Diary

February 2010RSS feed

This year's potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic

Monday 1 February, 2010

by Rosemary at 8:43pm in Growing 1 comment Comments closed

Our seed potatoes, onion and shallot sets and garlic arrived last week. I ordered them before we even thought about moving. As usual, I was surprised by the quantity I had ordered!

I've bought Vivaldi and Mimi as earlies to go in pots; Red Duke of York as a second early and Druid as the maincrop. We grew Druid last year and they were very good indeed.

This is the Druid "blurb" - "Very similar to Red Cara but a slightly later maturity. Short oval pink/red skinned with no white splashes, shallow eyes. Huge yields. Firm flesh does not disintegrate on cooking. Resistance to foliage blight, common scab and golden eelworm so ideal for the organic gardener." Also ideal for the "not very good gardener".

I love our kittens because...

Monday 1 February, 2010

by Rosemary at 8:55pm in Cats Comments closed

they take their worm tablets wrapped in a little bit of cheese, like dogs.

More beekeeping

Sunday 21 February, 2010

by Rosemary at 9:31pm in Bees 1 comment Comments closed

Well, it's week four of our beekeeping course tomorrow. Week one was an introduction and bee biology; week two was equipment (and we were given catalogues away with us!!); week three was handling bees (without actual bees) and week four is swarming.

Last week we also had a demonstration of how to light a smoker. It all looks very simple in the hands of an expert. Dan flicked through the catalogues and asked if we needed one of evrything - I said no, we needed two of somethings and none of others! I'm not sure if this made him feel better or not.

Spring "lambs"

Sunday 21 February, 2010

by Rosemary at 9:43pm in Sheep Comments closed

The ewes and ewe lambs have been confined to quite a small paddock, albeit with adlib hay and a lick. It was a lovely day today, cold but sunny, so I let them through into the river paddock. What excitement! The three ewe lambs were leaping and skipping; even the pregnant ewes had a little skip, but not too much. Amazing what a mouthful of fresh grass does for the sheep spirit!

"Spring" Lambs from asmallholder on Vimeo.

Green ginger wine

Monday 22 February, 2010

by Rosemary at 11:25am in Recipes 2 comments Comments closed

We bought a bottle of green ginger wine on Saturday. It was reduced in Marks and Spencer and I, in particular, love ginger. Especially covered in dark chocolate, but no matter.

We've both had colds but Dan has been taking a cold and flu remedy which was quite horrid - very chemically and fluorescent green. Anyway, he's invented his own remedy - juice of one lemon, large teaspoon of honey, three capfuls of green ginger wine topped up with hot water. That plus a couple of paracetamol makes him feel a whole lot better.

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