Last week the weather, once again, influenced how we spent the week.

It was showery and cold so for some of the week we spent time carrying out indoor tasks.

We have a growing light set up in one of our upstairs rooms and seed sowing is now gathering pace. Seeds that do not require warmth to encourage germination are sown in our garden greenhouse whereas the more fussy subjects are sown indoors. The growing light helps stop the young seedlings from becoming leggy whilst waiting for the conditions to be favourable enough for them to be transferred to the greenhouse. Details of the seeds that we have planted  each month are listed here under the sowing and planting section

A few weeks ago we sowed some carrot seeds in a trough in the greenhouse and these are now pushing through.

With plans to refurbish one of our bedrooms, we have plenty to do when the weather forces us to stay indoors. We have now stripped off all the wallpaper. The next job is to do some painting. Fortunately there is no rush as the new furniture isn’t due to be fitted until mid May

In the garden, tulip buds are now beginning to open alongside the hyacinths that received a bit of a battering from last week’s winds.

Gradually the borders are beginning to burst into life as the perennials ,that have sensibly spent winter underground, are beginning to emerge.

Shrubs are adding to the display. Martyn gave the magnolia a severe ‘prune’. Some of the branches that escaped the chop are flowering. Hopefully, more shoots will appear to give us a better display next year.

We have a cherry tree growing in a large pot in the garden. It has quite a lot of blossom and so we will soon have to consider how we are going to try and protect the young fruits. We are not the only ones that like fresh cherries.

On Sunday we managed an afternoon at the allotment. Martyn has been itching to cut back the hawthorn tree growing alongside our plot greenhouse as it casts quite a lot of shade. It started life as a self sown seedling that I trained into a tree but over the years it had outgrown its situation.  I don’t think the robin that liked to sit high in the topmost branches is going to be pleased.

Whilst, Martyn was playing working with his mini chainsaw, I was clearing some of the old brassica roots away and weeding the beds. Neither activity provides an interesting photographic opportunity.

I harvested a collection of various sizes of red cabbage which will be braised and frozen later.

Last year we had an excellent onion harvest with hardly any signs of disease or pest damage. We use lots of onions but we still have quite a few left and some are beginning to produce shoots.

Soon the rest of the bulbs will look like the one above so I have been trying to use up as many as I can.

To bridge the gap between the end of the stored onions, and the autumn planted onions being ready to harvest, I have frozen a bag each of chopped and sliced onions.

I made a batch of onion soup which has been portioned up and frozen.

I made another batch of oven baked onion bhajis, This time I used a different recipe which was a mixture taken from a couple of YouTube videos and used more of a batter. These have been frozen. When I buy more chickpea flour I’ll make more.

I also made a batch of cheese and onion crisp bakes. I used our own breadcrumbs. Martyn makes a loaf especially to use as breadcrumbs.  This recipe also uses lots of potatoes which kills two birds with one stone as the potatoes, that are being stored in the garage, are also now producing shoots and I am trying to use up as many of these as I can too.  The crisp bakes have also been frozen.

We had some of the onion bhajis with a vegetable biryani. Into this went our onion, frozen cauliflower, green beans and peas. I used more tikka masala paste than the recipe indicates.

Earlier in the week, I made a chicken stew that used some of our leeks and some of our frozen peas. I used creamed coconut instead of creme fraiche as I had some that needed using up. This was served with mashed potatoes.

Another meal that used more of our potatoes was a turkey ‘shepherds’ pie. It also used more onion and our parsnip.

That’s all from me for this week. As always stay safe ad well.

This week, I hope my small red cabbage harvest qualifies me for Dave’s Harvest Monday held on his Our Happy Acres blog.