Autumn Induced Lethargy

Oh dear, it has happened again. Almost a month exactly since my last blog post…very bad.


The truth is that there has not been much to report – the preserving is all finished, the pigs are happy and still growing. The lambs still haven’t gone to slaughter but should be ready next week. The vegetable patch is terribly overgrown – the lawn is almost eight inches high.

I think we are both suffering from Autumn Fatigue. It happens every year – after seven months of digging, watering, mowing and planting, I am a bit fed up, and so we harvest but very little else. The next thing is to start the digging once it is cold enough (nothing worse than being hot and sweaty while digging). I walk past shop displays of tulip bulbs and cringe with guilt that I haven't done this yet. I know I am almost missing my last opportunity to stick in some overwintering onion sets.

However, perhaps most importantly, we have been out enjoying the Autumn. Libby, our little pup is now old enough to go on shortish walks, so we have been taking her to explore. This weekend, we spent a lovely afternoon at nearby Westonbirt Arboretum which is famous for its Autumn colours. It is pretty special round here at this time of year:

Luminous gold trees are stunning against the clear blue skies. This photo isn't photo shopped, honestly!

The sun is lower in the sky and casts shadows that make giants out of little pups:

 

Enough sunlight gets through the canopy to light up the acers:

Ripe scarlet maple seeds are just about to spin to earth:

The summer sun has bleached the bark of eucalyptus trees:

And there are plenty of nice sticks around!

On Wombling

'making good use of the things that we find...things that the everyday folk leave behind...'

I have been making like a Womble today. I almost feel inclined to don some dubious hedgear and wear tartan. On my way to work, I walk past a cottage which is being renovated. I couldn't help but notice that they had some tasty looking firewood mounting up - mostly blocks of softwood which are the sawn-off ends of ceiling joists. Our house is old and only has crappy Economy 7 storage heaters, so is usually so cold in winter that you can see your breath. But our wood burner, which we put in last year, keeps it toasty.

We had plans to sweep the chimney this weekend, and have been thinking about wood for a while. So, I flicked my hair and fluttered my eyelashes in a manner Miss Piggy be proud of, and asked the builders nicely if I could come back with the car later and raid the skip.

They said I could help myself - but when I came back later they had left all of the wood in boxes and bags for me, nice and dry. How nice is that?

It was obviously my day. The firm I work for is lovely, and buys lots of fruit for the staff to snack on. I spoke to the office manager and asked what happens to the leftovers at the end of the week. They get binned, apparently, much to her dismay - and she was only too happy to bag it up for me to feed to the pigs! Fantastic, as it means we get to reduce the amount of pig nuts we use every day (and the pigs much prefer it).

My luck continued. I went to check out the staff kennels (for when Libby is old enough) and what could I feel crunching underneath my feet? Hazelnuts! Millions of them! So, swallowing my pride and minding my high heels, I fished a carrier bag out of my desk draw and stocked up. Yes, my (newish) work colleagues probably already think I am eccentric. I am used to it.

Then, as I stood in the staff kitchen making tea, what do I find - three empty jam jars (my firm also buys bread and jam for it's employees. How good is that?) I was in need of a few - I have lots more jam to make, and they were destined for the recycling, so I washed them up and stuffed them in my (now bursting) handbag.

What a good haul. It feels nice to use things which were only heading for landfill, and one lesson I have learned is it never hurts to ask - everyone I asked was more than happy to see their 'rubbish' re-used, even if they were having a little snigger at the window watching the new girl scrabbling about in a pencil skirt on the car park floor.

Madame Cholet never had to put up with this!

We're Jammin'

I love the preserving season - it is another marker in the rolling rhythm of the seasons. It feels right to be revelling in the abundance all around us and making sure we will be well fed through the barren winter months. Before I lived this life, my food came from a fluorescently lit supermarket in crappy cellophane packets and I ate the same things all year round. I am sad to think that I never noticed the hedgerows bowing under the weight of wild cherries, or the apple trees on motorway sidings fecund with shiny red apples.

We woke up at the weekend to find that our apple tree - supposedly trained against a wall, had broken loose and flopped on it's face. With a lot of grunting and swearing, we managed to prop it up against the wall temporarily, but in the process, it dropped apples all over the place.

Admittedly, most of the swearing occurred as I said to Oli 'just hold it on your own for a minute. I need to take a photo for my blog!'

As the majority of the apples were tiny and unripe (and therefore higher in pectin and low in water) there was only one thing for them...jelly. The squashed and bruised ones went in the pigs (who looked pleased).

I made a batch of Apple and Mint Jelly, using mint from our overgrown patch in the garden. This will be perfect for roast dinners with lamb. I also made a batch of apple and raspberry - for toast. I have never gotten my jellies to set in the past, but these were perfect. I recon this is due to the lemons, high pectin apples and preserving sugar - it set perfectly.

Here is the recipe:

Apple and Mint Jelly

2.7kg cooking (or tiny unripe windfall) apples
3 lemons, roughly chopped
15 sprigs of mint
Preserving sugar (450g for each 600 ml liquid you end up with).

1. Roughly chop apples (pips, stalks and skin on) and half of the mint and bung the lot in a preserving pan with a very small amount of water. Stew over a medium heat until pulpy.

2. Set up muslin over a stool/whatever contraption you prefer, and strain pulp into a clean bucket overnight.

3. Add sugar to the liquid and bring to boil. Keep on a 'rolling boil' (i.e. without letting it boil over) for 20-25 mins or until it reaches the setting point.

4. Add remaining finely chopped mint and fill and seal jars while still hot.


But is it worth it?

I never saw the point of making jams and jelly's as a cost-saving measure. This was when I only bought Robinsons strawberry jam at the supermarket, and the most adventurous companion to meat dishes was Colemans apple sauce or creamed horseradish. But now that I have learned how much a sumptuous berry jelly enhances a stew, or the miracle that is apple cheese, I see jellies and jams in a different light. But food prices at the farm shop are going up and I recently paid £2.30 for a jar of apple jelly and £1.80 for a jar of relish.

The only bought ingredient for my mint and apple jelly is the sugar, at approximately £1.50 per 1kg, and the lemons, at 5 for £1 (we re-use old jam-jars). This made 6 jars - making each one approximately 45p. I would put the cost of making jams (such as my plum jam or raspberry jam) about the same. Chutneys work out at more like 60p, as they call for expensive spices and vinegar.

That said, a jacket potato, 3 good sausages and a generous spicy damson chutney makes a good, simple meal.

Assuming we get through 6 jars of 4 types of chutney and 4 types of jams/jellies, we would spend £98 in a year. Making the same ourselves would cost nearer £25 - a saving of £73 - which is almost what we pay for a trailer load of firewood!

So, although we wouldn't exactly starve if I put my feet up and watched Eastenders instead of spending the evening in the kitchen, it all helps to make life more comfortable now that times are tight - and I quite like it.

Preserves or Pat?

Thankfully, what with laptops and BBC i-player, I can do both at the same time!

Walnuts!

A drizzly morning gave way to a glorious afternoon today. Libby the pup and I surveyed the plot and I had to stop for a minute and take it all in. In the poultry enclosure, the layers were dust bathing in the earth underneath their nesting boxes (which stays dry in the rain) and the ducks were pottering about by the pond. The lambs were nibbling the leaves from the lower branches of the walnut tree, the pigs could just be seen having an afternoon nap in the pig ark and the 'meat' hens were free-ranging on the pasture (and in the neighbour's herb garden. Oops!).This is how it should be - small scale, free range and organic.

Anyway, enough of the sentimental back-patting

Our lovely farmer friend came over to have a look at the sheep, to see whether they were 'ready'. I would like to say that I felt a pang of emotion as he firmly felt their hind quarters - but in truth, I didn't. Despite being castrated rams they are getting a bit boisterous and pushy - sometimes jumping up and jabbing you in the chest with their sharp little hooves. I am sure this is perfectly innocent and more out of curiosity than malice, but it is a bit disconcerting.

However, they have been granted a reprieve - they are not large enough to go yet and he prescribed four more weeks on some fresh pasture. So they are in the orchard next door - where they will act as lawnmowers, since coincidentally the sit on mower has broken down and the grass is lush and long. Note the walnut tree in the immediate foreground.

We have lived here for two summers now, and I can't believe that last year I didn't even notice that we had a walnut tree! Apparently the squirrels usually scoff the lot the minute they ripen - but they must have been confused by the early autumn this year because I found loads! I will keep some for the Christmas cheese board and others will be used in vegetarian recipes in lieu of meat.

Some were still in their bright green pods - a bit like conkers.

And finally...a totally gratuitous picture of the free-range pup, sniffing her first (and last) thistle:

Leftovers Monday - Creamy Chicken Noodle Chowder.

It has been a miserable day today - drizzly and windy. Comfort food was required, and it being monday (traditionally the day for leftovers),  creamy chicken chowder really hit the spot. All of the ingredients (except the cream) were from the garden, leftovers, or the storecupboard. I like the fact that  cheap food doesn't have to be expensive if you make the effort - this dinner was declicious and satisfying and I calculated the cost at about £1.25 each (being the noodles, tinned sweetcorn and the quarter pot of cream). Bargain!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Chowder

2 blocks dried egg noodles
1 litre chicken stock
1 small tin sweetcorn (or fresh when it is ready!)
1 chicken breast, shredded
Seasoning
Bunch of chopped parsley
carrot
onion
butter
2tsp cornflour




1. Slice and fry the carrots and onion in the butter. Add cornflour and stir in.
2. Add the stock and simmer for 20 mins.
3. Add noodles, chicken and sweetocorn and simmer for further 5 mins.
4. Just before serving, chop and sprinkle over the parsley and add the cream. Season to taste.

If we have a beef roast dinner in the future I might try a chinease style beef recipe with some chillis, ginger and soy sauce. I love leftover dinners!

New Arrivals

This is the first evening that I have had that 'autumn' feeling and I must admit, I like it. As I sit typing, the sow cooker is bubbling away with the leftover chicken carcass from our first roast dinner in ages - it will make stock for the freezer (to be used in future gravy or recipes) or possibly chicken soup tomorrow, with the leftover breast meat shredded and some sweetcorn. There is also the drip, drip, plop of the apple and mint jelly which is straining from some muslin from an upturned stool (recipe another day). And on my lap is....a sleeping puppy!

Isn't she lovely? Her name is Libby and she is an 11 week old miniature schnauzer.

We are completely in love and both agree that having a dog around really makes our house, lovely though it is, feel like home. She is too tiny to come to work with me at the moment (we have staff kennels - how good is that!?) so, being so close to home, I am coming back every two hours to play and take her out for a walk in the garden.

We have some other new arrivals...our new porkers! Following the success of our pigs last year we have bought four tamworth x saddleback weaners. This means that they are off their mothers milk and eating solid food  - and about eight weeks old.

Not even we could manage four pigs worth of pork in our freezer (two pigs worth lasted us almost a year) so we are planning on keeping one for ourselves, one will go to our landlady (we have a feudal type arrangement going on whereby we don't pay to rent the land and share the proceeds!) and each set of parents is buying one for £100.They live in a lovely paddock which was hitherto unused as it was a fenced-off copse area - perfect shelter for our piggies. It is a bit like a savings account having a freezer full of pork - because come the end of the month when we run out of money (as we always do!) we can still eat well, with lots of 'free' meals - ham, egg and homemade chips being our favorite - or there is always roasts - all with veggies from the garden. It is what this smallholding life is all about I suppose.


£100 may seem like a good profit per pig - it certainly has paid for the £160 initial outlay in buying the pigs - but it isn't. Animal food costs have gone though the roof, with the price of oil and a poor wheat harvest across the globe. Where last year we paid £10 per 25kg bag of pig food, we now pay nearer £13. Whether or not to feed pigs kitchen scraps is highly controversial amongst pig keepers.It is a breach of DEFRA rules - and I couldn't possibly comment. All I can say is that it would seem like a criminal waste of VEGAN kitchen scraps to compost them at a time when pig food is astronomically expensive. We have this old WW2  poster hanging on our kitchen wall as a reminder of more sane naive times:

If you can't read it clearly, it reads 'Keep it dry, free from glass, bones, tins etc. It also feeds poultry your council will collect'

How times have changed. In his much acclaimed and revered bible 'The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency', John Seymour sums it up nicely:


'The pig fits so well  into the self-supporter's economy that the animal almost seems designed with that in mind. It is probably the most omnivorous animal in the world and will thrive on practically anything'

Civil servants in agricultural departments all across the land must quake at the advice that follows - 'The pig bucket is very relevant indeed...In the self sufficient holding, the dustman should never have to call. Under the kitchen sink there should be a bucket, and into it should go all the household scraps except such as are reserved for the cat or dog...this means scraping all of the scraps first into the sacred bucket; then dribble - rather than run- the tap over each plate so that the water carries all grease and other nutriments into the bucket'. Enough said!

Pigs eat 450g of pig nuts per day for each week that they have been alive. We calculate that this means each pig will eat £70 worth of food in its 7-8 months (yes, that is all they get! More if you want nice big bacon rashers). So, add to that the price of the pig = £110, we have already made a loss. It also costs £40 each pig for abattoir/butchery costs, making a total of £150 per pig. I think we will have to send the 'rents an extra invoice! And that is assuming there are no vets bills - we were lucky last time and generally speaking *touch wood* they are too young at the time of slaughter to develop most adult illnesses. They seem happy - and put themselves to bed in their pig-arc which is full of fluffy straw.

So all new arrivals are nice and snug this chilly autumn night.

July and August in the Veg Patch

I started this blog to record what we have done in the patch, so that next year I can look back and reflect on what worked or didn't. So far this year I think we can claim success - we haven't bought a vegetable from the shops since May and there is sufficient variety that we don't get bored. Currently on the menu is leuttice, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, chillis, melons (OK, one so far but still!), rainbow chard, salad cabbage, red cabbage, the last of the strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, runner beans, french beans, frozen broad beans and peas, squashes/courgettes, carrots, beetroot, onions, garlic, basil, corriander, dill, parsley, sage, oregano and mint.


In May, I mentioned my big squash experiment. This inolved making a lasagne on top of undug turf using unrotted compost, horse manure and erm...a shower curtain and planting through it. It looked a bit like this:

Well, I am pleased to report to all of my fellow lazy gardeners out there, IT WORKS! This is how it looks today:

 

The plants needed watering in the first few weeks to get established, but since then I have done nothing except harvest squillions of lovely shiny squashes and courgettes.

The strategy of 'less is more' on the tomato plant front has worked well in the greenhouse, where we have had lots of tigerella and beefsteak tomatoes.

Green peppers and for the first time, Picollino peppers (grown from saved seed) have been a real success:

Piccolino's are like normal peppers just smaller  - so you can roast and stuff with garlic cream cheese. Mmmmm.

Three cucumber vines have kept us in cucumbers nicely all summer.

My first (and only) melon.



 The runners keep on coming and the remainder of the broad beans are drying out so that I can use the seed next year.

Flat leaf parsley has been fab this year! Next to the leaf beet as spinach has been a failure - too hot and dry.

And lastly, the gorgeous red cabbage- fairly untouched by caterpillars. Can't wait for spicy braised red cabbage this autumn.

 

Summer holiday...sort of.

While catching up on some of my favorite blogs, I have just stumbled upon my last post and realised that once again, a whole month has slipped by since I last posted.

In my defence, it has been summer, and although we haven't gone anywhere (I wish!), I have felt like we have had a bit of a holiday from the hard slog of running a smallholding. In summer there is not much to be done besides mowing and picking - it has been so wet that things have watered themselves. 

It is lovely around here at this time of the year and most evenings I try to get out for a mooch in the surrounding countryside, just taking in the summer . This is what it looks like round these parts:

The hedgerows cast dappled shadows on the baking tarmac lanes...

Pretty wild flowers brighten up the long grass...

Even at 8pm the sun is really powerful...

Footpaths across fields become more like corridors (anyone seen the film 'Signs'? Shudder!)...

The sweetcorn tassels are still fresh and pinky...but will soon darken and shrivel when the corn is ready.

The fields are golden as far as the eye can see with scratchy, rustling wheat...

...which is ripening nicely.

Not to mention the festivals - this was the excellent Farmfest:

Possibly the most relaxed, unpretentious and non-commercial festival you will find...

...and almost certainly the only one with a giant inflatable cow atop the main stage. This is how we do it in the Westcountry! 

I have also moved jobs to a much better, closer and even more importantly - part time, job. After five years of relentless commuting and never having enough time, we have decided that, with food and energy prices rising at a stupendous rate, it is time to make a real go of being self sufficient. So I am now home two days a week to concentrate on the farmstead - and to be a better blogger too! Still a Part Time Smallholder, but a much less stressed and more productive one.

Till next time.

Peas Peas Peas

It has been a bumper harvest of peas this year...I think because of the wet weather in late spring. Predictably, all of the plants cropped simultaniously (I don't have the patience for succession sowing)  so I have had a manic picking session and cleared out the spent plants. I chopped the plants at the base, leaving the roots in the ground - they are full of nitrogen fixing good stuff which will be great for the brassicas next year.

A rather nice head of broc in there, too!

Then ensued a few nights of shucking in front of the t.v, to produce lots of bowls like this:

Which were blanched for one minute in boiling water, cooled rapidly under the cold tap, and frozen flat (ish) to stop them sticking:

We now have a freezer full to have with lazy dinners of chips (which we will be freezing this weekend) and a fried egg for a selfsufficient lazy dinner during the working week.

Soul Food

Things have been growing at amazing speed in the vegetable garden and I will do a proper update shortly.

Meanwhile, here are some gratuitous pictures of the flower garden, which is in full bloom. It is no Chelsea contender, and given that most of it has only been planted this year, it is still a little bare and lacks structure in the planting. The lawn is also a bit shameful. But it is coming on and I work to the theory that, if you have enough flowers packed into a fairly small space, you can't go wrong!