Spinach is a great leafy vegetable and one of our staples in the early spring and winter. I grow two varieties of baby leaf spinach, Ottawa and Amazon, both suited to early and late sowing and producing an abundance of leaves either for salads or cooking. I sow my first batch in the polytunnel in
Nothing but blue skies……With high pressure over Scandinavia and the jet stream well to the south the northerly air flow has turned the islands into a frigid riviera. Long sunny days and balmy temperatures of 5°C, which in the lightest wind become a chilly 1°C, are perfect for brisk walks along the beach but hopeless
I’ve never really understood the appeal of cold soups, except maybe real gazpacho eaten in a Spanish estancia surrounded by cork oak forests and roaming pata negra hogs feasting on acorns, but that is another story. For me soups are one of the ultimate comfort foods, rich, thick and soothing, served in rustic pottery bowls
Janus Pater, firstborn of Roman deities, presides over all transitions and beginnings, the door keeper, guardian of the new year, and custodian of the calendar, from whom January takes its name. In deference to Janus I am ambivalent about January – the lengthening days tell me to look forward as spring is coming, but the
