What do you do with all your produce from the lottie? Some produce such as potato, onion and garlic store very well but other things such as tomatoes or corn on the cob do not store at all. One thing you can do preserve the produce ina different form. I like to make pickles, chutney and jams.
This year I made a couple of jars of pickled onions from the smaller shallots. Then some Picallili from the Cauliflower, Gherkins, Tomato and Onion together with spices. Onion marmalade and green tomato chuntney, no to list there ingredients. I Have some red cabbage going at the lottie which is due for pickling when it is ready. I made jam from 4 jars of Blackberry, 7/8 jars of Damson and 4/5 of Yellow Plum. I pickled some Gherkins but I do not hold out much hope that they will be nice although I learned something about pickling when do them. I still have a lots of apples so apple sauce is on the cards as is Mint sauce. I just have to find a good recipe.
Beans and Peas can be eaten raw but when you have a glut you have to either freeze them or turn them into something else. Some crops can be left in the ground until needed and benefit from that treament. Leeks, Swedes, Parsnip, Carrot and Brocolli fit into this category. Just lift them and cook 'em. But generally, where we can, we pick and eat what is in season which is the new way of eating if you listen to the TV health gurus.
The main things is that all the raw materials are essentially free. I get the food from either the lottie, the hedge row or peoples fruit trees [by permission]. The containers come from jars and bottles saved from going in the dust bin.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Drink for free...mmmmmmm!
From a few to many non wine drinks in the Railway Inn in May to racking off the Rhubarb in September. It's been a hoot. You can make wine out of anything. I got a bunch of Demi-johns [DJ] in the spring, washed and sterilized them. First I made a DJ of Rhubard, then two of nettle. Two of Dandelion and then there was a pause. As the year turned the fruit came on stream. Two DJs of yellow plum, one of damson, two of apple. And just for good measure a DJ of Sloe Gin.
My buddy Steve got a hankering for Cider. We fossicked about and got access to a small orchard. After two short outing we had something approaching 800lbs of various types of apples. We hired a muncher and a press, chopped the apples into pulp with the muncher and pressed the juice from the pulp. What a glorious appley smell. Both a ladies of the house helped as well lured into the garage with the promise of shop bought, ready to drink wine. The apples yielded 28 imperial gallons of juice. Some we set aside to ferment naturally, scrumpy. I tried 5 gallons with Champagne yeast which is called Normandy style cider and the rest was bottled to drink as juice. As is the way with mother nature neither the scrumpy or Normandy seem to be doing anything but the juice in the fridge is bubbling away!!
The Rhubarb has been racked twice and is now in bottles. The Nettle and Dandelion has been racked off twice, next stop bottling. The Apple, Plum and Damson is still merrily bubbling away. The Sloe Gin is quietly turning a deep purple. Roll on Christmas.
I totaled the drink available to me for next year at 12 DJ if wine and 10 gallons of cider. All it cost was a bit of application and 25lbs of sugar. Broad Bean wine next year. It supposed to taste like sherry!
My buddy Steve got a hankering for Cider. We fossicked about and got access to a small orchard. After two short outing we had something approaching 800lbs of various types of apples. We hired a muncher and a press, chopped the apples into pulp with the muncher and pressed the juice from the pulp. What a glorious appley smell. Both a ladies of the house helped as well lured into the garage with the promise of shop bought, ready to drink wine. The apples yielded 28 imperial gallons of juice. Some we set aside to ferment naturally, scrumpy. I tried 5 gallons with Champagne yeast which is called Normandy style cider and the rest was bottled to drink as juice. As is the way with mother nature neither the scrumpy or Normandy seem to be doing anything but the juice in the fridge is bubbling away!!
The Rhubarb has been racked twice and is now in bottles. The Nettle and Dandelion has been racked off twice, next stop bottling. The Apple, Plum and Damson is still merrily bubbling away. The Sloe Gin is quietly turning a deep purple. Roll on Christmas.
I totaled the drink available to me for next year at 12 DJ if wine and 10 gallons of cider. All it cost was a bit of application and 25lbs of sugar. Broad Bean wine next year. It supposed to taste like sherry!
Winter digging
Winter digging is an important part of the yearly cycle for me. There is a school of thought that says that the ground should not be undisturbed to let the bacteria and invertebrates do their job. I believe that digging once a year is essential for a number of reasons; to relieve impaction of the soil, aerates the soil, gets organic matter into the lower levels of the soil. I think the soil dwellers do not mind the disturbance given that hey short lived creatures. The birds, such as Robins get a chance to hoover up the slugs eggs and other tasty morsels. I think this helps see them through the winter making them available the following year to hoover up the caterpillars, green and black fly. My soil is quite fine so when we have a down pour some of it is carried away. I dig trenches around my beds. This does two things:
1. It catches the run off thereby intercepting the run off soil which in the spring in throw back on to the bed.
2. The trench makes the bed into huge raised beds which because it is drier heats up more quickly in the weak sun of spring time.
I have divided my plot into four main cultivation beds. I rotate the beds on a four year cycle. I put manure on the bed that is to contain potatoes. Having dug the bed over I just drop the manure on top a left nature do the rest until planting time. I dig trenches where the peas are to go and fill them with manure. However I only do this a couple of weeks before planting. Pumpkins go in the same area as peas so usually dig a slight hole and drop in half a barrow of manure and/or compost and plant a pumpkin. These greedy plants use the manure. What residual goodness from the manure carries over into the next year where beds will contain either brassicas or roots. These plants do not require a very fertile soil.
The rotation is to try to prevent or at least reduce the whole sale spread of potato blight which is very bad on the site. Club root in brassicas is also reduced by rotation however this is not something I suffer from. My soil seems to be to good for all sorts of brassicas.
1. It catches the run off thereby intercepting the run off soil which in the spring in throw back on to the bed.
2. The trench makes the bed into huge raised beds which because it is drier heats up more quickly in the weak sun of spring time.
I have divided my plot into four main cultivation beds. I rotate the beds on a four year cycle. I put manure on the bed that is to contain potatoes. Having dug the bed over I just drop the manure on top a left nature do the rest until planting time. I dig trenches where the peas are to go and fill them with manure. However I only do this a couple of weeks before planting. Pumpkins go in the same area as peas so usually dig a slight hole and drop in half a barrow of manure and/or compost and plant a pumpkin. These greedy plants use the manure. What residual goodness from the manure carries over into the next year where beds will contain either brassicas or roots. These plants do not require a very fertile soil.
The rotation is to try to prevent or at least reduce the whole sale spread of potato blight which is very bad on the site. Club root in brassicas is also reduced by rotation however this is not something I suffer from. My soil seems to be to good for all sorts of brassicas.
Weather Sage
I am feeling quite "sagely". Why I don't hear you ask. Spring was late in the UK this year [2006]. The weather did not break until early June. I predicted to my lottie neighbours that he autumn would be a long affair. So what grow season we had lost in the spring we would gain in the autumn. That has come to pass except that mother nature threw a curve ball in July when almost the whole month the day time temperatures were in the thirties centigrade.
This had the effect of making most of the plant blot as they had suffered in the late spring only to be faced with searing temperatures as they matured. I got round this in a small was by planting more seeds in July to take advantage of the extra growing season. Living as I do in England and its situation in the Northern hemisphere at Latitude 52.48 north, as the year progresses the day light hours reduce so that today lighting up time is 18.17. Each day lighting up time is 2/3 minutes earlier. The plants respond to the shorter days by not growing or growing less and it is quite difficult to get anything to germinate. The short days mean the temperature is slowly dropping. It is most notable at night, dew is forming and there is mist in the fields.
This past weekend I had time to dig over a whole quarter of my lottie and spread seeds of a green manure. I only hope the temperature holds up for a couple for weeks until the seeds have come through.
This had the effect of making most of the plant blot as they had suffered in the late spring only to be faced with searing temperatures as they matured. I got round this in a small was by planting more seeds in July to take advantage of the extra growing season. Living as I do in England and its situation in the Northern hemisphere at Latitude 52.48 north, as the year progresses the day light hours reduce so that today lighting up time is 18.17. Each day lighting up time is 2/3 minutes earlier. The plants respond to the shorter days by not growing or growing less and it is quite difficult to get anything to germinate. The short days mean the temperature is slowly dropping. It is most notable at night, dew is forming and there is mist in the fields.
This past weekend I had time to dig over a whole quarter of my lottie and spread seeds of a green manure. I only hope the temperature holds up for a couple for weeks until the seeds have come through.
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