Harvest this weekend. We didn't expect to find many things due to the cold spell but was pleasantly surprised. The picture below is the final result of the salad.

It was very enjoyable to learn and taste all the different types of foliage - some tasted much nicer than others! I would love to learn more about foraging and hope to be able to participate a few more events like this in the near future. 

Here is what went in the salad:

Bittercress

Yarrow

Campanula

Buds on Linden tree

Red Valerian

Chives

Ground elder

Lesser celandine

Lemon balm

Garlic mustard

Goosegrass

Dandelion leaves

Hawthorn leaves

Primrose flowers

Violets

There were a couple more things that I missed taking a photo of but I got most of it. 

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(Not) Hot Cross Buns

Since it was Easter, we made hot cross buns, minus the crosses. They could have done with a bit more kneading because they were slightly dense but still, they came out soft and full of flavour. A great recipe from Infinity Foods. Will definitely be making these again.

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Sourdough light rye with caraway seeds loaf

This was one of two loaves. The first one was eaten before a picture could be taken! The slight hint of caraway is very pleasant. Goes well with a savoury sandwich of ham, cheese, avocado and a few leafy greens, or simply with a bit of butter and light drizzle of honey.

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DIY seed propagator (made with Muji boxes and newspaper)

Spring is here and I'm excited to plant all the seeds I've been collecting over the past years.  I usually put seeds straight in soil and let them grow straight from there but that was when I grew plants indoors only. Now that I'm growing them outdoors, and trying out lots of different seeds, I thought I'd better start them off indoors, especially since I'll be sowing quite a lot. Plus the weather has been pretty bad with it snowing this late in March.

I've looked online and seen quite a few propagation kits. There are quite expensive for something made just out of plastic and so I decided to make my own using things around the home.  Although most propagator use transparent lids, I thought to try using translucent boxes from Muji since I had tons of them around and thought they would also look very neat to leave around the flat. 

I have used the toilet roll method of making little pots before in my mom's garden and they work great (as long as they don't stay too wet) and I like the recycling aspect of it and that the "pots" can be put directly into the ground after germination. But I haven't collected enough so I had to think of other solution. 

Newspapers were the answer since there are many free handouts on the journey back from work. My next step was to find a good design and instructions for an origami box. After a few trials, I decided on this garbage bin origami pattern that I found here.

A finished pot

Instruction pattern

They do take a while to make so in the future, I'll make a few each night while watching telly, otherwise it gets too tedious to make them all in one go.

Folded pots, ready to be used

But I'm pretty happy with them as they look good and feel sturdy. Exactly 6 columns of 4 rows, 24 pots per box, which is quite a prefect fit so nothing tips over and there's enough space if the pots expand a little.

A good fit

They can be stacked up neatly in a corner or on a shelf. I wonder what will germinate first out of the seeds I planted.

My DIY seed propagators all stacked and potted up

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