Harvesting From Your Garden – What Could be Better?

The best thing about moving into our new house this summer was the acquisition of a garden and an established garden at that.  Our old house only had a terraced yard which could just about cope with a herb box whereas we now even have apple trees.  A garden is a fabulous addition to the family home.  Our 2 year old Savanna now has a little “house” at the bottom of the garden which she has called Holly Cottage.  It has it’s own little garden area in which she is responsible for watering the bedding plants.

As we only moved in in June we didn’t really get time to plant many herbs, vegetables this year but we have got big plans for next year. We did however manage to grow radish and cabbages as wanted to show Savanna that food doesn’t just come from a supermarket.  It has been good fun monitoring growth and a very rewarding feeling to eat something that you have grown yourself.  Roll on next summer!

We also have 2 huge apple trees and an abundance of mint.  I have enjoyed searching for recipes to compliment and include these ingredients.  Mint is great for summer in bean salads, with lamb, mojitos, even just a sprig in a glass of water.  I have frozen fresh mint in olive oil in ice cube trays for future use and stock piled mint sauce for winter.

Apple wise, some of them are cooking apples and others are eating apples.  I have made the classic crumbles (experimenting with toppings including pistachio and dark chocolate chip crumb).  Baby Libby who has just started weaning is probably sick of apples! I even found a recipe for chicken and apple curry which went down a treat and am now on my third batch of apple chutney.

There is definitely something meaningful and therapeutic about harvesting from your garden and I highly recommend it.

From this

Via this..

and this…

To this! – My first lot of apple and date chutney

Written by Lindsey Holcroft