Rachel, husband Chris and her bother-in-law Andrew run Ballintaggart Farm in Perthshire
Slow start
In some ways we’re relieved that spring is off to a slow start as it’s given us chance to work frantically in the new kitchen garden and get planting for the seasons ahead. We’re still enjoying our daffodils, our tulips have finally burst open and we’re loving the gentle froth of hawthorn blossom along the roadsides and hedgerows while, for friends further south, spring has moved on.
Porridge
We’ve sown potatoes, herbs, beans, strawberries and salads in our beds and already enjoyed early rhubarb in refreshing cordials with ginger and the first of our micro salad leaves grown under cover in our shed while we dream of a proper greenhouse. There was great excitement at the first Scottish strawberries this week and we served them simply for breakfast, in a sweet compote with our signature porridge on chiller mornings and as after-school snacks too.
Picnic
We’re waiting patiently for Scottish asparagus and thinking up all kinds of menus from starters and soups to vibrant side dishes on our menus. We’ve been serving subtly hay-smoked lamb fillets, comforting lamb hot pots and sweet Jersey Royal potatoes with butter, bacon and wilted wild garlic and gathering young dandelion leaves with goat’s curd ravioli and spring broth. We even managed our first family supper al fresco, sausages and simple salads of course and our first daisy chains too. We’re sure our first picnic is not too far away either. With the new bursts of colour and flavour in the kitchen and a view which gets greener by the day, we feel rewarded for what seemed like an extremely long winter.
Music to cook to
KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope: a lovely album which takes us back to our wedding plans and celebrations as we approach our anniversary this month.
@ballintaggartfarm (Instagram)
