the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Harvest (contd.)

More rich pickings today - our first Red Duke of York spuds (duly despatched to the olds), 4lb of gooseberries, the first of the blackcurrants (just ripe, and really only picked to take some of the weight off of the overburdened branches), our first wee courgettes and more mange tout and spring onions, all for a stir fry.

The potatoes were very encouraging, being a good size and blemish-free. Red Duke of York are our favoured early variety, and it's nice to have them again after last year's order went unfulfilled because of our supplier's seed failure. Their colour straight out of the ground is fantastic - next time I lift some I must take a photo for the gallery...

It's Showtime

Dan and I made our annual visit to the Royal Highland Show on Friday. The weather was lovely - which was great because it bucketed rain on Thurady and Saturday.

I love the Highland. I started going when I was a student - as an agricultural student, it was part of the course of study to spend four days a year in the late, lamented Herdsman bar. I don't do that anymore but I enjoy it justa s much and maybe more.

I was very fortunate to be introduced to Mr Willie Allan, renowned breeder of Highland ponies and, indeed, breeder of my own Smokey. Despite all the ponies he must have bred over the years, he seemed to remember every one and seemed genuinely interested in their progress. Smokey's (remember his proper name is Munro of Millfield) full sister was at the show (Misty) and his half brother, MacCallum (aka The Bandit). Smokey and the Bandit - get it! Bandit is much smaller than Smokey and yellow (I think) dun. He also had a wad of red rosettes to his credit.

Dan and I spent a good long time in the Food Hall, as always.

There seemed to be a lot of small scale poultry equipment for sale - more than I remember in previous years. The poultry tent was almost empty - I don't know whether the chooks had gone home or were still to arrive or whether the entry was very, very poor.

I did look longingly at the Jersey cows, but Dan said "No". We also had a wander round the goat tent but I think dairy is still out of our sphere at the moment.

Just before we left, we watched the heavy horse turnouts. There were 11 unicorn turnouts. There were teams of Clydesdales, Shires and Percherons. A unicorn consists of three horses; two are wheelers, directly infront of the wagon and separated by a shaft, with the third horse out in front. It doesn't look the easiest thing to drive, particularly since the horses must be about 17.2 hands and weigh about a tonne each. If they decide to go, I'm not sure it's that easy to stop them. One team did get a bit spookey and were withdrawn. The others were split into three groups and were asked to walk and trot round in both directions. Some of them didn't seem to do "walk".

All in all though, it was pretty spectacular and , for me, knocked all your Ferraris and Lamborghinis into a cocked hat!

Peas, peas everywhere

I continue to harvest early peas. The Douce Provence are cropping moderately, but the Pilot are cropping very heavily, and although the former were of a cropping size about a week earlier, the weight of the Pilot crop and the fact they are still covered in new flowers makes me think these will become our regular early pea. There is little to pick between them in terms of flavour.

So today's pickings yielded about a pound of shelled peas, popped straight into the freezer in a suitable container. There are a lot more to come, so maybe we will be self-sufficient in garden peas the coming year.

The other peas which continue to outperform expectations are the Sugar Pea Norli mange tout. I picked a good couple of pounds this afternoon, which were blanched for a minute and a half and frozen on a tray before decanting into a plastic container for freezer storage. This is a good tip for freezing many crops - for example raspberries and blackcurrants - and allows you to remove small portions rather than being left with a single massive ball of frozen veg. These too are covered in flowers, and were sown successionally so we can look forward to a prolonged and heavy crop.

There's more coming too. We've had our first few raspberries today, and the blackcurrants are nearly ready to pick, at least a first pass for the early ripeners. Both have cropped heavily. A quick explore under the early spuds revealed some good sized Red Duke of York tubers, we'll start lifting these to eat this week.

June Promises

This time of year is one of my favourite. Most of the hard work in the vegetable garden has been completed. We continue to cut and pick salad and spring onions, and other crops are starting to come to fruition - early peas, garlic, shallots, autumn-sown onions. And then there's the promise of a lot more to come:

Gooseberries about ready to harvest; strawberries with the first tinge of red; blackcurrants turning from bright green to deepest black; the first tomato fruits swelling daily; flowers on the capsicums; truss after truss of flowers on the super sweet 100 cherry tomatoes; sunset apples cropping heavily; douce provence peas; courgettes seeming to sprout from nowhere overnight.

June has it all - the satisfaction of harvest, the anticipation of more just around the corner, and the pleasure of investing in the sowing of late crops.

Early Peas

This is the first season I've grown early varieities of peas in addition to our maincrop favourite Greenshaft. On 21st February I sowed 2 rows of Douce Provence and 3 of Pilot.

Despite some early damage by weevils it's been a success, and we started picking and eating the Douce Provence last week, 16 weeks after sowing. The Douce Provence are low growing, at a height of 2-3 feet, while the Pilot are about twice that height. With all peas it's important to start picking as early as possible and regularly, to encourage further flowering and prolonged cropping, even is this means the peas themselves are on the small side - but they just taste all the sweeter for it.

Homer's Odyssey Part 4

To keep you up to date with Homer's progress, he's coming along nicely. He likes to sit in the kitchen, usually under the table, while you work about. If a small piece of cheese should not be required by the cook then Homer will take care of it. I'm not advocating feeding cats mountains of cheese, by the way, but food has been a successful way to Homer's heart!

Tonight I was on the phone to my sister. I sat in the front hall, with Homer and Cassius. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the two, in certain circumstances. Cass popped out through the cat flap - except it wasn't Cass, it was Homer. Casual as you like, the boy's gone for a wander round the garden! He must have been out for at least half an hour and probably longer - when I next saw him, he was appearing round the greenhouse and coming home.

Homer has also taken to clearing up Cass's breakfast if Cass is too full of fresh bunny to manage his Whiskas. I have to confess that it is Cass's habit to have his breakfast on the kitchen table - I do clean it before we use it. Anyway, Cass was eating his breakfast, on the table, when Homer came through, having finished his and jumped on the table to finish Cass's. I don't know which of the cats was more surprised. Needless to say, Homer jumped straight of the table again.

Yesterday, I fed Copper and Homer their Whiskas, then took Cass's into the garden to call him in. I could see him by the beech hedge so I walked down, to find he had a fresh kill. As I looked from my little spoonful of Whiskas to his fat furry bunny, I knew I couldn't compete and gave the Whiskas to the dogs!

The Weigh-In

Our 3 Tamworth boars will be 25 weeks old on Monday, which means they should be approaching their optimum weight for slaughter. With this in mind I weighed them this morning.

How do you weigh a pig? No, not with a big set of scales, but with a piece of string. Measure, in inches, from between the pig's ears along its back to the base of its tail. Call this measurement A. Next, measure around the pig's girth tight behind its front legs, and call this measurement B. Calculate A x B. Divide by 10 for a fat pig, 11 for a medium-built pig, and 12 for a lean pig. This will give you the approximate weight in pounds.

Our largest boy is about 185 lb, and the smaller two about 160 lb. So we've decided to take them to slaughter about the 2nd week in July, when the big one should be around 200 lb and the other 2 about 180 lb, good bacon and pork weight respectively. They are definitely leaner than last year's, and we're looking forward to tasting the pork.

I also popped into the butcher this morning to pre-warn him of the date of slaughter. Unfortunately he told me that they won't have time to butcher them for us this year because of pressure of work - understandable considering that last year he had to take his Sunday to process them for us. Anyway, he suggested we try another local butcher, and he has agreed to do the job for us. The abattoir will deliver direct to the butcher, so after dropping them off the next time we see them they'll be boxed ready for delivery to our customers. Orders now being taken for 2005!

Wednesday night is soup night

I'm an opportunisitc soup-maker. If I see something reduced to an outrageously low price in our local supermarket my first instinct is to buy it an make soup with it. And so it happened this afternoon - a big head of organic celery and a load of broccoli all at a knock-down price.

Fortunately my family and I all love soup, any time of the year. So although this probably isn't ideal weather for Celery and Stilton or Broccoli and Stilton soup, that's what we've got oodles of now. If you think they sound good here are the recipes - dead easy and very, very tasty.

Celery & Stilton

1 large onion
1 head celery
1.5 oz butter
1.5 pints vegetable stock
A splash of single cream
6 oz stilton

Chop the onion and celery (discarding any tough or leafy bits) and soften in the butter for a few minutes. Add the stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Leave to cool for 15 minutes then whizz up in a food processor or with a wandy thing like we've got. Add the stilton and cream and heat gently stirring often until the stilton has melted and the soup is hot. Season to taste. Yum.

Broccoli & Stilton

1 large onion
About 1lb broccoli
1 potato
1.5 oz butter
1 pint chicken stock
0.5 pints milk
A splash of single cream
6 oz stilton

Chop the onion and soften in the butter for a few minutes. Add the potato (peeled and diced) broccoli (just the florets, discard the stems and leaves) and cook for a few minutes. Add the stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Leave to cool for 15 minutes then whizz up in a food processor or with a wandy thing like we've got. Add the stilton, milk and cream and heat gently stirring often until the stilton has melted and the soup is hot. Season to taste.

Learning the hard way

We lost another hen this evening. Two of the retired sheepdogs from the neighbouring farm occasionally come to visit us, and we make them welcome, give them a stroke or a brush and a few dog biscuits. They're good natured souls, and have had a hard life. One of them is Meg's mother, Gyp, who is an especially sweet dog. The other is Lyn.

Lyn sometimes chases the hens, but since Tess does exactly the same we'd never really worried about it. Tonight though she killed our Light Sussex, one of the original 3 hens we bought in 2002. The farm dogs had been down to visit, and had had their usual treats and attention. I was busy in a corner of the field trying (unsuccessfully) to plant some large silver birch trees (another story). Rosemary was in the house getting Lorna ready for bed. The garden gate was open, as it often is. Suddenly all hell broke loose around the bird feeder, about 50 yards from where I was working, and the Brown Leghorn flew along the lawn wings flapping. The Sussex had met a swift but violent end, neck broken.

We are both kicking ourselves for allowing the farm dogs access to the garden unsupervised. Needless to say it won't happen again. She was a lovely tame hen, by far the tamest of all, with quite a distinct character, and we'll miss her.

A show novice

As mentioned previously here at TAS we joined the Clackmannanshire Horticultural Society this year, and I have been gently persuaded to operate the exhibitor database for this year's Annual Show. Now, wanting to take a full part in the society, we both intend to enter a good number of classes at the show, which is to be held on September 13th in Alva - Rosie in baking and perhaps some floral classes, myself in the vegetable classes.

The problem is I haven't the remotest of notions about what showing vegetables involves. A quick Google just scared me - how on earth do you produce carrots like these?

It would seem that actually growing the vegetables is the least significant part of the process - the careful cleaning, trimming, polishing and tying of the produce, and the presentation on a pristine white plate or spotless black felt tray are apparently the real key to success. Fortunately there is plenty of help on the web, and this PDF from the University of Wisconsin (136k) looks particularly helpful.

So I'll enter whatever grows, prepare it as best I can and see what transpires. A large part of me hopes I don't get drawn into the competitiveness of if all - after all we select and grow varieties for flavour, not for uniformity of size and colour, or to meet some arbitrary specification, and I'd hate to lose sight of that.