The Cottage Smallholder

I suddenly realised that it was the last day of August so I had a wander in the garden and found these. I’ve waited two years for this one eachinea flower. It hurt to pluck it but it just had to join this group. It is, after all, a celebration of flowers that you can Read More »

A year or so ago I visited Celia Hart’s Open Studio – the one and only Magic Cochin of Purple Podded Peas. There on the wall was a wonderful print of a hare asleep in a burrow. “I know that I would sleep so soundly with that hanging beside the bed.” But I was skint Read More »

When our new Italian hens arrived I divided our long run into two. The old flock of four bantams and one Maran stayed on one side. The Italians took over the other side. This was largely due to the size of Baby. This tiny Leghorn runt needs to grow a lot more before both flocks Read More »

We don’t drink wine very much these days so we tend not to have wine hanging about in the kitchen for cooking. Danny developed a great pork chop recipe  so as a treat I grabbed a litre wine box in the supermarket. There was a yelp when he finally opened the box and turned on Read More »

I’m always really pleased when bloggers publish books as it proves to me that books are still treasured and valued. Who wants to stare at a computer screen for hours even though there’s access to an unbelievable breadth of knowledge and experience. There’s nothing to beat opening a really good book. And this is one Read More »

For years I longed for a Vigo fruit press to process our apples, pears and fruit for wine, juices and cordials. They are beautiful objects but too expensive to justify occasional use. Then one lucky day last year, Ronald Hayles left a comment about the wonders of the Mahu Liisa. I had never heard of Read More »

2009 is a great year for blackberries. We have loads in our garden and I’m bottling them and processing them for winter. I’ve also become very interested in cordials. Danny has started using my Lemon and Elderflower cordial instead of white wine in cooking. I reckoned that Blackberry and Apple cordial  and a Wild Plum cordial Read More »

For Fiona’s blog 3rd birthday we invested in the Zoom site search engine. You can try it out in the right-hand sidebar. One of the weakest features of the standard WordPress package is its inbuilt search facility. It is practically useless. We even had visitors email us to help find specific recipes! So we launched Read More »

“Did you know that cockerels all have distinct voices?” Kevin put down his mug of tea and stared into the garden as a cockerel crowed. “That’s Sage.” Caroline nodded. She explained that ours are still finding their voices on the crowing front. And as if to order we heard a rasping cry. “That’s one of Read More »

This can also be made with damsons – cut the tamarind amount by half and add more sugar to taste. Anyone who owns Oded Schwartz’s superb book Preserving  is very lucky indeed. Published in 1996 it is now sadly out of print. Danny found a copy on Australian Ebay for me one Christmas and I’ve Read More »