Tag Archives: aubergine
Balcony Larder: Salad success, a fruiting triffid & strawberries from Wimbledon to the Olympics
I’ve had only one resounding success in this summer of dire weather. And that’s in the production of salad leaves. Lots of ’em, several kinds including the very tasty, impossible-to-buy chervil. I reckon I’ve had over 25 platefuls of the it.
I went away for a couple of days, though, and the stuff bolted. No, don’t eat the flowers, I stupidly learnt the hard way they don’t do you any good at all — though, as you can see in the picture, nasturtiums can be part of a salad, they have a peppery taste.
On the advice of the GreedyGardener I brutally tore the bolting salads all up. And my infant granddaughters and I got delightfully dirty in sowing some more.
Balcony Larder: Growing food teaches some hard facts of life
I’m delighted to report that pay-back time has begun. I’m eating stuff I’ve grown! There’s something cool about popping out on to the balcony with a pair of scissors and snipping my own salad for lunch.
So far I’ve chomped my way through about £3-worth of lettuce. I’m hardly on the road to self-sufficiency — woman cannot live by leaves alone. I’m pleased, though, even slightly smug about it all.
Balcony Larder: A stonking great aubergine plant
I’m told that aubergines can grow like weeds in hot, dry places, though Wikipedia describes them as a “delicate perennial“. There’s one of their kind doing pretty well in my kitchen, as you can see. Decidedly indelicate, robust even.
Given to me as a titchy little thing by @policyworks at the end of April, I plonked it in front of the window that catches the morning sunshine, and gave it a desultory water from time to time. Then these surprisingly enormous leaves started to happen.