I have loads of vegetable gardening books but since starting the potager I’ve hardly opened them.  One or twice to check out distances and complications but otherwise my vegetable growing experience this year has been based on trial and error rather than following a plan.

This was probably a mistake.  I’ve been wondering this weekend what might have happened if I’d really thought about things and followed all the sage advice available in those books. Would things have grown better or worse?  Would I have chosen different things to grow?

Who knows and who cares?  All I know is that most things I’ve planted have provided us with food on our plates.  Things that didnt’ make it to the plate either didn’t make it at all, were eaten by something else or passed their best so they wouldn’t have been good to eat.

These week we’ve enjoyed our first leek and fennel.  So has Mason.

Yes, when it comes to harvesting vegetables there is never a basset far away.  Little basset loves to sniff everything that comes from the ground.  Not because he wants to protect me from any untoward beasties but purely on the basis that its a new smell and that is a good thing in itself.

Yes no vegetable goes unsniffed before it’s taken indoors for a jolly good wash!

Leeks have been one of the vegetables I’ve most admired in the potager.  They grow tall and strong. It also reminds me of my Welsh roots.  My paternal grandmother came from Abersychan a small villlage near Pontypool.  I also lived in Wales as a child and remember St David’s Day vividly when people used to wear leeks.  But then they also dressed up small Welsh girl’s in traditional Welsh costume complete with black hat.  I never had an outfit like that that.  I wasn’t Welsh.

My memories of Wales are otherwise a bit patchy.  Although I do remember Saturday morning film club at the Odeon Swansea, picking cockles on the mumbles coast and living in the coldest house in the world in Gorseignon.  Strange the things you remember!

This leek made it into a wonderful Salmon Chowder which I mysteriously can’t find the pictures I took for this week’s recipe exchange. It was very yummy.

Apart from my thoughts of Pernod, fennel was a great mystery to me for a long time.  A strange vegetable that I had no idea how you’d cook it.  The first time we used fennel I think was in a variation of MT’s signature dish, risotto.  After that we were hooked so I was determined to grow them.  Now here’s a thing.

If I’d read the vegetable books thoroughly I probably wouldn’t have grown them as it’s classed as something hard to grow in a couple of my books.  Perhaps that’s just a view in Britain.  I grew mine from seed straight in the ground. They’ve been a real adventure to grow.

And on Friday I harvested my first.  Let me tell you this fennel got forensic examination by Mason who I don’t think was too keen on the smell! I turned this into a wonderful fennel and apple salad using a recipe sent by my mother-in-law.

It was very simple to make and so very delicious.  Fresh and tangy and just what we needed to cheer us up on a cold evening.

I have to confess it was also the perfect accompaniment to a home made pizza.  Here’s what I did for two people.

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Mix together 1 bulb of fennel sliced very thinly with a few of the leaves with1 apple sliced (cored and sliced with skin on) with the dressing.

To make the dressing, mix 75ml of sour cream, 1/2 tsp cider vinegar, squeeze of orange juice and grated rind of 1/2 orange seasoned with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with raisins or sultanas.

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The potager is continuing to thrive although I fear my tomatoes are not going to make it.  I’m leaving them for another day and then they’ll be picked and treated with the secret to ripening tomatoes.  They are starting to blush after several days of sunshine.  One thing I could have done if I’d read my books more thoroughly and paid attention to the sun more on the potager.  I would have put them on the other side as they will get more sun in late season.

Now here’s something else I wouldn’t have planted if I’d read about it beforehand.  Celery.  But my baby celery plants are doing OK, even growing after the cold frosty nights.  I’m quite pessimistic in an optimistic way that these might make it but we’ll see.

I’d grow broad beans for their flowers as much as their beans.  These are now growing big and strong.  As are the peas.  I’m being much more careful this time to tie them up to protect them from the winds and give them the best chance of a peak at the sun.

Even the mini cabbages have enjoyed recent sun.  Just as the White butterflies have enjoyed my cabbages.  I’m hanging in their for a cabbage heart that will survive even if the outer leaves don’t.

Whilst people in the northern hemisphere are preening their seedlings, preparing the grounds and planning for wonderful crops in the summer I’m still delighting in late season growing.  I am however going to start planning for next year.  Reflecting on lessons learned this year and what we might try next.  Now is probably the time to get those gardening books off the shelves and start to read with the benefit of some experience.

I shan’t be so intimidated by the terminology, the potential problems and will take more seriously the sage advice about shelter, sun and soil condition.  Most of all I’m going to think hard about cooking not growing and how what we want to eat will be delivered from the ground.  The only problem I have is that I really really want my 21m square kitchen garden for next season but that’s just not going to happen for next Spring as we’d have to invest in more pressing garden needs.  More on that this week.