Plot Lines

This week’s Small Share (week four) has asparagus kale, salad leaves, green garlic, red Russian kale, chard and mixed herbs.

I was in two minds this week about whether to start picking the Spring onions. There would have been a few per customer. I decided patience is a virtue and will wait for more to be ready at once. Spring onions left in the ground just turn into bigger Spring onions, they don’t grow into an actual onion and they don’t seem to bolt.

The red Russian kale is the one with the frilly edges and the pink ribs. It is good in soup, stews, curry and stir fries.

I’ll do a smaller bag of chard this time and put in the remaining spinach. The spinach plants have resisted bolting and have produced a few more big leaves.

The salad leaves are a mix of rocket, pea shoots, sorrel and mustard leaves. There might be some lettuce leaves soon.

The plantathon continues – the Polycrub is filling up, now we need some irrigation as the watering is taking ages.

In the greenhouse I have to juggle the over Wintered veg that I’m still picking with Summer veg which needs to be planted. I have to maintain a constant supply of baby plants to fill in any gaps. All the little brassicas and legumes are waiting to go outside.

In the middle of May the second big round of planting begins, all the brassicas can go outside and I spend a lot of time staring anxiously at them looking for signs of a creature attack. This year I have a new pest to contend with – Leatherjackets. These are Daddy Long Legs babies. I like Daddy Long Legs but not their unpleasant offspring. These horrid little grubs eat roots, which is pretty unhelpful. They seem to be concentrated in the net tunnel so I’m going to plant mostly legumes in there as the Leatherjackets don’t seem to like them. It’s a good place for peas and beans as it’s nice and sheltered.

The hens are still laying with gusto if anyone would like to reserve some eggs.

This week’s Small Share (week three) has purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus kale, salad leaves, Spring greens, basil and pea shoots.

I’ve not grown asparagus kale before, I’m very impressed with it. It grew over Winter then started producing spears at exactly the right moment. I have one patch of it in the back field (where the weather is) and that has proved very hardy. I’ve no idea how long it will keep producing spears, a few more weeks I would guess. It seems to need less cooking than other stem types of broccoli.

The rocket in the salad mix is super peppery, it’s very good in a salad paired with the pea shoots.

The purple sprouting broccoli will be a smaller portion this week. So far the PSB has come from the net tunnel but now it looks like it’s winding down. I have some that was planted later in the greenhouse as well. There may be a PSB gap as one lot finishes and the other lot revs up!

Spring greens are cabbage leaves, left alone the plants would turn into pointy cabbages. I never do a lot with Spring greens, just wash and wilt in a pan with a little water, then drain and smother in butter! This is really good as an accompaniment to lentil dal.

I have a few experimental crops on the go – celeriac and kohlrabi in the greenhouse. I’m not hopeful for the kohlrabi, it really is a slug magnet. I’ve got the little plants surrounded with slug deterrents all to no avail. Maybe some will make it through. I find the Spring to be the worst time for pest attack, wild plants aren’t really growing so a nice tender little brassica is very tempting for a slug (or vole.) Brassicas planted in the autumn are all big enough to shrug off a little nibbling. Organic gardening is often painted as a lovely, natural way of growing in harmony with nature. In reality I spend most of my time trying to fend off nature.

The tomato plants are back in the caravan overnight. I’m trying to avoid potting them on, I’d like to plant them in the soil next week so I need it to not be really cold at night. French beans are a bit tougher so they’re staying in the Polycrub full time.

This week I’ve planted more potatoes, the rest of the onions, all the sugar snaps in the wonder crub and some dwarf French beans, also in the Polycrub. April and May are always very leafy months, with brassicas, salad leaves, chard etc, I’d like to have some peas and beans in the mix in June.

I have loads of eggs (chicken or duck) if any Share customers would like some I can put them aside. £1.90 for six, cash on collection.

This week’s Small Share (week two) has purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus kale, salad leaves, pea shoots, chard and parsley.

Pea shoots are delicious raw or can be treated a bit like spinach. They really do taste like peas.

When processing the salad leaves I wear disposable, bio-degradeable gloves. I briefly dunk all the leaves in cold water then spin in a salad spinner. This helps keep the salad leaves fresh in the fridge, they still need to be washed before eating. A good tip for keeping any leafy veg fresh is to put a small amount of water in the bag with them and seal.

The chard has been growing over the Winter and there are some really big leaves. The whole leaf and stalk can be eaten. There is no need to remove the stems, they aren’t stringy and cook really well in soup, stews, curry etc. I try not to give customers things which can’t be eaten, for example broccoli leaves are good as a cabbage substitute and beetroot leaves are delicious in soup. Chard is great in curries as a spinach substitute. My favourite website for a veggie curry recipe is www.vegrecipesofindia.com. Some of the recipes have ingredients which might be hard to source on the Isle of Skye, but google can always suggest a substitute!

The weather’s been most obliging this week, more of that please! I made good headway with the potatoes and onions. Last year we grew all the spuds in two big ploughed areas. The first earlies didn’t do too well so this year I’ve put them in raised beds with plenty of seaweed. I’m planting a selection of other potatoes as well – Charlotte because they are usually very reliable, Belle de Fontenay because it sounds so fancy and Arran Victory because they make the worlds best roasties. I’ve still got some to plant and they will be going in a ploughed area so fingers crossed the slugs have found something else to chomp on.

The Polycrub planting is progressing, it’s seriously warm in there. I’ve started acclimatising the tomatoes in advance of planting them much to the relief of my long suffering family. For the past month the tomatoes have been in a caravan during the day and sat in the bath overnight! Early broad beans have been planted in the Polycrub, I’ve tried to usher a few bees in there to aid with pollination.

Next week I’ll be continuing with potato planting, sugar snaps in the Polycrub, maybe tomatoes and dwarf French beans. If we are plunged back into Winter the tomatoes will be back in the bath!

Well, the Winter flew by, and here we are again at the start of this year’s Croft Shares. This year I’m doing three sizes, Small, Medium and Large. Small is available now until the end of the season. I’ll be starting Medium and Large in June, possibly July for the Large size.

Small contains 5, occasionally 6 different crops. This week’s Share has six items – purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus kale, a big bag of mixed salad leaves, spinach, chives and green garlic.

Asparagus kale is not asparagus, it’s a type of kale that’s been bred to produce broccoli type spears in the Spring. Use much as you would purple sprouting broccoli, e.g. stir fry, boil, steam, put on a pizza, smother in cheese sauce etc… This kale also has nice tasty leaves so I’ll include some of those too.

The salad bags are a peppery/lemony mix of mustards, rocket, lambs lettuce, and sorrel.

I grew the spinach as an experiment over Winter in the greenhouse. Of course I’m now kicking myself that I didn’t plant more. It looked truly pathetic all Winter long, then two weeks ago started producing beautiful, big, glossy leaves. The spinach season is very short, the plants will bolt, probably next week, so this is possibly a tasty, one off harvest. My favourite use for spinach is in a curry, the smaller leaves could be added to a salad.

Green garlic is an immature garlic plant. It looks like a spring onion and can be used as such, giving a garlicky kick to salads or a sandwich. It can be used like garlic in soups, stews and sauces. The leaves are edible as well as the white bit.

The next few weeks will include lots more broccoli, asparagus kale and salad leaves. I’ve got pea shoots coming up, lots of colourful chard and Spring greens. I always grow onions and spring onions over Winter in the greenhouse. This year they suffered from sustained slug attack, a problem I’ve not encountered before. A decent portion made it through though and there will be plenty to go around.

I’ll be planting more Spring onions outside soon and they are usually ready in mid June.

The Polycrub is shaping up to be a brilliant growing space, it’s really warm and not at all rattly. If it’s windy I don’t feel like it’s all about to come crashing down on my head. I’m planting broad beans, sugar snap peas and lettuce in there for June, as well as some dwarf French beans which may crop earlier than the climbing variety. The tomatoes are also going in this space, I know all my customers love tomatoes. Nothing really beats the flavour of a croft grown, Isle of Skye tomato.

This weekend I’ll be starting planting potatoes and onions, more on that next week.

This week we had one lovely day and several windy, wet days. I spent most of one windy day carding wool. My hands are now super soft!

We have two Hebridean sheep, Penny and Wotsit. They are very elderly and perpetually grumpy, but their fleece is lovely and is really good for making felt.

The first stage of the felting process is to delegate shearing to someone bigger than me. Penny submits to this fairly calmly, Wotsit fights like her life depends on it.

The second stage involves washing the fleece. I have no idea how an expert would do this, I cut the fleece up into smaller pieces and soak it in warm water with ecover washing up liquid.

After about four hours I drain the water and soak again in warm water without soap. I do this one more time then hang the fleece pieces up to dry. Yes, it takes ages to dry.

Once dry the wool is carded and formed into small fluffy creatures which can be used to make felt. This process involves bubble wrap, an old net curtain, a door mat, warm water, soap, a piece of pipe insulation and patience!

Penny and Wotsit’s fleeces have a lovely range of colours in them. Their wool felts pretty easily and I use some bought, dyed wool to create a pattern.

These photos are a reminder that the sun does sometimes shine on us and very occasionally shorts are in order!

I’ve been thinking for a while that a garden diary/blog would be a nice addition to this website. It’s possible that there are a few gardeners out there might find the travails of a West coast market gardener of interest. As a veg grower of many years I know that the general gardening advice for Scottish growers isn’t any use to those of us in the path of regular gale force winds and Summers with not much sunshine! I’ve actually found some blogs written by gardeners in Alaska whose insight is more helpful to me on Skye than standard UK advice. Our Winters are dark, our growing season short, the Spring is cold and the Summer can be wet! On the upside in the Summer we have plenty of light, my soil is very good, outdoor watering is rarely required and the Winters are mild so growing brassicas in the Winter is possible.

In the Spring and Summer I’ll post weekly updates of the Croft Share harvest along with some general croft news and probably a lot of complaining about the weather and slugs.

At the moment I’m mostly mulching! I cover most veg beds with a mix of seaweed, manure, old hay, wood ash and leaves. I put cardboard down on the paths and top this with wood chip. This cardboard/woodchip arrangement usually suppresses the weeds until about August. In August the weeds suddenly get wildly out of control and everything looks really untidy! In January everything is soaking wet but pleasantly weed free.

It’s almost time to start sowing again. I’ll be starting the tomatoes in a propagator under a grow light this week. This always causes a few problems in our small house as all the plants take up quite a lot of room. I need at least 80 tomato plants, they don’t take up much space for the first few weeks but by March it feels a bit like the house is being taken over by triffids. After that it’s time to sow all the onions, leeks and some leafy veg.
I’ve just planted 50 early seed potatoes in the greenhouse. I’ve done this in the past with a lot of success until last year. Tatties planted under cover in January are usually ready in June. I did this in 2022 and for the first time the potato plants were destroyed by slugs. This just shows how wet it was last Spring, slugs aren’t usually a major problem under cover. This year I’ve put the seed potatoes along the driest edge of the greenhouse, so fingers crossed for a nice potato surprise in June.

If the weather is too awful I have a few indoor activities. There’s the things I don’t relish like IT and accounts, and the good stuff like felt making and basket weaving for our Etsy shop.

I started learning to weave willow baskets a few years ago. After many attempts I became proficient in producing a simple round basket. The first baskets I made were woven with a very forgiving four rod weave. This year I’ve been experimenting with different weaving techniques and have completed several baskets with handles. This is a difficult skill to master but it’s very satisfying to produce something that’s actually useful. All my practice baskets are still in use around the croft and have proved to be very sturdy, if a bit wonky.

Here are some recent creations. I really like the asymmetric, stick handled style, it feels like I’m doing carpentry! It’s good to incorporate a bit of wood that I’ve grown. I can do commissions in either of the styles shown. Or visit our Etsy shop to see what’s available.