Quick Popovers

1 onion, chopped finely
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp curry powder or paste
4 oz raw chicken or cooked ham 
1 oz chopped or pureed apple
1 egg
3 oz flour
seasoning

1. Fry chopped onion in the oil
2. Add curry, chopped meat and diced apple.  
3. Cook for a few minutes.
4. Make batter with egg, flour, 1/4 pt water and seasoning.
5. Grease small patty tins.
6. Heat and half fill with batter.
7. Cook at 200C/Gas 6 for about 10 minutes.
8. Add spoonful of meat and top with batter.
9. Cook 12 minutes until golden.

Makes about 10

Variation:  I haven't tried it but it would also be nice made with courgette, butternut squash or similar.

Help! There are lots of flies in the compost heap!

Apparently that means that the mixture is too wet.  The best things to add are shredded newspaper, straw or woody cuttings.  Cardboard egg boxes are super as they have ready-made air gaps in them.


This answer from expert Monty Don is pretty comprehensive:

"We had good results with our compost until two years ago. The bin was placed on concrete, and waste was turned regularly and urine or water added. But then the compost became infected with thousands of whitefly, so we decided not to use it and started a new bin placed directly onto soil. This is now covered with disgusting brown flies that attack us each time we lift the lid. Help!"

 
A This question really merits a long answer, but the important thing is: do not stop making compost. Very briefly, a compost heap is a living thing with millions of creatures - mainly bacteria and fungae, but also flies, beetles, slugs and every kind of creepy-crawly - helping to digest and process your waste into wonderful, enriching compost. Let them do it! 

There is no need to add water or urine, but it is important to turn it approximately once a month, unless you have lots of space to leave a heap to slowly mature over a year or two. 

Turning will feed the bacteria especially, which will speed up the composting process so the waste will soon become clean, fresh-smelling and free of flies of all kinds. So please, don't give up. Every heap gets flies, but they will soon go if you turn the heap often. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1077154/Ask-Monty-Help-My-composts-infected-flies.html#ixzz33IZXLYmw
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Also on the internet there was one suggestion of leaving the lid of the compost bin off in the winter, then the larva and overwintering adults will freeze and be no more.

If, on the other hand, the compost bin's too dry - one indication is ants in the compost bin - then add more green matter, grass clippings, weeds - or even water the bin.  Other ideas include adding bonemeal or manure.

See also: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/7-solutions-common-compost-problems

​Some advice from the RHS on composting:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profile?pid=444

Food for thought from Helen Yemm (Sunday Telegraph)

I am always surprised at the numbers of small-space town gardeners who are hell bent on big-garden formal style.  Surely these frustrated gardeners can't all be town planners or maths teachers, although from their single-minded determination to achieve perfect symmetry in their gardens, it is tempting to think so.

No, I feel sure that these hankerings must be fuelled by foreign gardening adventures, or are simply a hangover from a more spacious, rose-tinted childhood.  And I have to say that some elements of the stylised Chelsea show gardens may be in part responsible for misleading inexperienced gardeners up a disappointing garden path.

Whatever the reason for the deep need, town gardeners can get into a serious pickle when trying to satisfy it: frustrated by topiary pairs that quickly stop 'matching', peeved by the moth-eaten look of a garden where little geometric boxy-edgy hedges thrive in the sun but disastrously fade in the shade under dripping sycamore canopies.

What follows is just common gardening sense, too frequently ignored.  Of course you can fuss and fiddle with a tape measure and graph paper and faff around with perspective, you can create limpid pool trompe l'oeils and spend a king's ransom on topiary, fancy seats and any amount of paraphernalia to create little Italy in Clifton or Croydon.  

But never lose sight of the fact that the most important part of your garden - the plants - don't really 'do' symmetry when under pressure.  

The way plants grow is determined by factors that are guaranteed to be totally inconsistent in a small town garden.  Plants are deeply affected by the quality and quantity of light and rain throughout the year, by the texture, fertility and basic moisture-retentiveness of the soil and by the very proximity of the house.


Don't forget boundary walls, the roots and canopies of any existing neighbouring trees and prevailing winds and the niggling draughts that they inevitably create - which can have a devastating effect on growth.  

Ignore all or any of this in your quest for a smart garden, and you will pay for it.  In every sense.

I don't know about a mathematician's garden - but here's a mathematician's clock

Review of garden centres and farm shops in the Derby area

These days there seems to be cross-over between farm shops, nurseries, cafes and gift shops.

Traditionally garden centres were nurseries, places to buy plants and pots, also to get advice and help.  Gift shops and cafes were stand-alone places - and farm shops didn't really exist.

It all depends on what you're looking for as these days a garden centre at the very least can be plant nursery and cafe.  Perhaps then a few gifts will be sold, and maybe some produce which has been grown locally.

And eventually, if the site's large enough, they can become places selling everything you could possibly think of, even wool, crafts and possibly pets.  


But funnily enough I haven't yet seen one selling chickens, ducks and other animals which gardeners may want to start raising in their back gardens.


Here is a selection of garden centres and farm shops so far found locally to our house in Allestree, Derby:


Hackwood Farm, Mickleover (http://www.hackwoodfarm.com/): Very nice food in the cafe. Delicious sausages, although haven't tried any other of their food yet.
Croots Farm Shop, Duffield (http://www.croots.co.uk/croots-kitchen/): Had a lovely snack here.  Comprehensive range of food for sale.
Maynell Langley Garden Centre, nr Kirk Langley (http://www.meynell-langley-gardens.co.uk/):  Lovely food in their cafe. Very good selection of plants and excellent place for advice.
Blue Diamond Garden Centre, Little Eaton (https://plus.google.com/111160366235957142145/about?hl=en):  Large garden centre which is part of the Blue Diamond group.  There's a nice pet department and lots of plants, garden furniture, books and gifts.  Good cafe.  Competent service and if it's help you're after then perhaps better to go elsewhere.

Markeaton Garden Centre (http://www.markeaton-garden-centre.co.uk/):  I have yet to try but have been told it's good.

See also: http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/shopping/garden-centres