Very fine cut marmalade
It seems to come around so quickly, but it’s that time of year again to make the marmalade. The event is triggered by a call from our neighbour to tell us that the greengrocer has got in this year’s consignment of Seville oranges. Spanish Seville oranges are the preferred oranges for marmalade making as they have more pectin in than sweet oranges, so they’re perfect for preserves. You can make marmalade out of normal oranges, but you would have to add a lot more pectin (from lemons) or accept runnier marmalade. Read the rest of this entry »
Delilah (back) and Matilda exploring their new home
As promised here are the new occupants of our homemade chicken house – Delilah and Matilda. We decided to go back to the place we got our original chickens from as they offer a number of different hybrid breeds of chicken, and they are relatively local. We’ve broken away from our previous rule of buying a pair of the same breed and picked out a Black Rock (Delilah) and a Warren/ISA Brown (Matilda). We were nearly tempted to get a third, but if these and the current two lay as well as they should, four chickens is plenty for our needs. Read the rest of this entry »
Trying it out for size
Another year starts and another project begins! Looking back at last year’s blog entries and thinking back to previous Januarys, this time of year always seems to herald the start of a new project. Last year it was building log stores and preparing for pigs, and 2010 had us putting up fencing for the arrival of our first animals – chickens. And the start of 2012 is no different with us preparing for more chickens, which will boost our depleted numbers. Read the rest of this entry »
First planting of forest garden
The second, and probably the most important stage, of the development of our forest garden is now underway. The pigs were the first stage – brought in to help clear the ground (although being as lazy as they were this wasn’t done as well as we had hoped!). The second stage is the planting of the trees that will form the canopy layer of the forest garden. For those unfamiliar with forest gardens (although it does seem to be all the rage now) an overview can be found here. It is one of a number of ways to incorporate permaculture design into the garden, and one I’ve been most looking forward to setting up. It’s been in the planning stage for a few years now, and was initially going to incorporate the whole field, but due to budget constraints (fruit trees are expensive), time, and bad drainage at the bottom of the field, we’ve scaled this back to just one-third of the field. Nevertheless this has meant buying and planting 18 fruit trees… which is only the start. Read the rest of this entry »
Whiskey & Ginger sunbathing
It seems the fears we had that we would end up with a run full of elderly non egg-laying chickens aren’t going to materialise. In the last week or so the last two of our original four hens both flew up to chicken heaven. Read the rest of this entry »
Planting garlic
It’s the middle of November and I’ve realised I haven’t posted anything on the blog for some time. That’s not because we haven’t been doing anything, but more because it feels like a lot of the things done in the garden are just a repeat of what was done last year – so nothing much new. Today I planted out the garlic – around 100 cloves of Solent Wight, a softneck variety that is meant to produce large bulbs and stores well (hardneck varieties don’t store so well). I’ve purposely grown quite a lot so that I can try using some of the cloves produced to plant out next year. Other jobs to do in the next few weeks are to prune the apple trees and fruit bushes and trim the hedges. Other than that there isn’t much else to do at the moment…or so I thought! Read the rest of this entry »
Why are the best ones always furthest away?
The end of October is usually the time for us to harvest the apples from our one dessert apple tree. In fact this was one of the first things we did when we moved here almost three years ago, surprised to see the apples still hanging into November. We don’t know what variety the tree is (the previous owners told us their son had planted it from an apple pip), but it tastes okay and importantly they store very well. My records show we were still eating them in May! Read the rest of this entry »
A bountiful harvest!
The first frost of the autumn has been forecast for this week, so to avoid a repeat of last year we decided to pick all the peppers now. We didn’t realise quite how many we had, as pepper plants have a surprising amount of foliage that disguise all the green peppers. The sweet peppers I’m cutting up and putting straight in the freezer, and they can be used directly in stews and soups. The chilli peppers we freeze whole and then cut them up as we need them. I’m also on the hunt for a recipe for a chilli sauce, as this would probably use up a large quantity at once. Read the rest of this entry »
The end result (a meal fit for any roadside Cafe!)
It’s been six years since we last had meat, but our first taste again was well worth the wait. We went over to the butcher’s yesterday to collect our pork and gammon and were given six boxes of various joints and sausages, including some cured products in the form of gammon joints, steaks and bacon. This was all packed into the freezer (thankfully we had bought an extra small chest freezer so had plenty of room for everything), apart from a couple of gammon steaks, some bacon and a roasting joint, which would be our next few meals. Read the rest of this entry »
We'll do anything for food
So the deed has been done. The pigs are no more. Well that’s not quite true as they are currently being made into tasty sausages, hams and pork joints.
Their final journey started on Sunday night when we loaded them onto the trailer. They were happy to go in without too much effort. Just a bit of food chucked in the back and they were safely installed in their new house for the night. They soon nestled down and made it their home, knowing little of what was ahead of them the following day. Read the rest of this entry »