December 2010 Newsletter.
Dear Quickcrop Gardeners,
Well, you don’t need me to tell you it’s been bitterly cold for the past few weeks. Personally I think it’s great though I do understand it has it’s unpleasant side, we’ve had a few dramas here ourselves. I do find the snow is great for hiding all the mess around my house and leaving everything looking clean and white, though it will nice to be reunited with my shovel which I suspect is buried somewhere in the garden!
We have no mains water at the home farm so the last few weeks have been an education learning how to defrost pumps and freeing up frozen valves. It’s funny how warm the well water feels when it’s minus 8 or 9 above ground. I’m now quite the expert on foot valves, pressure vessels, impellers and the like.......
Wild animals are naturally feeling the pinch and unfortunately Niall has had a pine martin and a fox taking their dinner in his chicken coop. My piglets have taken up bird watching and for some reason stand transfixed looking at the finches and robins eating the left over barley around their trough. Do keep an eye on your birds by the way, contrary to popular belief a hard winter does not wipe out garden pests but is particularly tough on your feathered friends. You’ll be happy you kept them going when they start hoovering up your slugs in the spring.
There isn’t much you can do in the garden this time of year so why not put the feet up? This is a great time of year to kick back with a cup of tea (or perchance a hot whiskey?) and peruse the seed Catalogues for next year. I love looking at dierent varieties of favourite crops, am looking forward to growing a white beetroot Dermot Carey head gardener at Lissadell introduced me to this summer.
I have a bit of a favour to ask this month in a request to ll out a questionnaire. We’re giving away some free seed packs in return for giving us your opinions on what we do, we want to make Quickcrop the best vegetable grower website in Ireland and the U.K. and need your help! I have included the questionnaire as an attachment, if you have 5 minutes to ll it in we would really appreciate it.
We are working on some exciting new changes to our website over the winter with some great new resources, I can’t tell you about our latest coup right now but I’m sure you’re going to love it when we announce it in the spring.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Andrew and Niall
Quickcrop.ie
A Quickcrop voucher makes a great present for that special vegetable grower in your life at any time of the year. As we’re approaching the festive season we’ve decided to celebrate by giving you a €50.00 voucher for only €40.00! Either use it yourself or make it look like you’re more generous than you actually are by giving it to someone else. We always have a great range of products to choose from and will be adding loads of new stuff over the winter. Our redesigned Christmas voucher makes an lovely yule-tide gift.
Click for €50 Quickcrop voucher
We bought this book recently for the Quickcrop library and it became my bedtime reading for the following few weeks. I’m delighted
now to offer it in our shop and can’t recommend it highly enough.
The book is aimed at growing in Irelands North West (If you can grow here, you can grow anywhere!) but is an important book for growers anywhere on the Island of Ireland. As you know planting times alone are hugely important to the success of your crops, Klaus turns many of the accepted times on their head in his own inimitable style. Here’s an excerpt on parsnips:
“The traditional sowing date for parsnips is early spring. It says on the back of the seed packet to sow between February and March. I can guarantee that you will have absolutely no success if you stick to that”.
Klaus is entertaining, direct and very, very knowledgeable. If you want to grow your own vegetables in
Ireland get this book, end of story. Only €14.95
Our spring garden kit includes the Vegtrug esasy access planter and a selection of 4/6 week old baby vegetable plants delivered to you in the Spring. These planters are really handy and are perfect outside the back door for a crop of fresh herbs or crunchy salads.
The planter can be ordered as a gift and the recipient will receive an attractive voucher pack containing an oriental salad seed mix. The timber bed and baby plant mix will arrive in the springtime when it’s time to get growing!
We’ve just launched our new Spring baby plant packs and we think these make a great present. We have a
fantastic range of packs from compact beginners gardens to giant gardens of 172 plants for experienced
gardeners with plenty of space.
The plants are sent out in spring when all risk of frost has passed. Pop them in the ground and ‘Bingo’ instant
vegetable garden.
The thought of vibrant young vegetable plantspushing their first tender shoots through the soil is so full of promise, give someone the gift of growing this Christmas.
Prices start at €24.50
If you are wondering what to buy a keen gardener for Christmas, or need ideas for spending your Christmas money, then a heated propagator could be just the answer. A little ‘bottom’ heat is just what is needed to give seeds a start, and help avoid damping off and other seedling diseases.
Our Stewarts 8watt electric propagator is energy ecient, using less energy than an ordinary light bulb and is made from tough impact resistant plastic.
Click here for link.
Click here for link.
Growing Bean Sprouts.
Good seeds to try are: alfalfa, aduki bean, cress, fenugreek, mung bean, mustard, and radish. Here’s the ‘123’:
1. Soak seed in tepid water overnight and rinse. Scatter seeds onto damp tissue paper in a shallow tray. Cover with polythene and place in the dark.
2. Rinse sprouts daily. Keep the tissue constantly moist, but not too wet as the seeds may rot. Drain any free water from the tray. Remove polythene as needed.
3. Move into light to ‘green’ sprouts as needed, eg alfalfa, cress, fenugreek, mustard, and radish. Keep pale coloured sprouts (‘forced’) in the dark, eg mung beans and aduki beans.
If you want to increase vitamins, especially vitamin C, place the sprouts in sunlight for a half day after they have fully grown. They will green up and turn sunlight into extra vitamins. If in direct sunlight rinse them occasionally to keep them moist. Once grown they can be refrigerated to slow growth and keep them fresh longer. Add sprouts to any salad, sandwich or just eat them fresh. I eat a pile of sprouts with vinegar and oil or other salad dressing.
Soil Testing
Soil type is measured in pH (potential hydrogen). This is compiled on a scale of 1 to 14 with 7 being regarded as neutral, although in gardening terms 6.5 will support most plants. Below 7 is acid and above alkaline. If you want the best out of your garden send soil samples away for professional analysis for both pH and nutrient content or utilise a kit or meter.
We have two cheap and simple products on our site, the PH Meter Ground Tester and the Gardman PH Soil Test Kit.
If your soil is too acid, you need to add alkaline material. The most common "liming" material is ground limestone. Ground limestone breaks down slowly, but it does not burn plants like "quick lime" does.
Apply it to the garden and lawn in the now to allow time for it to act on soil pH before the next growing season.
If your soil is Alkaline you need to add a source of acid. Options include pine needles, shredded leaves, compost or manure. Pine needles are a good source of acid and mulch. Adding plenty of composted kitchen waste which is slightly acid will also improve the
situation as well as feeding your plants.
I’m a terrible man for leek and potato soup and spent a couple of days in Ballymaloe many years ago. I love Darina’s buttery cooking and could eat buckets of this stuff. Anyway here we go:
Ingredients
50g butter
450g potatoes , peeled and cut into 1cm pieces (try Golden Wonders or Kerr Pinks)
1 small onion , cut the same size as the potatoes
450g white parts of leeks , sliced (save the green tops for another soup or stock)
850ml-1.2litres/1.5-2pts light chicken or vegetable stock
142ml carton whipping cream
125ml full-fat milk
To Finish
the white part of 1 leek
a small knob of butter
nely chopped chives
Method
1 Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. When it foams, add the potatoes, onion and leeks and toss them in the butter until they are well coated. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper and toss again.
Put a disc of greaseproof paper (called a cartouche by chefs) on top of the vegetables to keep in the steam), then cover the pan with its lid. Cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft but not coloured.
2 Uncover the pan and discard the paper. Pour in 850ml/11⁄2 pints of the stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are just cooked - about 5 minutes. Do not overcook or the soup will lose its fresh avour.
3 Purée in a blender until silky smooth, in batches if necessary, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Return the soup to a clean pan and stir in three quarters of the cream and all of the milk.
4 To finish the soup, nely shred the white leek and gently cook it in the hot butter for a few minutes until it is softened but not coloured. Reheat the soup to a gentle simmer (add some extra stock at this point if the soup is too thick for your liking), then pour into warmed bowls. Drizzle the remaining cream over each serving, top with a little pile of buttered leeks and a scattering of chives and black pepper and serve at once.
