Basil (said in her best Sybil voice)

So I bought some of this fine plant Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum) 'Italian Large Leaf' to plant for munching and making pesto. Its a large leaved beast and if split up properly will adequately fill this pot and give us basil for the whole summer. The pots were £1.40 each, whilst I normally grow my own, landing in your own garden in June didn't really mean I could bring a billion baby seed trays with me. (I know I'm lazy......) Compared with fresh packets, this will save us a fortune in both spends and petrol to retrieve it from the shops. It will get regular haircuts and I'll freeze what we don't eat immediately.  A bit like the windowsill allotment of old, the tub will live on the windowsill of the conservatory. 

We're also partial to making basil pesto although we're in Fife now, so it will be Fife Pesto, I'm sure it will taste same. I'd love to make it with my own walnuts but lets face it, the poor wee fella is a bit peedie (small) yet but he survived the move 'sooth' well so maybe sometime in the future eh? So time to get this lot planted up and let it enjoy the sunshine on the windowsill, perfect way to grow stuff especially if you've no garden or limited space. I hear this area we've moved to is the sunniest in the UK, here's hoping that bits true eh?

And, no word on seeing the wellies, OK, I'm not allowed in the house with them on, so you saw nothing, right?

A great site about finding out about edible plants is Plant for a Future and here's what they have to say about Basil. Did you know its a perennial that we grow as an annual........

Problem with Basil is that I can never say it normally. I always have to use my 'Sybil' voice. More about Sybil and Basil here, a genius UK TV show from the 1970's. And for some classic Basil, not that I'm advocating that you beat you car with a shrub but........

Enjoy your basil, however you serve it.

The dance of the raspberry

The McFlowers Wedding Pavlova - Photo by the lovely Robyn

Why a dance? Well why not. I've been thinking muchly these few days about raspberries. They often enter my thoughts as a fresh fruit and particularly a raspberry pavlova is one of the few things that will get me all weak at the knees. In fact as you can see, we had a huge 16 egg one for our wedding cake, with eggs donated from a local friends hens and of course, raspberries.  For a decent pavlova you require decent eggs and decent raspberries. Indecent fruit or eggs will just not do, believe me I know a thing or two about these type of things, shady past that I've had. But decent ones perform better and a decent recipe never goes amiss so here's our 'family' one here, complete with secret ingredients.

Its approximately a month until we up sticks and head 'doon sooth' to Fife. Whilst that's sad in some ways in others, like decent eggs, its exciting. Why the eggs adding to the excitement? Well as much as I often visit the 'ladies' we've rehomed, I miss having chooks. They are the ultimate in 'garden pets' I think, most perfect household recycling machines and I am looking forward to having some again once we're moved. The garden I have always thought, should be a productive place, so that's the remit for the 'under offer' garden we're currently pursuing.

The other thing that's making me dance is the idea of a productive edible garden, my plants are forced to work hard for me and I reward them by scoffing them. Not much in it for them really, aside a happy well tended (short) life and a psychotic hungry gardener to hide from. Raspberries will form a good first attack contingent of this, so therefore, some dancing, Polka's or otherwise never goes a miss. People rain dance, I raspberry dance. And as my birthday looms, the children (trained well) ask for requests as they know I like a good fuss, and fussing soon it will be time for April is the best month for birthdays. So they ask what I want - the manchild has been 'selected' as their joint spokesperson for the birthday negotiation.

'Fruit' I say.

'Fruit you say mither dear ' - [Pauses] 'hmm, rasps, first of course - you're thinking pav?'

'Yes I am! Those will do nicely love'.

'Autumn fruiting or a mixture' - he ponders.

'Autumn I think love, thanks all the same but I'm a lazy type'.

'Never said a word' he quips, 'Lets just call you 'efficient''.

You've got to love a young man who not only knows what would be the first fruit of choice for a new productive garden guided by first pudding of choice. And, he also knows his raspberries, he's been well versed (brainwashed) and autumn fruiting types, who rather helpfully fruit on 'primocane' the newly grown stems**of this season, so don't need much in the way of staking or tying. Once established they need little management and if you're canny will crop from the old wood early prior to the 'proper crop' in late summer. Two crops, one season, no faffing, that will do nicely.  I've read alot of good things lately about 'Polka' (both a raspberry and a dance), the first, parented by my favourite 'Autumn Bliss' said to be a heavy cropper and very disease resistant with a good flavour. 

So dear reader we will be doing the dance of the raspberry thanks to my children. I may keep them a while yet, as long as the fruit keeps coming. In return I just grow the fruit, feed the (future) hens and maybe ask my son nicely to help make the first pavlova of the new kitchen. He's just mastered his aunty Claire's (tame family chef) recipe and he's rather good at it. Clever chap on all counts. Teaching your kids to cook (anything) makes for a life long love of food.

**main crop raspberries fruit on 2nd year growth so require more help by staking and pruning to get a good crop. They're fun but not in my opinion as easy for the lazy gardener like myself, so I buy autumn fruiting types and save myself a bit of work.

After all that means more time eating pavlova and, we'll need an 'anniversary pavlova' this year, so making it with our very own rasps and eggs is a must in the new garden. Just saying.

[As I'm dragging myself into the 21st century I've just created a Wind and Wellies facebook page - I wonder if you'll be so wonderful as to pop over and join me?]

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb

This constant kitchen favourite, often much maligned garden staple of many a UK garden, is, in my mind, a proper, tights wearing, underpants over the top, proper superhero plant. Believe me I'll fight my corner on this one, I can't think of many plants with its tenacity and versatility. In fact I think it needs it own cape. The genus is Rheum, the edibles are amazing and the ornamentals are gorgeous in any garden. You'll probably have one, if you don't, please try and find space for one, they're awesome. I grow the edible kind, but then again, I'm prone to eating alot, so that makes perfect sense doesn't it.

Its the Clark Kent of the veggie patch in my mind, cooked and eaten as a fruit, its secretly a super robust vegetable in fruits clothing, but more on that in a bit. Rhubarb is one of the toughest, most common plants you'll find in most gardens. Its flashy red stems and almost umbrella sized crinkly leaves are common to most folks and it comes back every year (a perennial). Ripped from the ground and dipped in sugar, stems used as play swords, leaves as hats or the whole thing as an attractive play umbrella. Stems picked and chopped and baked in crumbles, chutney's and jams, its truly a star of the garden.

Rhubarb is also one of the easiest plants to cultivate. Its easy from seed although the plants (being perennial) take a while longer to mature and to be honest can be a bit 'scrappy' but they do come good from seed. Many folks opt for growing them from 'crowns' or baby mature plants which you'll see in garden centres at this time of year. Potted plants  tend not to be that much more expensive. However, best option in my opinion is to find a friend with a large rhubarb patch or a lovely prolific plant and ask them for a bit of it for you. 

OK so they'll have to really put a spade right through a bit of it for you - but hey, what are friends for, except dividing their plants for your pleasure? Just make sure you get a chunk of root with a few big fat buds on it. The Island Smallholder shows it so well, why not pop over? 

Once you're in possession of your lovely new rhubarb crown, dig a lovely deep hole, add lots of lovely organic matter and feed it well and plant your new to you crown. You'll be best to leave it to establish for a bit, but you'll be scoffing rhubarb next season like you've never known. And, mind on, they don't grow that well on fresh air (well they nearly do) but a well prepared hole and lots of organic matter at the start of the growing season does wonders. You'll soon be harvesting lots of lovely stems. If you want early rhubarb - forcing - a way of encouraging the new stems quicker in the spring can be done by covering the plant with forcing pots (or a large bucket) and encouraging the stems to grow. Makes for an early crop and lots of forcing pots look quite bonnie. More on that here.

I prefer a bucket, but each to their own. Where I live forcing pots are blown over easily and often break - so a bucket and a fine 'rock' does the job just grand.

Under its own steam, its generally up and about early March if you're lucky, April if you're not and will grow and crop until the autumn or potentially the first frosts. Mind on, if its frosted, don't eat the stems as the chemicals in the leaves can leach down into the damaged tissue. As for harvesting - twist the leaf off the stem, don't cut it, does less damage that way, if you don't mind.

Soon like up here in Orkney you'll be growing what seems like 'triffid' rhubarb. Yes that is rhubarb, yes its in Orkney and yes its often bigger than a small building. As much as we're all familiar with this plant - did you know it originates from regions of Siberia, China and Tibet? Now its love of growing in our UK climate (even in the windy north) seems to make more sense doesn't it? So not real shock that it grows in most gardens in the UK and is often heralded the best crop in many an Orkney and Shetland garden. In fact it doesn't actually like it hot - if the temperatures go up, its time for it to go to bed for the summer, it prefers cool climates. Clever plant.

I reckon a canny lass could make a living from rhubarb if they so wanted........like I said its a superhero plant. Hardly any pests bother it - the concentrations of chemicals in its leaves put off the most mauranding of rabbits and aphids bother the leaves on occasion but its never too bad.  The plants can sometimes suffer from 'crown rot' - just make sure yours isn't sitting in a puddle, with decent drainage you should be OK. Cultivation and some varieties on the RHS site here. Timerply Early and Victoria get my vote, as does the local Orkney rhubarb, species unknown, except I suspect it has 'giant' or 'muckle' in the name somewhere......

You see you walk passed the plants all the time in your garden (bag of sugar in hand) ready to pounce on them to harvest them, but do you really know them?

Rhubarb in its medicinal form itself has actually been in cultivation for over 4500 years (not in my garden, I'm not THAT old) a plant favoured by many in the East for its healing properties of the roots. It originally came to the UK by a cheeky wee Scottish Dr who'd smuggled the much sought after seed out of Russia, when his patron the Czar wasn't looking, which was cultivated by an apothecary in Banbury.  It was brought here originally as a medicine, highly sought after, never thought to be eaten until a hungry chap in 1777 decided to try some of the stalks stewed with a bit of sugar and rhubarb pie was borne. So we've been scoffing it since pretty much 1778 and haven't stopped since.

Did you know that whilst we love to eat the stalks and the leaves are quite poisonous containing several chemicals which are really not very agreeable, but the flower heads are edible when young?

They have a crunchy 'sour' taste an excellent bit of information about them all over at 'Of Plums and Pignuts' where this beautiful photograph came from.  

Just remember, its essential to remove all the leaf and stalk to enjoy the crunchy blooms at their best. Great pickled or with lemon too or in a stir fry. Why not give it a try?

Did you also know the 'Rhubarb triangle' exists in Yorkshire between Wakefield, Morely and Rothwell? You see you think you know a plant then you learn a whole load of new things.

 The young tender new shoots which are forced for early crops, were harvested by candlelight before they were popped on a special express train to London (and sometimes Paris) from Xmas to early Easter in the early twentieth century when rhubarb was at its peak. Forced rhubarb is still in production today, its the gorgeous pink stems you'll see in supermarkets and markets early in the season.  'Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb' has been awarded EU Protected Designation of Origin status (PDO) from February 2010. There's a similar 'triangle' in the hills of Perthshire, between Blairgowrie and Alyth, not quite as big but with tasty rhubarb nevertheless.

And why do we grow it? Well as a vegetable mauranding as a fruit baked or boiled or dipped in sugar its great to eat in pies crumbles, jams, sponges and puddings of all shapes and sizes.  Great with custard too.

As for savoury dishes - its gorgeous in a salad with beetroot and a lovely rich cheese such as Roquefort. It even makes a stunning savory curry combined with lentils, spinach and peppers.

It makes a delicious cordial drink (although I'd add citric acid or lemon to the recipe given for a bit of 'bite') and wines, liqueurs and even champagne. Recipes for many of these here but google rhubarb and see what winning combination you come up with. More good recipes here and Nigel loves it so he's got alot to say about it here.

So, have I convinced you of its superhero status yet?  Are you eyeing up your rhubarb with newly found admiration?

A proven medicinal plant, which is easily cultivated (sometimes TOO easily) in our UK climates pretty much from north to south. So low maintenance, its practically sleeping in the garden not needing anything from you at all aside a bit of organic matter now and again whilst you ready a bowl of sugar and a very large appetite. 

And yes, I'm afraid its a vegetable in fruits clothing. On the subject of this I do not lie, you're eating a very fine fleshy leaf stalk (petiole) smothered in sugar. I know it makes no sense, but its tasty. And despite an American court ruling, saying its a fruit, seriously, its a vegetable. Its good with custard though, which I'll grant you is a bit confusing. But tasty it is.

So rhubarb, my own little (or large) robust super hero plant, close to my own heart. I'm almost as fond of it as Roobarb the dog, (non-edible) horticultural hound extraordinaire. A favourite childhood UK TV series.

Also excellent with custard (a very naughty cat).

I'll stop the rhubarb haivers now. I promise.  In truth its 'homework' revision for tomorrow when I'll be proper haivering in real life.

More on that later.

Tattie Nirvana

There's a certain time of year in Orkney when there's a real buzz in the air, folks are out ploughing as the sun peeks out now and again, between the squalls. 

And, like every good thing that comes to those who wait, the seed tatties arrive in William Shearer's wonderful shop in Kirkwall. (Most of us do a wee dance in our wellyboots. Yes, really.) 

It's actually one of the bonniest sights on the planet - a whole room full to bursting with so many types of seed tatties. And, so many in fact they produce a catalogue every year.  This year's one is pink (I knew you were wondering)......and its full of so much great information on the varieties of tatties and their history too.

Never has a new season's catalogue ever been so waited for, this year its electronic too! 

And as for the actual shop once the tatties arrive you'll see many of us walking in and out of the 'back shop' of this particular shop, you know, just for a look. Who would have known Tattie Nirvana existed in real life, here in Orkney.  In real life they really should put a wee coffee machine in there for us tattie enthusiasts to have a wee sit and take in the ambiance.

It's early season tattie chitting time! And, I for one, cannae wait. As it also means, even up here, its time to think about getting out in the garden, or spending soggy days leafing through tattie catalogues thinking about the season ahead. Now, we all know that I'll probably only grow King Edwards and some Pink Fir Apples in tubs this year, but it doesn't stop a girl dreaming of all those other delightful varieties!

Pink Fir Apple Tatties, a right bonnie eater.

And as for Shearer's - probably the best shop in the universe since 1857.  On the main page of the website you can have a wee 'virtual look' around its delights.

Website here and yes it sells everything from sushi rice to seeds to bannocks, butter to waders, coo's lug dog chews to an assortment of fishing, gardening, farming and gaming products. The whole place is just epic, if you need it, its probably in Shearer's.

Open 9am-5.30pm Mon-Sat. Sensibly closed on Sundays.

They've a facebook page here if like me you love them too!

You got a favourite old fashioned shop that's just buzzing at most times of the year?

'What NOT to grow' - the perfect pitch for my debut book.

You'll be glad to hear, once I move, I've decided to write a book. I think I'll do this whilst I acclimatise to 'clement' weather and the novelty of things growing upright,  I think, I might call it

 

'What not to grow'.

A kind of technical manual of everything that can and often DOES actually happen when you try and grow your own food. You know a kind of 'tricks of the trade' type of thing, to get folks really in the know. No glossy images of abundant produce and me swooshing about in a frock looking ravenous. Heaven forbid, it will just be a candid catalogue of the usual disasters, sorry I mean adventures, which happen to us all when we embark on growing our own food.

The gritty gripping facts and handy hints, like......

• Soil management and crop rotation, a holistic approach to chasing vegetables around your plots in order to keep them in tip top shape. Kinda like suduko or noughts and crosses, but for veggies.

• Help with seed buying addictions and where to source 'unusual things' on the QT. How everybody does it, and how to effectively hide your seed mountain.

• The best way to label absolutely everything before the writing fades from the indelible pens or your loved ones gather them up and give you them back in case you forgot/dropped them, out there in the soil.

• How to precisely schedule growing far too many types of tasty things to fit in your plots and how to help your partner to plan your holiday just as they're all really needing attention.

• Shallots, how to avoid growing as many ever again, whilst they're pretty, they're darn hard to peel. Buy onion sets next year or good places to find a more willing chef for your homestead.

• How to get the best of your indeterminate tomatoes before they strangle you and turn your greenhouse into sleeping beauties palace and other impenetrable varieties recommended for the new greenhouse and polytunnel owner.

• Dealing with over enthusiastic courgettes, from first fruit emergence to, oh no, now they're marrows. And, what to do when people don't let you in their houses with your plentiful harvests ever again.

• Trying to capture beetroots before they bolt, the use of chicken wire and home made battery chargers to coax them into staying and growing into plump beets instead of purple string.

• Keeping coriander alive - myth or legend, do those flat plump leaves you've heard of actually exist when feathery foliage is all your plants will produce before they rampage to seed.

• Raising runner beans and other legumes for gastropods - snail fodder extraordinaire or the stuff of slug feasting legends. Coaxing these shy single footed gorgeous creatures into your plots forever and keeping them happy.

• Growing a diverse variety of brassicas in order to improve the butterfly and caterpillar diversity in your patch.

• Filling your wheelbarrow sufficiently to ensure you topple over in front of an audience. Always best done when clean and just popping out for five minutes before you leave for somewhere posh. Or with very smelly/wet (or both) stuff in the barrow for maximum effect.

• Dealing with potatoes, a guide to the best varieties for blights, scabs, droughts and keeled slugs - what to really hope for when you decide to grow acres this noble tuber.

• Lettuces and salad crops for the discerning rabbit and pigeon. Making sure you get it right for your fluffy and feathered friends.

• Raising carrot fly - why umbels is the perfect fodder for anything flying below 18 inches and tips on attracting, just the right cankers.

• Choosing the right varieties of peas for mice, voles and shrews and when to sow them as their families have just expanded to ensure a good take up of the seed bed.

• Biomass from turnips (Swedish and traditional), how to turn these handy roots into wood fit for a biomass generator or home wood stove in three easy steps from sowing to sawing.

• Persisting with parsnips and parsley - shy seeds or just canny germinators. Playing the perfect game of hide and seek with hard to germinate seeds, a game of steel nerves and patience.

• Growing the perfect berries to both serrate your skin and colour your hands and the entire kitchen and all tea towels colanders and implements nearby, various shades of pink, purple and red.

• Storing your produce and how to build walls and whole villages out of the ones which worked and you more than likely are sick of the most, post harvest.

• How to knit with spinach and other leafy veggies - there's only so much a person can actually eat.

• Training your dog and children and local cats to use your raised beds for dancing as a soil improving technique.

• Swiss chard, great for home grown kids crayons, better than eating the tasty soap filled stems.

• Setting the polarity of your greenhouse and cold frames up just right to attract balls and other low flying objects.

• Losing tools, how best to hide your favourite items mere minutes before you need them. With an additional optional supplement on the best techniques to tangle yourself in a pea net, tying yourself up in garden twine and several handy methods to safely let your family and loved ones blunt your secateurs just before pruning fruit bushes.

• And my personal favourite, how NOT to water. A guide to bathing yourself against your will in public with icy cold water. NB most often practised at the start of the day, to ensure full saturation and osmosis.

 

I really think I'm onto something. But too many chapters you think, maybe a series.........?

 

 

Obviously I'll self publish, best keep those royalties to myself.

 

Watch out JK.

 

(Or perhaps I really should hang up my teaching trowel as another semester starts, I fear I've become a little cynical.)

26 soggy cabbages, distractions and ideas please....

OK, I appear to have a cabbage emergency on my hands after the carnage after the wee 'gale' or two we had over the weekend. Its not quite a disaster on the scale of the great potato famine or anything - lets not be too dramatic. However, once I disentangle the mangled gale induced random things stuck in the vegetable garden from each other, (and who knows what I'll find in there) I think to be fair - the cabbages might need to be pulled up. ALL 26 OF THEM (even the smug ones). I really thought I had this sussed - a cabbage a fortnight or once a week through the winter - such a yummy vegetable. I'd hoped to pull them steadily as we needed them. Then again - lets remember the lacerated leek fiasco. They are all now pulled and in the bottom of the fridge slowly being used up I think we're down to 17 leeks in there now. (we have a large fridge which is really getting to be very stuffed full of food). This potential in the making cabbage catastrophe is really on my mind, (like Rhonda, who each week does a great spot 'on my mind' pop over if you like ) so I'd appreciate a help from anyone!

I can't say that I've been noble and got out there and done this yet (remember I denounced gardening forever, well maybe not 'ever') but - I've been busy working. (Which is a pathetic excuse and almost true.) BUT I have actually been working this week,  I do a variety of part time work, (part time wombling, part time gardening work, part time procrastinator, part time food lover and taster.......) thankfully a lot of these pursuits this week have been indoors. I even managed a lovely trip up to the north end of the island twice this week, once to attend a wonderful polytunnel course with a very clever and really knowledgeable chap indeed, Bob. And I'm popping over today for a Xmas craft fair, hope that will be fun!


I have to tell you I do fancy the Bere bannock baking one too - I might even put my name down for that and be inspired to have a go like Janet did.  I do like Bere barely - it is a crop thats researched at my old work (old, but I still get to do a bit there now and again to keep my hand in thankfully). And, recently I found out that the flour or more properly 'Beremeal',  milled in Orkney, its an 'arc food', in the UK, how cool eh? A bere bannock looks like that picture - a kind of flat bread, quick and yummy to make.

Oh dear I do digress, any way, the second trip up to the north end (Birsay) was to run over a couple of missed classes and handouts a lovely chap attending our veggie growing course had missed. Which was really lovely - talking about vegetable gardening indoors, appears to be far preferable to actually going out 'THERE' at this time of year. And he did tell me he liked the handout I did - which really made me feel great - we're trying to write an 'Orkney guide to growing'.  However, sadly that will have to wait, I will have to brave it and get out there and do something about the 26 mangled but hopefully edible cabbages. Even if the weather is still like this.............. a tad windy.

Which brings me nicely to my wind helpful Orkney rotten gale induced required cabbage research and a question you can help me with. Whats your favourite cabbage recipe or way to preserve them?

Mind on I've 26 to do 'something' with and whilst I can accommodate some in the fridge (although who knows where!?!), lob a few at cheeky children or play footbal with them, but I'm going to have to do something with the rest of them. I've grown a variety of types from 'stone head' to savoy to purple/red types being clever I thought that might be good a bit of variety - but I didn't think I'd be picking them all at once. 

Thus far I've come up with a fine web Cabbage Recipes (who'd have know there was an entire website for cabbages, noble neeps yup I'd have believed that (Linnew would too), but cabbages, eh.....the things you learn).

Therefore, I'm challenging you too - what on earth would you do with a whole pile of cabbage and what recipe ideas do you have? 

I did also wonder about sauerkraut........................


Or freezing them.....................but would they be watery and yuk when you go to cook with them? 


Although I don't really fancy the cabbage diet - but then again I do have alot of them........

There is advice about hanging them upside down with roots intacted and storing them that way - but I'd be worried about rats eating them or mice or any kind of rodent if I keep them 'out' there in the byre.

Basically - HELP.

This is not a one way street dear reader, but the only thing I can offer in return is Mr Flowers famous cabbage recipe (which is his mums but I don't think she reads this so, between you and me, lets let him claim the fame for it. In this house its 'Mr F's Famous cabbage recipe'. Which I wont get right  - its not my recipe but I do cook it too, often badly I'm sure he'll tell you! I might make it later and pop up a photo. I mean, its not like I'm short of cabbage right now.

Mr F Famous cabbage recipe

Green cabbage any type - either lightly boiled/steamed first or not - either way works. If you cook it lightly first do this whole or in finely chopped up bits, drain then squeeze in a tea towel to get rid of excess moisture.  If you've not chopped it yet - chop it now into 1/2 cm square chopped bits. (Approximately, I'm no engineer).

Heat butter or oil in a decent sized frying pan or skillet - and lob in a bit of garlic (finely chopped 1/2 a clove or use the squeezy stuff - which is easy and brilliant and other brands are available). 

Now decide if you are vegetarian or not - that bit is kinda important, I know that you'll know already, but I don't.......... If you are - don't do this bit, read a book for a moment or just, proceed to next step and it will still be yummy. If you're not veggie then fry a handful of cubed bacon in the garlic butter/oil. Or if you're short of bacon (and we often are) a few slices of ham works a treat too. Fry until crispy. 

Once you've got a nice hot pan of either bacon or just garlicky butter/oil - add in the cabbage and saute for a minute or two. 

Add pepper to season if you like - or if you have children like mine, who are allergic to eating anything with too much seasoning - just add pepper on your plate.

Absolutely delish - you'll never make enough of it and even seasoned cabbage haters have been converted by Mr F's famous cabbage recipe (which I'm sure I've got wrong, but hey, I'm sure he'll tell me). Its very yummy. And, if by some kind act of fortune you find yourself with any left over it keeps well and reheats nicely on its own or in bubble and squeak. NOT that I often get any left, due to children who are gannets.

Please help me out with your cabbage recipes - I'd really appreciate it - even if its just a link to one you like.

May the Brassica's be with you but not 26 soggy ones like me..........

(*when not performing godly acts in the kitchen with cabbages, Mr F attends his new guitar blog........, if you're musically minded - or plain inquisitive, do have a peek, I'm sure he'll appreciate it - he's very new to blogging and I'd like to support him to ensure I get a decent cabbage meal now and again. BTW he's very scottish sounding, not like me at all!) 

I'm about as musical as a brick, hes about a botanically minded as a brick too - its a perfect combination of talents. If you pop over do enjoy and pop a comment if you can to say hi, he'd really appreciate it. Although if you do, you'll find out he's not really called Mr Flowers, unless when we do get married we both change our surname - how cool would that be? Mr & Mrs Flowers, I'd really like that.

OK, back to the cabbages - HELP!