Starting up the engines!

Time to get those garden engines started! My paws have been busy getting my first round of seeds in - tomatoes and peppers (and as you can see, I'm also chitting a few lovely Jersey Bennie spuds for a Christmas treat).

I've got Campari for a nice mid-sized, all-purpose truss tomato, Yellow Pear and Sungold for tasty cherries (as well as Henry Harrington's Dwarf Bush Cherry for compact potted cherry toms and an early ripener), Black from Tula for rich-flavoured, dark beefsteak goodness (looking forward to slabs of those on toast!) and Golden Roma for a sweet and colourful all-rounder.

They can all be started from seed now, as long as you've got somewhere nice and warm for them. Start them in seed trays or little plugs and let them stay there until their first true leaves are well formed. Once they're at this stage you can pot them on into something big enough to suit them until the frosts are over and you can acclimatise them to outdoors. Getting a little bit pot-bound is actually no problem - this will only encourage them to start forming flowers (and therefore fruit) earlier.

Find them all in my Felt shop and take that first spirit-lifting step out of winter!

Free salad!

I am a delighted bunny, because I have bonus winter salad greens this winter, no effort involved!

I left some red and green mizuna, and a curly-leaf lettuce plant to go to seed in the garden in autumn, and I now have some lush little patches of picking greens where they flopped over. Now that's what I call easy gardening!

There's nothing a bunny loves more than greens. (Okay, maybe carrots.) I think a winter-y salad of freshly picked leaves, some leftover roasted beetroot, toasted hazelnuts, chunky feta and swirls of balsamic glaze and olive oil might be in my near future...

Winter gardening - garlic and broad beans

Scrabble scrabble scrabble scrabble...

What on earth would a gardening bunny be doing digging in the middle of winter? Well, today I finally got my garlic and broad beans in. Both a little later than I intended, but still within planting parameters.

Garlic is traditionally planted at midwinter, which was slightly over a week ago now, but it's not as fussy as all that really. It can actually go in anytime from early to late winter - it just appreciates a few good frosts to get it going.

These are elephant garlic cloves, ready to be planted their own length deep into the cool wintry soil. Remember, pointy end up - this is where the leaves will emerge from. You can actually see the wee nubs on the base of this clove that will become roots in very short order. Elephant garlic is big and mild, and actually more closely related to leeks than true garlic, so it's a great choice for those of you who like a little garlic flavour without it being completely overwhelming. See my previous garlic post for more information about planting your garlic.

Broad beans can also go in anytime over the winter, and are a great, reliable early spring/summer provider. I love my baby broad beans parboiled and then stir-fried with a little olive oil, chorizo and lemon juice - it's so far from any traumatic childhood memories of huge boiled floury beans you'll be a born again bean convert! Get my good old Coles Early Dwarf Broad Beans from my Felt shop today.

The beauty of frost

We've had some crispy frosts recently - I'm so glad my frost tender crops are all harvested and my burrow is warm and dry under the icy surface! Look at how beautiful these plants look with a dusting of ice...

Autumn - time to save those seeds

Autumn brings with it the fruits and seeds of the garden - here's my good friend and garden buddy Mr Pushkin with this year's pumpkin harvest (actually, I don't think he's very impressed by pumpkins):

I've had very busy paws doing all the gathering and drying for my Big Bunny range of seeds, available on Felt. I make sure they're fresh to you every year, and spend a lot of time over the next few months processing them to store in cool, dry conditions and growing test batches to make sure they're good and strong.

You can save your own seeds too - make sure you gather seeds from the healthiest, strongest plants of your crop, as these are the ones best suited to your garden's conditions. Grab some of my super-useful seed saver envelopes to make sure you've got them safely stored with all the information you need recorded.

Scrummy salads

Ah, salad days... what could make a bunny happier? Here's my current favourite:

Big Bunny's Summer Garden Stroll Salad

Tomatoes, a colourful variety if you've got 'em (I love Campari, Yellow Pear, Black Krim and Golden Roma in mine, but any tasty toms will do.)
Cucumber
A handful of rocket, basil and bronze fennel leaves
Torn up chunks of fresh mozzarella cheese
A few cashew nuts
Olives, pitted and chopped
Olive oil
Balsamic glaze
A little salt and pepper

What, you want measurements? Amounts? Don't be silly! This is a salad, not a soufflé! Chuck it in and big up whatever you like best - go on, be brave. :-) Chunk up the tomatoes and cucumber (halve cherry tomatoes), tear the salad leaves a little to release the scent and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir a little to mix through the dressing and leave to sit for half an hour to allow the flavours to combine (if you can wait that long). Then get those incisors nibbling!

The start of the summer harvest

February is the time on flowering and fruiting, as I start to reap the rewards of the springtime work. Check out these beautiful flowers and fruits of the harvest...

From tiny to substantial - Sungold cherry tomatoes and a luscious Black from Tula beefsteak:

Beautiful beans - the highly decorative and delicious candy-stripped Borlotti beans, and the classic scarlet runners drying nicely for seed in the warm air:

My nose is twitching with the scents of summer salads and winter stews to come, with all these lovely ingredients to play with. What a delight!