The Cottage Smallholder

Photo: Garden pond

The only time that I can remember that Danny was really angry with me in the past was when I left a large sack of sand and cement in his car. When he had to make an emergency stop there were disastrous consequences.

As you know from tales about Jalopy I view vehicles as moving storage devices. Jalopy still holds the complete decorators kit from spare rollers, to plastic wood and window putty. If you have time and patience you will find everything that you need for hanging and trimming wallpaper and even those insulated mugs that will keep a refreshing cup of tea warm on a chilly day.

During the last heat wave I was looking after The Chicken Lady’s smallholding. Her husband S keeps a lot of fish. In fact there are nine tanks dotted about the house, garage and garden. One of these tanks is a large fresh water tank and unfortunately two of the bigger fish couldn’t cope with the heat and died. The first was carried home in the boot of D’s car and removed on arrival. When I noticed the second one, I was on my bike and without a bag to ferry the poor fish back home. So I put it in an old feed bag and hid it under the tank.

The last evening that I was there, I spotted the bag and tossed it in the boot of the car. Two days later I remembered the fish as Seraphina and I were discovering the delights of the Norfolk coast. The smell by now would be a bit overpowering when D drove into Newmarket for the post run. So I left him a message on his mobile.

As we drove past the cottage on our return we noticed that D’s car was parked on the drive with the windows, doors and boot open. My heart sank. Would he be really angry?

He wasn’t. In fact he was quite amusing about it and joked that I would get up close to the stench when I went shopping the next day.

Never go shopping on a showery day in a car that has been a tempoary morgue for a dead fish.If you open the widows you get wet. If you close them the fumes will put you off fish and chips for months.

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Photo: Kitchen garden with Min Pin supervisors

“It’s nearly the end of July. Surely there’s something we can eat from the garden?”

Danny was exasperated – forgetting that we have already munched loads from the garden in the past few months. Spuds, orach (German Mountain spinach), calabrese, turnips, broad beans, raspberries, strawberries, tayberries, loganberries, peas, lettuces and salad leaves.

But then I twigged that he’s desperate to start harvesting his favourite.  Runner beans. They are a bit late this year but a careful examination of the beans revealed that they are well on their way. We are growing two varieties this year – a nameless one that John gave us last year with red flowers and very long pods and a biodynamic variety called Desiree. This has white flowers and is racing ahead with beans that are already four inches long.

Even though I’m watering religiously I reckon that the long hot summer has held the beans back. Yesterday, finally, we had a lot of rain and I’m hoping that this will perk everything up a bit.

The dwarf French beans are doing well and we had some in a stir fry last night. I’m particularly pleased with the German Mountain spinach – Orach. Apparently this will last for months as long as you remove the seed heads when they appear. It tastes similar to spinach and ours is about three feet high. We chose a red and a bright green variety and the combination looks stunning in the border. Next year I’m going to mix the seed together for a gentler effect. I have never managed to grow spinach successfully so the orach is a real boon.

We still have a few broad beans left. We grew these broad beans this year – Aquadulce Claudia. Only four of the plants from our November sowing survived so we planted more in the Spring. For the first time we had very little trouble with blackfly and the beans were the best we’ve ever tasted. We did get a few empty pods though and I’m curious to know why.

I’ve been sniffing about on the Internet for ideas of vegetables to sow in July and have come up with this list:

Courgettes (even the climbing courgette has fallen out with me now so I’m going to try a late sowing of these)

Peas (apparently if you are lucky these will produce peas well into November)

Broad Beans (we have the variety Sutton that I bought last year and forgot all about)

Runner beans

French beans

Salad leaves/pak choi etc.

Potatoes (we’ll be using Paula’s method of just leaves rather than compost as this has been really successful this year)

Kale (leaves all winter and tasty sprouts in the Spring)

Sprouting broccoli – white and purple (the slugs have guzzled earlier sowings)

Spring cabbage (incidentally our January king cabbages planted pre biodynamic days in September 2010 are still slowly heading up!)

Winter cauliflowers

We are continuing to practice biodynamic principles in the garden and everything appears to be thriving. I can’t honestly say that it’s all down to using biodynamic methods. We have also used companion planting and as I’m off work I have much more time to lavish on the garden than in the past.

Our major problem this year has been slugs – strange in such a dry summer. The biodynamic remedy for this is to make a kind of dead slug soup and spray this on the plants that they like. Apparently they don’t like eating leaves sprayed with their friends and family. The idea is so off putting that I’ve tried everything that I can think of and the munching continues. These butch guzzlers must be teetotal slugs that don’t even drink milk. I think that I’m going to have to finally try this method but it will take some time as the slugs have to completely decompose first. So perhaps I’ll have to wait until 2011 to see these slugs avoiding the veg sprayed with the vintage 2010 brew.

Photo: Unusual and nameless shrub

“I wonder whether I’ll order crab or something else.” I secretly mused as we pottered along in Seraphina’s little black car.

The plan was a leisurely drive to Butley’s Oysterage in Orford. A bit of a culinary blow out and then home. Incidentally, the odious Len has a holiday house in Orford. This adds a certain frissance to a trip to the village.

But a visit to Butleys was not to be. We found that we were on the wrong road.
“Where does it lead to?”
I checked the map.
“Hunstanton.”
“Let’s go to Old Hunstanton. They are bound to have crab.”
“And we could go shrimping.” I could see us, trousers rolled up and nets at the ready. Homemade potted shrimps are divine. At this point the Thelma and Louise theme cracked in. We were out and having fun.

But all we found at Old Hunstanton were hotel chains. And a shed on the beach selling drinks and ice creams.
“What we are looking for is a small relaxed place where we can eat fresh crab with bread and a beer,” Seraphina explained to the owner of a craft shop.
The lady riffled through a guide book.
“Cookies would be perfect for you. It’s a bit of a drive along the coast – at Cley. You can eat outside. The beach is a bit pebbly but sandy further on.”
She pronounced Cley, Cly. And mentioned Salthouse. We didn’t realise that Salthouse was actually a place – imagining an old building that used to house some sort of fish salting operation.

We whipped along the coast road. The sea just a faded thin blue line glanced occasionally between hedgerows.  We passed lots of tempting eateries but our hearts were set on Cookies. Eventually we reached Cley, turned a corner and spotted a large sign. “Cookes”.
“Perhaps they spell it differently in Norfolk?”

We had missed last orders by 15 minutes but the friendly owner rustled up crab sandwiches and dinky salads with a smile. As we guzzled these in the pretty garden we wondered why we couldn’t see the beach that the craft shop lady had mentioned. Or the state of the art bird sanctuary, complete with twitchers carrying powerful binoculars and cameras with lenses that could fell an elephant.
“Perhaps the beach is on the other side of the house.”
But a quick shufty after lunch revealed the sea was miles away.

Later that day when we were trying to find our way home – map reading is not a well honed skill with me – we decided to take an easier but less direct route home. If we stuck to the major roads even I could trace our path. Heading for Sherringham, we eventually passed the bird sanctuary and later our eyes were drawn by a large sign – “COOKIES”. There were the outdoor tables, and on the other side of the road the beach.
We roared with laughter. The perfect excuse to return in August to sample Cookies crabs.

Meanwhile if you happen to need a reviving pit stop on the coast road, pop into Cookes – you won’t be disappointed.