Sow The Seed

Marmalade time saver

Helen — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:17:30 +0000

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.

We use Delia’s Traditional Seville Orange Marmalade recipe, with a slight tweak. We substitute 1lb of granulated sugar with 1lb of dark brown soft sugar, which gives the marmalade a much richer colour and flavour – I’m not a fan of marmalade so I’ll have to take Simon’s word on this one. For the last two years we’ve followed Delia’s preparation notes, spending an eternity cutting the orange peel into thin slices by hand. However, this year we tried something new.

Our neighbour collects (his wife would say hoards) all kinds of antique gadgets and implements. Usually these are agricultural implements, which he buys and reconditions, and occasionally sells. One such gadget is a “Magic” marmalade cutter, which is designed to slice the orange peel. They use it to make their marmalade and suggested we give it a try. It’s a very simple device, dating back from c.1870 when these types of cast iron time-saving gadgets were all the rage in kitchens. It simply clamps to a table and with the aid of wooden plunger you place orange quarters (minus juice and pips) inside it and move the cutting blade backwards and forwards. It gives a very fine cut, and makes a bit of mess, but is a lot less messy and time consuming than doing it all by hand. So in less than half the usual time we had the marmalade prepped. The finished result has yet to be sampled, but given the time it took to make it, even if it’s not quite as nice as hand-cut marmalade, it will be a gadget we’ll be borrowing again next year.

Welcome Delilah and Matilda

Helen — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:43:32 +0000

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.

We’ve made a small run around the new house so that they won’t have any contact with Coffee and Cream, but will still be able to see each other and get used to each other’s presence. We’re planning on keeping them separated for a couple of weeks and then the proper introductions will happen.

Just as we’ve started to let Coffee and Cream out into the garden (which we don’t mind doing at this time of the year when there aren’t any seedlings for them to scratch up), we have started to see foxes around! This evening I came across two foxes by the vegetable garden, and scared them off. Yesterday we saw another one saunter down the road (in the daylight), so they are clearly getting quite bold. That has put an end to us letting the chickens out into the garden unless there is strict supervision.

New year…new project!

Helen — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:29:29 +0000

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.

I have read that when you are bringing new chickens into an existing flock, best practice is to keep them separated for a few weeks so that any diseases that the new chickens may have will hopefully manifest themselves in this time. It also helps them to settle in better, rather than just being flung in to get on with it. We didn’t do this when we introduced Coffee and Cream, but we probably should have done – there’s still a lot to learn. So we’ve decided to build a new hen house for this purpose. It will also be useful to have a spare hen house if we get any sickly chickens, or if we ever decide to let one of our chickens go broody and hatch out some eggs.

Always on the lookout for ways to keep costs down (hen houses are pretty expensive now that hen keeping is all the rage), we looked around to see what we could utilise to make a suitable house. We’ve got some wooden crates left over from our roofing work – a perfect starting point for the main frame of the house. We’re not going to need a house too big, as it is only for temporary accommodation, so these crates are about the right size. A few bits of wood were removed to make way for a door, and the rest of the crate was fitted with board to keep out the wind and rain. The roof was made from a pallet and topped with some laminated board and plastic sheeting we had (this can be lifted off to gain access for cleaning etc.). The door was made from a bit of weatherboard we had left over from the pig house, which also acts as a ramp to allow the hens to leave the house. Finally a perch was added, made from a branch taken from the hedge. We’ll add a nest box in one corner nearer the time. Otherwise it’s ready for some new occupants – watch this space!

Hen House (minus roof)

Forest garden starts to take shape

Helen — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:51:10 +0000

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.

So the last few weekends we’ve been busy preparing for the arrival of the trees, which I have mostly sourced from a local nursery. The nursery specialises in varieties that grow well in this part of Wales (mild and wet). I have also sourced a few from a nursery that specialises in varieties for forest gardens (Agroforestry Research Trust). So the final list includes:

Fruit	Type	Variety	Rootstock
Pear	Eater	Beth	Quince A
Pear	Eater	Conference	Quince A
Plum	Eater	Victoria	St Julien A
Plum	Eater	Opal	St Julien A
Damson	Cooker	Shropshire Prune	St Julien A
Cherry	Cooker	Morello	Colt
Cherry	Eater	Stella	Colt
Cherry	Eater	Celeste	Colt
Crab Apple	Cooker	Golden Hornet
Crab Apple	Cooker	Red Sentinel
Apple	Cooker	Lord Derby	M26
Apple	Cooker	Grenadier	M26
Apple	Eater	Claygate Pearmain	M26
Apple	Eater	Rosemary Russet	M26
Apple	Eater	Lord Lambourne	M26
Apple	Eater	Discovery	M26
Apple	Cider/Cooker	Tom Putt	M106
Apple	Cider	Yarlington Mill	M106

It has been quite a task planning which trees to plant, with a number of factors needing to be taken into consideration. The rootstock is important as it determines the ultimate size of the tree, and as our field is slightly sloping I needed to make sure that each tree wouldn’t cast too much of a shadow over its neighbours – we’re using different rootstocks to help stop this. There is then the problem of pollination. Apples need another apple variety in the same or neighbouring pollination group to fruit properly. Other fruit trees also benefit from a mixture of pollinating partners, although the majority I’ve chosen are self-fertile so this is less of a problem. And then of course there is the issue of taste. There are hundreds of apple varieties to choose from, each with a unique taste. There are also many varieties of plums, pears and cherries, so I’ve gone for a mixture and included some cookers and some eaters, and some early, mid and late fruiting varieties to spread the season. All in all not an easy thing to plan, so I just hope I’ve got it right.

Holes and stakes awaiting trees

After having chosen and ordered the trees, the business of mapping out the site needed to be done to ensure that the trees weren’t planted too close together. Then came the hard graft! First we had to dig holes one metre in diameter, which was made much harder by the amount of stones (and boulders) we kept unearthing. One hole was so full of stones that on returning to the field after some rain, we found it had filled with water. This hole has now been abandoned and has become an unplanned wildlife pond!

Next came the staking. After reading and asking opinions from people we decided that the apples on the M26 rootstock (which is a semi-dwarf rootstock) should be permanently staked, while the rest would just need a temporary stake for the first 3 years or so. The permanent stakes were driven a couple of feet into the ground in a vertical position, and placed on the windward side of the tree (so in our case to the west). The temporary stakes went in at a 45 degree angle, facing into the prevailing wind.

The next task is the planting. This took far longer than we anticipated, and we had already dug the holes! Firstly we put some leaf mould or garden compost in the loose soil in the bottom of the hole – not much but enough to give it a good start. Then when we began to back-fill the hole with the soil, we added a sprinkling of bonemeal to give some more nutrients. Once planted, a layer of manure was added, which will act as a mulch, add nutrients and suppress weeds (we’ll put down some further weed barrier in the new year, as the weeds need to be kept at bay for as long as possible).

So we now have 15 trees planted (with the final 3 arriving over Christmas), ready to get growing when spring arrives. Given the rootstocks I chose we should start to get some fruit in 2-3 years, but this is going to be very dependent on how quickly and how well the trees establish themselves – fingers crossed.

Not a good week

Helen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:05:21 +0000

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. Ginger was the first to go last week, when she took a turn for the worse having been moping around the run for a few days. She was clearly not well so we (Simon) dispatched her one morning. This left Whiskey from the original four, who although always a skinny chicken seemed to be eating well. So whether just a coincidence or whether she was missing her chicken buddy, she stopped eating properly and spent most of the time with her eyes shut under the shelter. We brought her indoors yesterday to try to keep her a bit warmer and conserve her energy. However, in the morning she also became an ex-chicken.

We don’t think they died from the same thing, as their symptoms were different, but you do wonder whether you could have done more to help. As most chicken owners will say, vets often have little expertise in chickens and poultry, as most people would just dispatch a sickly chicken. So there seems little point in taking a chicken to the vet, only to be told there is nothing they can do. Although this is a bit of a vicious circle, but when you’re dealing with what is still seen as a farm animal, vets in rural parts are likely to look at you a bit oddly if you walked into their surgery with a chicken. This may be changing in suburban areas where the trend of back garden chicken-keeping is all the rage, and hens are kept as pets as much as for the eggs, but even then I think many vets are at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

We’ve learnt that chickens (particularly the hybrid ones bred for egg laying) are not the longest living creatures, and this is something you’ve got to expect. We’re hoping that Coffee and Cream, our cream legbar chickens, will last a bit longer than a couple of years, which tends to be the case with the pure breeds. As they aren’t bred for their egg-laying abilities, they don’t wear themselves out so quickly. Having said that, we’re still planning to get a few more hybrids in the new year. While they don’t last very long they sure can pump out the eggs! And we need something to go with all this lovely bacon we’ve got.

The original gang

What’s going on?

Helen — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:44:47 +0000

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!

I’ve just spent the afternoon mowing the grass. Usually I would have probably done the last mow in October, but it seems like the grass is still growing. And it’s no surprise given the mild weather we’ve been having recently. It was about 13°C here today, and forecast to only get down to about 10°C tonight. We’ve had one frost so far this autumn. Looking back at the records I made last year, by now we’d had a number of frosts and by the end of November we’d had the first snow and it was hitting -10°C. While I didn’t really like last year’s cold weather, and it’s nice to have mild weather, it doesn’t feel quite right. We can’t even enjoy any parsnips yet, which really need a spell of frosts to give them that nice sweet flavour.

Apple harvesting

Helen — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:31:36 +0000

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!

So last weekend we got out our apple picker and picked as many apples as we could get to. We invested in the apple picker before we’d moved to Wales. I can’t remember why, because we didn’t have any fruit trees where we used to live. I think it was in anticipation of the day we may have our own fruit trees. So here we are with our very own tree, now able to make use of this tool. The pole and picker are made by Wolf-Garten, and once you’ve got the pole you can add a variety of attachments to it (including some useful window washing attachments). As with many tools, this is Simon’s domain, so he does the picking and I get the job of sorting and storing. I try to carefully wrap each apple in a sheet of paper (it’s actually the paper still left over from when we moved house) so that they don’t touch each other, which helps them last longer. The boxes are then stored in one of our sheds out of the light, and despite the freezing temperatures last year managed to last until May. They may go a bit wrinkly, but like us all they’re perfectly fine underneath!

Coincidently we attended a permaculture day not far from here, where they were demonstrating apple juice making. We had been asked to bring along any windfalls, so we gathered these up (excluding any that were really bad) and picked out some of the tiddlers that weren’t worth keeping. They not only had a fruit press, but also a machine that cut and pulped up the apples to make pressing easier. You wouldn’t believe how much juice comes out of an apple when it is really squeezed. So we came away with a few bottles of very tasty juice (not sure if they were ours as everyone’s got bundled together).

We had some sad news over the weekend. We lost Coke, our Black Rock chicken – sister to Rum who died earlier in the year. Coke had been suffering from some crop-related problem (the crop was still full in the morning, when normally it should be empty). We tried giving her olive oil and massaging her crop, but on Sunday morning Simon found her under the perch. She had probably died from a heart attack in the night, so hopefully didn’t suffer. And in some ways it was better for her to go like that than for us to have to dispatch her. So we are back down to four chickens, none of which are currently laying, so for the first time in 18 months we will have to buy some eggs.

First frost forecast

Helen — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:00:45 +0000

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.

I haven’t bothered picking the rest of the tomatoes yet as they’re almost over anyway, and we’ve got enough chutney to keep us going into next year. It seems a waste not to do something with them, but you’re always going to end up with too much to use in the good years. We’ve tried giving some away, but everyone is in the same boat. Never mind, it will all go on the compost heap and help to feed next year’s crops.

All the chickens have finally given up laying any eggs now. Coke, our Black Rock, had kept on going long after the others had stopped, but even she obviously senses that winter is fast approaching and it’s time to give the egg laying a rest until next year (or at least we hope that’s the case and they haven’t stopped laying for good). We knew the egg laying would probably dry up over winter this year, because our hybrids (Black Rock and Warrens) are two years old, and the pure breeds (Cream Leg Bars) don’t tend to lay over the entire year, even in their first year. So even with five chickens we may end up having to buy some eggs.

The wait is over

Helen — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:47:42 +0000

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.

I had to look up on the internet what to do with a gammon steak as it had been so long since I’d cooked one, but we did remember that you can’t have gammon steak without the requisite pineapple slices, so these had already been bought in anticipation. The smells emanating from the kitchen were lovely and we were looking forward to our first taste. And yes, it was as nice as we hoped. This morning we carried on our new found taste for meat and had a “fry-up” (well more like a grill-up), and managed to include our own eggs and own tomatoes on the plate alongside some very tasty bacon. And tonight I’m cooking a pork joint (not sure what part of the pig it came from) but as we speak it’s cooking away with a nice crackling forming on the top.

So all in all our experience has been a very good one, and one we will definitely be repeating.

As a note to ourselves as much as for anyone who is interested, here is a breakdown of the costs and the overall price of the meat to us. As a comparison the butcher suggested that he would sell meat like this for at least £7/kg.

Weaners (free in exchange for some website work which Simon did, but these would probably normally be £40 each)
Food: £149.72 (supplemented with plenty of vegetables, windfalls and rolled barley where available)
Abattoir: £59.52
Butcher: £86.25 (£20 per pig, plus £20 extra for curing one pig, plus an extra £1.25/kg for sausages of which there was 21kg)
Petrol costs: £25
Total cost to us: £320.49
Weight of pigs after slaughter (deadweight): 147.5kg
Assume weight of meat delivered (ie minus some bones, head, fat etc.) c.127kg
Price: c. £2.52/kg (assuming you would normally have to purchase the weaners then this equates to c. £3.15/kg)

So while we wouldn’t have normally gone and bought all this meat, if we were fully-fledged carnivores it has actually worked out a lot cheaper than buying the pork from the butcher (assuming you were buying good quality free-range pork).

Gone…but not forgotten

Helen — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:04:52 +0000

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.

The next morning, in the dark, we made our way to Haverfordwest where the nearest abattoir that slaughters pigs is situated. This is about 45 mins drive away but at that time of the morning there wasn’t much traffic so it was a good journey. The abattoir is situated on an industrial estate, which is probably the best place for these types of operations. There certainly was an odour in the vicinity! When we got there we were able to go straight in and back the trailer into the off-loading bay. We were greeted by a very friendly chap who was going to be doing the slaughtering – I suppose you’ve got to be a happy type working in a place like that otherwise it would soon get to you. So we knew our pigs were going to be in safe hands, and wouldn’t be mistreated. The pigs needed a bit of persuading to come out of the trailer, but soon realised there were lots of interesting new smells to be sniffed at. We said our goodbyes and that was that.

Today was the next stage in the process – picking up the carcasses. We didn’t think our car would be big enough to get two full-sized (and stretched out) pigs in, so we borrowed our neighbour’s pick-up truck and covered the inside with a sheet of plastic. When we arrived at the abattoir there was far less joviality, and a couple of carcasses were flung in the back of the truck. They could have been any old pigs (there were none of their distinguishing marks left), however, we did spy our slapmarks, so knew we’d got that procedure right. So with Esme and Gertie now safely in the back (again), we headed to the butchers in Cross Hands (60 mins drive away).

On arrival at the butchers, the butcher took a look at the carcasses and said they looked good for “first-timers”, with a good ratio of fat to meat. It must have been all the love and attention they received (and the ready supply of windfalls over the last few weeks). He took us through all the different cuts of meat we could have, although it all seemed a bit foreign to us given that we’ve been vegetarians for the past 6 years! So Esme and Gertie are now in the capable hands of the butcher, and in a fortnight’s time (it takes a while for the gammon and bacon to cure) we’ll be able to taste our first meat for some time.

So the process wasn’t nearly as bad or as sad as we thought it would be. The saddest thing is seeing the field empty and not being able to go out and play with the pigs. Just like the chickens they were always happy to see you (even if you didn’t have food), and would love nothing more than having their tummies tickled. I think we’ll definitely have pigs again at some stage, because despite the cost of the feed, what’s not to love about a pig?

Contented pigs!