Our Summer Garden: Bay, Bananas, Grow-bags - and Babysitting!

I posted some photos of our garden and the new grow bags at the start of June in this post here - so as I have been busy with babysitting granddaughter Sofia (a labour of love!) yesterday and mooching around the garden today weeding and admiring the progress of the grow bag veggies I thought to post a few photos of them.

There are plenty of flowers on the tomatoes and courgettes, and there are even a couple of green tomatoes putting in an appearance. I've staked the tomatoes today, as they were starting to keel over. There's a bay bush that's grown like a triffid in the past month since being repotted to a bigger home - it's hard to credit it started out as a windowsill plant from the supermarket for 99cent three years ago.

Also the banana plant has come on in leaps and bounds and hubby has split it and put two of the dozen suckers (that's what they're called, baby banana plants - not a term of abuse!) in a barrel that previously housed a nice palm that didn't make it through last winters record sub-zero temps. It's already put out two new leaves so it seems to like its new home.

So we are planning to get some new plants for the bed where we lost all those palms last winter - now the area's been cleared of weeds and the irises and allium have died off there are sad gaps and we need to fill them up with some hardy perennial shrubs and plants that will give cover and colour. We have some fuchsia and lupins and lavender in the bed, and a few lilies that have seen better days.

I took these photos of the garden this evening, and there's also one of Sofia who is nearly 5 months old and as cute as all babies are at that age. I spent yesterday babysitting while her mother was at work and her dad played cricket in Kerry. A good granny-bonding day!

Rhubarb Tart and Trivia - with a Twist

This is rhubarb season and ours is growing like a weed with all the rain. I made a few lovely rhubarb tarts over the past week and I must say there's great satisfaction to be had in making something that's picked fresh from the garden - from veg plot to fork in about an hour! We have these rhubarb stools in their present bed near the house, beside a high stone wall, for the two years. As this is their third year in this plot, according to the anorak's guide to rhubarb, we should consider dividing and replanting next year.

I discovered this strange lotus-like bud growing in the middle of one of the plants last week, and on asking hubby and Google, it seems it is a flower bud. This will have to be nipped in the bud, literally and metaphorically, as it will leach all the energy that should go into the stalks. It doesn't seem to mark the end of its life, but is a feature of mature plants so probably needs replanting next year.

It is a fascinating plant as it thrives on repeated frost exposure - no problem there so - and it can be forced to grow out of season either in the ground using a forcer pot, or as I used, an upturned bucket. This gives small leaves and pale whitish stalks, which are less acidic. They don't look very attractive, but these anaemic stalks are sweeter and more tender, thus more desirable and probably give their grower bragging rights. The redder the stalks, the more acidic and bitter the flavour. That's easily countered with plenty of sugar in the finished dish.

I always handle rhubarb with great respect as the leaves are toxic - they contain oxalic acid which is a cousin of cyanide but you would have to eat about 5kg/11lbs of leaves to get the lethal dose - which I can't imagine anyone having the will or the stamina to do! The cooked stalks are non-toxic, lucky for me or any rhubarb fans out there.



For anyone who's interested I discovered (through the miracle of Google) that contrary to my erroneous belief, you can compost rhubarb leaves. I have been dumping them with the non-compostable garden waste, but no more. They are destined for the green compost bin which has yielded a wonderfully rich dark humus-y compost now enriching our polytunnel strawberries. It is a bit home-made looking with recognisable eggshell bits and teabags throughout, but these don't seem to hinder it and the strawberries are in full flower, with the promise of a rich harvest in a couple of months.

That's enough rhubarb trivia to keep any anorak happy for some time; there is so much out there on the web that it's apparent there are plenty of anoraks abroad, much to my amazement. This link has everything you ever wanted to know about rhubarb but were afraid to ask, and I think it must come from someone who has waayyy too much free time!

Time to turn to the primary purpose of this post, the recipe for one my favourite tarts (besides apple). The twist in the tale is that I have made this one with Self-Raising flour instead of plain flour, and was pleasantly surprised that it worked very well, giving a light shortbread pastry that is subtly different from the plain flour pastry, with a biscuit-y texture. I hope you enjoy it!

RHUBARB TART

Pastry

8ozs/250gm Self-Raising Flour

4ozs/125gm butter or hard margarine (preferably butter)

1oz/25gm icing sugar

1 egg

Filling

Rhubarb stalks - about 4-6, washed and diced into 1cm/half-inch pieces

Sugar to taste

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Centigrade/350degrees Fahrenheit

Method

Using pastry attachment on food processor (I have one on my nice new Kenwood and it is still a treat, and makes great pastry!) mix flour and butter to crumbly texture.

If no processor, rub in butter to flour lightly with fingertips.

Add icing sugar
Add egg to bind and knead lightly
Roll pastry to size of pie dish on floured surface
Line base of dish
Fill with rhubarb pieces

Sprinkle liberally with sugar
Cover with pastry rolled out to size
Moisten edges of pastry and seal
Decorate top if desired - leaf or flower pattern is nice
Bake in oven until golden brown, reduce heat to 150 degrees Centigrade/300 degrees Fahrenheit after 15 mins.

Serve warm with lashings of whipped cream and enjoy with the ubiquitous nice cuppa tea!
Cool on wire rack, sprinkle with icing sugar

A day at the races - and other events

This weekend the sun shone gloriously and it felt warm outside, lovely to be out and about in jeans and a jumper, shedding all the layers of winter (apart from the fat layers - that comes later!). Today was Mother's Day and was pretty much the same as any other Sunday, I guess I like every day to be Mother's Day ideally and am not too keen on manufactured days whose raison d'etre seems to be overly commercial, and to enhance Hallmark and their ilk with cheesy cards. (Oh dear, that sounds curmudgeonly and sour grape-ish on re-reading, but I am really not into all the hype). At the same time I spent time today with my mother in her long-stay care unit - she is almost 94 and has been bed-bound for the past year or more, and has dementia, which is very sad. We shared some chocolates, which is one treat she still enjoys.

I like to relax at the weekends, though this one involved some activity as we were getting the polytunnel started up for the year. My back was stiff and achey from the unaccustomed bending - transplanting strawberry plants in the tunnel even though hubby did all the hard labour - digging in the compost as we emptied the bin last week and raking and tilling the soil to a nice dark fine tilth. We will plant courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peas and beans, and beetroot, and the rhubarb in its outdoor bed is coming along nicely after being under buckets for the past few months.

Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam yesterday for the first time in 61 years by beating Wales in a nail-biting final in Cardiff, and the country went as mad as it only knows how when Ireland win a major international in any sport, with a major homecoming today in Dublin. Then late last night Bernard Dunne became won a World Boxing title in Dublin while Katie Taylor won another boxing match; she is already a world champion. All told it was a good weekend for the Irish in sport, and at local level, our daughter's camogie team, the Lismore Under-14s, won a match this morning against rival neighbours Tallow, I think the final score was 10-9 to 0-0! The Lismore Senior girls from the local Blackwater Community School won the All-Ireland Camogie schools championship during the week, so yes, it was a good week for much needed morale boosting wins!

Between St. Patrick's Day, lovely weather and sporting victories, even the economy got eclipsed and the recession put on the back boiler for the moment, though not for long as the spring of discontent looks set to continue well into April. There is another union-led day of work stoppage/strike action on March 30th and on April 7th there is another hairshirt mini-budget which promises to be anything but (mini). Watch this space for updates!

I went to Dungarvan on Paddy's Day to bring teen daughter and her friend to the parade, which is generally a showcase for local business and clubs, with some marching bands and floats. The political one this year showed a cow(en?) and some dodgy looking politicians with the caption "TDs milking the country"! (TD is MP in Irish). Otherwise the parade doesn't vary from year to year so we went to the cinema to cry at "Marley and Me" - the film that seems to get grown men bawling, can see why!

Back to the races. The annual Point-to-Point races have been an institution in Lismore as long as I can remember, and as I know nothing about horseracing, all I can tell you is that the race is a cross-country circuit on the Castle farm lands. They start and end at roughly the same point (hence the name I guess) and it is a good day out for the racing fraternity from far and wide, and for the locals if the weather is nice. My memories of the point-to-point races are usually associated with freezing sleety sideways driving rain, and Glastonbury-proportioned mud squelching, but not today.

I wandered up to the course at around half past two, and managed to miss all but the last race which was at the ridiculously early time of 3.30pm. I didn't back any nag, as I wouldn't even know how to read the form on the racecard, but enjoyed the ambience and the colour of the jockeys' silks, the bookies' umbrellas, the stalls of toys and trinkets and fun stuff for the kids, and the smell that I always associate with outdoor events like this - the ubiquitous chip van. I couldn't resist joining the long queue for some delicious curry chips from Kearney's van, which shows the strength of my Lenten willpower. Daughter and friends, basking in their camogie victory, were having fun spraying their hair pink and the boys with "fart spray" which was a new one to me seemed to be a hot favourite with both sexes. By the time she got home it had dissipated somewhat but it was straight to the shower nonetheless! In my young days I loved the "amusements" - the Chairoplanes, the Swing-boats and the Dodgems or Bumper cars. They are no longer there, probably a victim of health and safety regulations, which is a pity.

I started the day with a rush of domesticity, and made a batch of mini-bakewell buns, fairy cakes and an apple tart, and found some strawberries in the freezer and made some pots of jam, which made me feel very virtuous (see the photo at the top!) and with enough energy to enjoy the rest of the day - at the races.

Tomorrow is my birthday and as I have already had my big present in advance, with my lovely new camera, it will be a low-key day, which suits me fine as I have the day off and will just enjoy it - with a dental appointment! Oh well, timing is everything!

(NB: I am experiencing some gremlins with posting photos here, as I wanted to add some more but can't move them around - they may have to be in a separate post. Hope this is a one-off !)