Pumpkin chutney

We've so far used the giant pumpkins we have to make soup, pie, jam and curry. More recently, we used some in a sausage and vegetable casserole. The video for this is being edited but in my eagerness to eat what we produced, I forgot to take photos! And we have made pumpkin chutney. The video for that is being edited as well. I'll post up the recipe on another day but it came out as a slightly tart preserve. This was quite useful as at the same time I made a sweet apple chutney and a hot marrow chutney. It meant we had an interesting range to offer as swaps, Christmas presents and to sell at the recent Christmas markets.

More ducklings

This is not the best of photos but I snapped it on my blackberry this evening after taking these two ducklings out of the incubator. One hatched last night, another this afternoon. There are 4 eggs still in the incubator but I can hear no activity from three of them and the 4th I have my doubts about. But at least we have two ducklings to replenish our stocks after the setback on October and November when we lost 5 ducks.

Skinning and gutting a rabbit

A friend borrowed my air rifle to go rabbiting over the weekend and as a thank you, he gave me one of the animals he caught. I skinned and gutted it and carefully saved the pelt. At some point I will have enough to make a fur coat - by which time I will have learnt how to treat the pelts.

Christmas cafe and lights

Mayor of Gateshead, Jack Graham, was in Marley Hill (the next village up the road from Sunniside where we live) on Sunday to switch on the Christmas tree lights at the front of the Community Centre. This was the first time we had had an outdoor tree at the centre and the first time we have run a Christmas event like this. My job was to organise the day, run the craft market and, of course, the Allotment Cafe and generally make sure the whole thing held together.

We put the play equipment out at 9am to keep the kids occupied. Whickham Wind arrived at 3pm to play Christmas tunes and they were a particular hit with the children. The mayor did the switch on at 4pm. The whole day went very well. It looks like this will be an annual event from now on.

And as we were running the Allotment cafe throughout the day, people brought in produce to swap for our preserves. We got a good supply of apples, onions and leeks.

How to make hawberry jelly

There were lots of hawberries in the hedgerows in November and as they are full of pectin, they make a good jelly. There are still berries to be picked so they will probably me made into a ketchup.

artichokes galore

It looks like we will have another bumper crop of Jerusalem artichokes. Last week we recovered a large number simply by pulling out the dead stalks. So watch this space for artichoke soup, artichoke gratin, roasted artichokes and any other artichoke recipes we can think of!

Polytunnel troubles

We have been suffering from wind recently. No, I don't mean we are enduring the results of eating too many beans or artichokes! Instead, we have had a couple of storms that have bodily moved our two polytunnels. The one above was literally picked up by the wind and carried over the allotment and deposited on top of the greenhouse. The photo was taken after we had moved it over on to its side. The second was caught in a 2nd storm a few days later and ended up in the neighbouring allotment. It has been damaged and we will have to decide how to use it in the future.

The first polytunnel to fall victim to the storms is pictured below after we moved it to a new location. As you can see, we have removed the cover. Fortunately, the damage to the frame was rather minor.



Meanwhile, the freeing of the plot next to the goat paddock where the first polytunnel previously stood has given us the opportunity to extend the goat paddock. We will do this shortly. We have decided that instead of using the additional site we have taken on for the goats near our existing allotment, they will stay where they are but with a much bigger paddock. This makes sense in terms of the fencing. The new site is a long plot what would have needed a huge length of fencing. Extending the existing site therefore makes more financial sense and it means we can get the new milking goats sooner. The photo below was taken after the storm blew the polytunnel onto the greenhouse. The goat paddock will be extended to include at least the area of the henhouses, if not more.