We grow our own food in a suburban village in the North East of England. Follow us as we keep up the battle to be self-sufficient.
Friday 30 January 2009
The weekend workload
The other construction work is to get the greenhouse built, or at least started. The allotment used to have a brick built greenhouse but this was gone long before we took over. There are however some solid foundations. The ground there needs to be cleared and we have a pile of branches there which means a bonfire tomorrow morning. I suspect it will take more than Sunday to get the greenhouse up. I think it will be a two weekend job.
Meanwhile I can report that our pasta making machine has arrived. We'll be trying out pasta recipes soon.
And finallt, the garlic planted in November is growing well.
---
Sent via BlackBerry
Sunday 25 January 2009
Fruit cage
I am sincerely hoping that we have time to do it next weekend. I have been invited to speak at an environmental conference in Newcastle so that will take up half a day. And we also need time to put up the greenhouse which has been sitting in the garage for a year. We may be calling on Dad to give a hand, in exchange for letting him use it once it is up. We would have roped in Mam as well to help if she hadn't just come out of hospital following a hip operation!
The joy of manure
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Turning our London garden to production
Saturday 17 January 2009
Allotment update
Since I am in London, I hope to spend a bit of time on our garden here. My plan is to convert it from an under-utilised semi-wasteland into a productive plot. It will also mean growing more in pots and bags and hanging baskets and sorting out the ones we currently have. It will be a good exercise in suburban food production.
---
Sent via BlackBerry
Monday 12 January 2009
More manure than we expected
The soil itself needs a lot of work doing to improve the quality of the soil. The allotment itself had been derelict for years before we took it on in 2007 and parts of it have remained fallow. The job this year is not only to get the soil improved but to get the whole of the allotment cultivated.
---
Sent via BlackBerry
Sunday 4 January 2009
Blackberry whisky chutney
In addition, I had a large quantity of wild apples left over so in the autumn I stewed then in a lot of sugar to preserve them. But I still needed to do something with them.
So here is my recipe for blackberry whisky chutney:
170g whisky soaked blackberries
180g raisins
400g apples preserves in sugar water
Quarter teaspoon of ground all spice
Quarter of a nutmeg, grated
One shot of whisky and two additional tablespoonfuls of same whisky
Add all contents to the pan (other than the tablespoons of whisky) and simmer. There is quite a bit of liquid to start with and this needs to be evaporated off. This took about 20 minutes.
Then place into jars and add to each a tablespoon of whisky. Seal the jars. Normally with chutneys I recommend leaving then to stand for at least 6 weeks before using them. I reckon I can start using these after about 2 weeks. After all, the blackberris have already spent 3 months pickling in whisky. The apple should absorb some of the neat whisky.
Perhaps this is a chutney not to be eaten before driving!
Your mathematics should tell you the above quantities have made 2 jars.
---
Sent via BlackBerry