My my what a big clove you have!

Ok, I admit. Right now this clove of garlic, well, it looks like any other clove of garlic. But, oh my goodness. This garlic isn't just any old garlic, this is Elephant Garlic. And by jove, it sure is elephant. I've never seen anything like it!

Here's a shot of it against a normal sized garlic clove.
Now can you see what I mean! It's huge! Technically it's more of an overgrown leek with garlic tendancies so I'm guessing it's going to be milder than your traditional stuff. But hey, what the heck! That's what having a vegetable garden is all about, trying your hand and stuff and seeing what you like best!

We bought ours from Morgan & Thompson

Last year we planted the garlic in March time and we've only just realised that really that was way too late. It should be planted now. Apparently garlic likes a bit of cold weather to start of with, so we'll be getting them in this weekend I reckon.

Of course, planting it so early means we really have to think about what is going where this year. It's good practice to rotate your crops so you're not planting the same thing in the same place year in year out. Our garden is so incy wincy teeny tiny I don't think we'll have much of a choice where to put things. We've learnt a huge amount this year, especially when it comes to giving things space, so we'll be sure to plan our garden much better this time around. As for where the garlic is going... well we'll see what takes our fancy at the weekend!

Merveilleux d'ail!

Mmmmmmm, look at all the garlic wonderfulness! We're off on our summer hols next Saturday so the garden received a lot of TLC this weekend. We tried to harvest as much as we could before we leave everything to fend for itself.

I would say the garlic has been pretty successful this year. To be honest they just got on with it, no fuss at all. We just duly watered and fed them and they've been no trouble at all. They could be a little bigger but for our first attempt we're pretty chuffed.

They've probably been ready to pull for a couple of weeks or so. They're ready when the leaves start to go yellow and dry, the same deal as the shallots and onions. We're going to let them dry out for a couple of weeks and they should be ready by the time we're back from our travels.

Food Glorious Food

We had a bumper harvest last weekend and both lunch and dinner were supplied courtesy of our blooming garden. First on the list was some juicy tomatoes.

A whole kilo of the beauties! I know I keep posting pictures of tomatoes but we're incredibly proud of them, and come on, who wouldn't be! So lunch consisted of a generous handful of freshly picked tomatoes, some sliced buffalo mozzarella, freshly torn basil (also from our garden), balsamic vingear and a little seasoning. Otherwise known as an Italian Caprese salad. This is the recipe that got me hooked on tomatoes in the first place so only fitting to make this our first dish proper.
Yum, it was deelish, so much so I think we might have it again today. You can't beat it. It really is the bees knees of a salad. Hands up to the Italians for a job well done.

A few hours later, rumbling tummys, we kicked off dinner, we had a couple of beetroot that we'd pulled and wanted them to be the stars of the show.
What better way to cook beetroot than roasting. Nice and slowly, easy does it. So in goes, beets, shallots, new potatoes, garlic, rosemary and thyme, all from the garden.
Roasted for an hour and then some baby carrots from the garden right at the end for the last 20 minutes.
Doesn't look alot for the hour and a half work we put into it, but my goodness was it tasty. We put it all into a wrap with some greek yogurt mixed with a little parsley (which is our favourite dip at the moment) The beetroot was soooooooo sweet, the shallots all gooey and sweet and the potatoes divine with the rosemary and thyme. This was probably one of the best wraps I've ever had.

Roasted beetroot is the future.