Blog – Page 25 – Small Plot, Big Ideas

Another belated update

It seems that for the last few months I have had a consistent list of “things to get done” which somehow never seemed to get any shorter. Every time I reached the point where an item could be crossed off there were another couple of things to add to the bottom of the list!

Finally I think I can see the end of the current list but I know what will happen when I get there, I’ll just add more things to it again. With luck those new items will related to moving house and starting the smallholding but the housing market doesn’t work on luck so I’ll have to wait and see.

Hopefully I’ll remember to take some time before starting the next list and I must also remember not to add so much on the next list as well!

Chickens

The chickens are still merrily trashing the far end of the lawn plus (when they feel like flapping over the fence) the veg beds and flower borders.

Compost

The compost heap looks to be an excellent “brew” which I will try to take plenty of credit for but of course the success is probably more down to loads of chicken poop, straw and wood shavings.

It might be considered by some to be slightly “chunky” perhaps but I am disproportionately proud of my limited contributions to the process!

Attempting to move house

Some of that lovely compost has already been spread over one of the raised beds although my heart isn’t really in it. I’m not sure of the etiquette when selling a house but perhaps we should have specified that we’re taking our compost with us when we move?

Big decisions take time (but not too long I hope)

Every so often I come across posts on other blogs that I follow which resonate strongly with my current personal situation. One such recent example is Back to the land which is on a blog from Devon – a place which has assumed mythical proportions in my head because I’ve been told we can’t buy a smallholding there as it’s too far away from the kids!

That particular blog post dates from August so it’s not exactly recent but it echos many of my own thoughts and even more so after watching the episode of The Audience last night about a guy deciding whether to give up farming.

For me it seems obvious that working on (and with) the land must be more fulfilling than sitting in an office but of course the grass is always greener – at least I hope it will be when we eventually get around to buying somewhere! I just don’t quite understand why you wouldn’t want to be working outside…

I know it’s important to carefully consider this kind of decision and occasionally it’s sensible to stop and think about other things than just the day to day grind. However I’m also very conscious of the well-known John Lennon quote:

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans

(After a quick check on the web I find that this quote was originally attributed to Allen Saunders and it actually appears in a 1957 edition of the Readers Digest!)

I blame Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

I probably wouldn’t have thought of trying to bake soda bread if I hadn’t seen it mentioned during a an old River Cottage program I happened to watch recently.

If I’m honest I would have guessed that soda bread must be something like sour dough which I believe takes some time and effort to make and that is not my sort of thing. It’s possible that I have this wrong as I’ve not made sour dough (yet) but I can’t usually be bothered with recipes that need leaving overnight or bursts of activity every so often – it must be an attention span problem on my part!

Soda bread on the other hand seemed to be just my sort of recipe – easy to make, no particularly special ingredients, very little preparation time and most importantly almost impossible to mess up! What could possibly go wrong…

I found this handy soda bread recipe on the web which also describe what to do when there is no buttermilk. This is essential for me as we never normally have that and certainly didn’t have it when I decided to try making this! It all seemed fairly straightforward so away I went and a short time later a nice looking loaf of soda bread was cooling on a rack.

The only minor catastrophe was (I think) a misreading of the quantities when not using buttermilk but I managed by just adding more and more flour until the consistency looked about right!

Completed loaf of soda bread — My first loaf of soda bread

As can be seen, the final result was pretty impressive to my untrained eye and by the morning there was only enough left for a couple of slices of toast!

When the whole loaf goes that quickly it can’t be all bad, just imagine what would have happened if I’d made a “proper” soda bread rather than this first test run.

Next on my list of breads to try is maybe adapting this focaccia recipe on the BBC website which I might attempt to make into a garlic/cheese “tear and share” to go with some pasta.

Cutting it fine

Excuse the pun in the title but last weekend I had a spate of taking cuttings from various plants around the garden because I get the feeling that autumn is approaching fairly quickly up here in the North East.

It’s possible that there may not be enough decent weather and sunshine but we’ve had a good couple of weeks so why not try. If they don’t make then there is nothing much lost.

The main reason was so that we can take some plants with us if/when we eventually move but there have also been requests from No. 1 and No. 2 daughters to have some (free) plants for their gardens.

As with most things in the garden, I am no expert on taking cuttings but I do have an old copy of The Tree & Shrub Expert by Dr D G Hessayon so what could possibly go wrong?

In the end the plants that I “attacked” with the secateurs for the first batch of cuttings were Philadelphus, Rose, Euonymus, Hebe and Lavender.

It didn’t take that long to get these prepared, dipped in rooting hormone, firmed into the pots and lightly watered. I find that there is something very satisfying about planting up pots whether cuttings or seeds.

There were still some spare plant pots and I had a few old compost bags each with a little bit left. It made sense to keep going at least until I run out of space to put them all but maybe mixing old houseplant compost with the old other slightly dried out left overs was not the best approach.

Fuschia, Lonicera and Cornus — Even more cuttings

Next to receive an assault with the secateurs was Fuchsia, Bay, Lonicera and Cornus. In the case of the Lonicera for example I already had some success a few years ago with another cutting so I have high hopes for that!

Most are still alive for the moment and they are happily zipped up in the cheap plastic “greenhouse” I bought in the spring. However I’m definitely starting to notice the days getting shorter and I’m not convinced that all of them will make it.

Another successful cooking episode

Well, that was an action packed weekend with a range of culinary activities including another batch of my impressive scotch eggs, an excellent slow cooked pot-roast goat and some lavender tea cake as well as the Glendale Show (in the rain).

The lavender tea cake idea came about after a previous post about our lavender looking good in bloom which had included some links to intriguing recipes that make use of the flowers.

Somehow I hadn’t considered the possibility that it might be useful in cooking as well as just using it for the scent.

If you need any proof then the pictures included here show the results for the Lavender Tea Cake experiment which were reasonably successful. Apart from a slightly soggy patch at the bottom which I suspect was my fault not the recipe!

There was a pleasant hint of lavender throughout the cake without it being overpowering and it was very well received which is always a good sign!

What to try next I wonder?

The lavender flowers are on their way out now so I’ll have to take a wander around the garden to see what’s available. I’m not sure that Runner Bean biscuits are such a good idea but I don’t think there is much else happening in our garden at the moment!

There’s more to the garden than vegetables

Lavender in flower with a bee — Bee on the lavender

Our lavender is looking pretty good at the moment although I really can’t take much credit for that. Apart from the fact that I originally planted it they have been left to their own devices but maybe that is the trick? It could be a lesson I should learn and apply to the vegetable side of things when i consider the variable results I’ve had this year.

By not interfering I’ve allowed the lavender plants to develop at their own pace, as they have nicely filled the space allowed – sometimes exceeding it so I’ve had to clip them back – there has been no need to worry about weeding around them too much, just the occasional half-hearted effort.

It certainly looks like the bees love the flowers and I’m not known for my love of bees but I am coming around to them a little. They may even have a place in the future smallholding plans but only after learning more about then and taking all relevant safety precautions!

I was interested to find this link to the Newcastle and District Beekeepers association which looks like the best place to start and at least I know there’s somewhere fairly local to get help and advice!

I also took this lovely photo of the lavender flowers with a butterfly as well but I know very little about the different types of butterfly and further research has taken the shine off this in the end

According to my research this is a Cabbage White butterfly and is probably the reason for large holes in the leaves of the broccoli plants. More accurately this particular butterfly could be partly to blame for the damage to my cabbages earlier in the year.

I don’t like to hold a grudge though and it does look nice even if my photo doesn’t quite do it justice!

This isn’t just some idle ramblings about pretty flowers and wildlife though, I’m now curious to find out whether I can make use of the other plants in my garden for cooking and eating.

The initial signs are good and after a quick web search there are some promising recipes and ideas. Here are the first few that I think I’ll be trying in the near future

Lavender Infused Shortbread – this looks like the easiest of the lot so I may try this first!

Lavender Tea Cake – looks good and uses fresh lavender so limited preparation needed

Amy’s Lavender Still Lemonade – the recipe says “dried lavender” but I might try fresh instead

A busy week or so ahead

First up is a viewing for our house by potential buyers this afternoon – it’s only been on the market so it’s still early days and we’re not expecting too much from this viewing.

This will be closely followed by an evening appointment to view a potential property. This place is so far west in Northumberland that it’s practically Cumbria but I won’t hold that against it! A nice looking place but I’ve learnt not to put too much faith in the estate agents particulars.

Tomorrow (Sat 18) is the much-anticipated (by me at least) Falstone Show (http://www.falstoneshow.com/) which was originally established in 1885 so they should know how to put on a good show by now. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good weather on the day and after checking the BBC Weather website the prediction looks okay:

Saturday

A much drier, brighter day with sunny spells developing after early mist clears. Generally dry but the odd shower is possible. Warm in sunshine and light winds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2649713

Although not quite as old as the Falstone show, there is also the 120th Glendale Show (http://www.glendaleshow.com/) which takes place on Bank Holiday Monday (August 27th). It makes sense to take them up on their offer of cheaper tickets in advance by buying online (£9 in advance instead of £12 on the door) so I’ll be doing that later today.

Both these events should provide great sources of inspiration for our smallholding ideas along with any number of handy shopping opportunities which we should probably try to resist until we’ve actually bought somewhere!

If you were wondering what to do over the rest of the school holidays then find a local show near you and take a look at the list on this website: http://www.stackyard.com/orgs/agricultural_shows/dates.html

It’s just a shame that my job is going to take up quite a lot of the week as well but that can’t be helped… yet!

Eeek… look at that leek!

I was checking the leeks the other day when I spotted one (and only one) which looked a bit different. I’m not sure but I presume that this is a very bad sign and the other plants may well go the same way eventually.

A little Googling soon turned up a blog entry titled Gone To Seed Part 2 from last year which seems to show very similar development so I guess it’s not uncommon.

This was a little surprising to me as the plants are not very well-developed yet so I wasn’t expecting it. However we have had some very unusual weather in recent weeks – sometimes sunny and hot whereas other times we’ve had flooding – so odd things are bound to happen.

Even the RHS website confirmed my suspicions on this page about bolting in vegetables:

Some biennial crops (which grow in the first year, flower in the second) such as onions, leeks, carrot and beetroot can initiate flowers in the first year. This is due to unsettled weather conditions early in the season and usually occurs after a prolonged cold spell, often during the propagation phase. Cold nights, hot days and late frosts may also contribute to premature initiation of flowering.

I suppose I’d better come up with some recipes for Scrawny Leek Soup

Chili plants still alive…

On top of the other recent and slightly unexpected success with my runner beans, it appears that I’ve also managed to keep my two chilli plants alive. Despite my best efforts at negligence it seems that they are both still going well although I suspect they would be much better off by now if I had paid them more attention.

Apache chilli plant — Apache – with the start of a crop perhaps

I bought just two plants from the Dartmoor Chilli Farm stand at the North East Chilli Festival back in early July (and a grand day out it was too!).

It took me a while to get around to it but both are are now in slightly larger pots which should help. However as there hasn’t been much action I’m wondering whether I should add feed?

The Apache one (see left) is looking the most impressive with a couple of peppers developing nicely. Are they called fruit? Or is it a berry? Or perhaps a pod?

This is supposed to be a very easy variety to grow and I think I read somewhere recently that treating chilli plants poorly increases the resulting heat.

Unfortunately that could mean the poor treatment on my part is a bad move as I’m not a huge fan of extremely hot and spicy food.

Stumpy the chilli plant — Stumpy – a variety of chilli

The other chilli plant I bought at the same time was a variety called Stumpy and this isn’t quite so far along – perhaps this variety will develop more slower?

Of course I should remember that it’s called Stumpy for a good reason and is supposed to be smaller so I shouldn’t be too demanding!

I think that overall maybe it’s time for some feed or at the very least a little more regular care and attention.

Nature can work wonders occasionally but from time to time it’s nice to feel that I’m contributing in some small way as well!

I will be keeping watch on both of these plants in the coming weeks. Based on my rather limited knowledge so far I think the tactic is to harvest regularly to ensure a better crop.

Runner bean flowers

Recently when watering the runner beans that I had planted in a large tub I noticed a major achievement (for me at least) with the first signs of flowers. As I’ve never grown runner beans before this was a big deal and I’ll be checking them regularly to watch the progress.

Although this is probably nothing special to those who grow runner beans regularly, I find the appearance of the flowers to be strangely (and disproportionately) gratifying. Unfortunately I think that this probably shows the level of belief I had at the beginning that these would produce anything worth mentioning!

As a record of this momentous event I took a photo using my phone:

Flowers on the runner beans — First flowers on my runner beans

At the same time, as the first photo looked pretty good and there was some detail to catch I thought I’d try the “close up” mode that I’d noticed but hardly ever used. I was suitably impressed with the results of that too:

Close up photo of runner bean flower — Close up

I’m now keeping my fingers crossed for even more flowers and eventually an impressive harvest to top off a successful first attempt at growing runner beans.