Bottled fruit: enjoying the bounty seven months later
When I sat down to savour the superb third day of creamy Greek yoghurt and organic blackberries and blueberries bottled last October from our own garden, I just had to take a photo. This is now pasted on the kitchen wall to remind me how good bottled fruit is when I’m caught up in the bottling frenzy that dominates September and October. I do enjoy bottling fruit but sometimes it seems a bit of a palaver if I have other things to do. Sitting by the pond on a clear and sunny morning as the fruit and yoghurt combination burst in my mouth I...
read moreHeston Blumenthal’s recipe for Boerewors burgers: a review
Waitrose has teamed up with Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal to produce recipes that customers can make at home. This is quite a clever promotion as you don’t have to rush about the shop looking for the specific ingredients as they are all on the display stand. Some of the ingredients had me goggle eyed – such as packs of dried breadcrumbs 125g for £1.25. But I suppose most people don’t make their own anymore. I was intrigued by Heston’s Boerewors burgers as they were made with a mix of Aberdeen Angus beef and pork. Apparently...
read moreHow to make potpourri: starting out
I’ve been interested in drying flowers since I started growing them in earnest this year. This would be a way of extending the ‘sales’ season and getting 100% out of the flowers. Recently a kind reader emailed me and suggested that I dried rose petals as confetti. This would be a great use of our old French climbing roses – these go over fairly quickly so I can only really sell them in bud. I had also been toying with they idea of making a range of really good potpourri – this could be sold all year and wouldn’t be expensive to...
read more‘The Bad Beekeeper’s Club’ by Bill Turnbull : a review
Bill Turnbull’s interest in honey bees was tweaked when a swarm arrived in his garden and was removed by a local beekeeper. A few years later he took a local beekeeping course and was not daunted by his first painful stings. He had arrived for a practical beekeeping session straight from a TV studio. Unaware that bees have an aversion to hair gel, he was stung twice on the head. When he finally managed to get into his bee suit he found that a bee was trapped inside the veil. But even this horror didn’t put him off beekeeping. In fact...
read moreFinally I can grow mint!
When I moved to the cottage 18 years ago, I made a cute little herb bed just beside the kitchen’s back door. The marjoram, sage and oregano thrived. But the little thyme hedge died every winter and the parsley keeled over every summer. Since then I’ve learnt that parsley likes a lot of water and this border is very dry. And you know my history when it comes to growing mint. In the end, I gave up on the thyme hedge and Danny decided to grow his two favourite herbs (parsley and thyme) in an old bath that had been discarded by one of my...
read morePerfect temporary part time job
“Can you handle live worms? That’s what the turtles eat.” My stomach churned. I generously gave Danny the delight of tipping the worms into the dog poo composter last week. “Of course I can.” Proud to the bitter end. “There are not many worms in here at the moment but don’t worry, when you come to feed them there will be plenty.” I peered into the small tin. Lots of sandy stuff and a few worms. Fine. S tossed a few into the tank and a very capacious reptile guzzled the lot. I was fascinated by her. An ‘ancient’ head and...
read moreUpdate on the flower farming project
My project to grow and sell cut flowers is now getting exciting. We sold our first bunches this week to our local village shop.
read moreDog poo wormery
We have two compost heaps and a large traditional kitchen waste composter but still need more compost than we can make. So I started looking at the possibility of investing in a worm composter. The worm casts that are made create a great compost and the wormery also collects a liquid feed that can be diluted and fed to plants and shrubs. Organic fertilisers can be very expensive. Although we are now making comfrey and nettle tea, sometimes plants need that extra boost. Then I discovered that there are wormerys that convert dog poo into...
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