Veg Baby!!!

Finally got around to taking a look at our veg patch tonight. It's a bit weedy so we'll have to find time tomorrow to get stuck into a big tidy up.

Lots of our squashes are ripening up too. Far too many. Tonight we've even cut out quite a few of the plants because even after our bumper haul there are so many of the things still maturing on the (far too many) plants that we put in it's getting silly. At least having trimmed them we can now walk around our raised beds again (just). Let's hope that we like eating the things.

 Also we've pulled up some of our fennel to try, some celeriac and picked a kilo of blackberries as well. An evening stroll around our garden has turned into a two hour harvest fest.

Tomorrow - got to weed the veg patch, get up our potatoes and all of our MASSIVE garlics!!!!!!!!!

 

Bee checks

Had a visit from the local Seasonal Bee Inspector - he's happy with all four of our colonies although during the checks we noticed a solitary queen cell in Pink! It appears that those ladies are for some reason less than happy with their queen, we can't see why but they know best.

We're going to let them get on with it and then see whether Her Highness old or Her Highness new prevails...

Eggciting discovery

Eggs sometimes stop flowing. There are times when our chickens naturally slow down production perhaps during a moult or when the days get shorter. We expect it, we plan for it and we usually notice it.

We are in the heights of summer, the days are still long and the chickens have no need to shed feathers. The eggs are flowing freely, we get the same sort of number every day, we have lots of eggs each week - so many eggs that we struggle to store them.

Imagine our surprise therefore when Karen moved some bushes in the chicken coop the other day and saw this.



Apparently we haven't been getting all of our eggs at all and we may now need to move house in order to accommodate them.

The amber nectar

So after eighteen months of anticipation honey day finally arrived.

A fantastic year for bees and honey weather wise has led many of my fellow beekeepers to break out a smile or two in the last few weeks. Now we know why, Honey!!!

Considering that one of our two established hives had an unexpected queen drama this year (now happily resolved) our honey hopes were resting firmly on the other. It didn't let us down and then, in proof that it's been a good year, one of our late nucs managed to fill a super too!

So by beekeeping standards our yield is pretty small, but our expectations for our bees this year were exceeded.

Karen did excellent work in uncapping all the frames without spilling anything on our lounge floor (an unusual choice of manufacturing site but the warmest room we have to help the honey flow) then our homemade and borrowed extractors leapt into action.

 

The effort was hardly back breaking but it still took a while - we eventually finished extracting and straining all the honey at about 1am fortunately licking it off of our hands and arms provided several energy kicks to help us through.

 

24 hours of settling and there we have it, our first batch of honey in jars and even labelled up - stand by for some big porridge orders to give us something to use it all in. We've been so excited about bees recently we're talking about plans for a few more hives next year - if this carries on we'll need a bigger pantry. Oh, and it tastes amazing.

Veg recap

Updates on the veg patch.

The kids after a quick harvesting session. Our youngest is still in there somewhere trying to escape the squash patch



Carrots
Disappointing this year after last seasons' spectacular. Around thirty percent were removed by something (mice?) and the first that we've looked at recently have split despite not being in stony ground. Still taste good though.

Cabbage
Ravaged by slugs but still some great edible heads on them, using lots of these at the mo (the leaves not the slugs).

Onions
Massive, fat and tasty; currently plucked and drying in the greenhouse for storage.

Garlic
Picked a couple today, large, symmetrical and pungent. Looking good for harvesting and drying.

Spinach and Kale
Tons, too much, not sure why we felt we needed so much spinach, kale and cabbage - obviously we planted them during a wistful 'wanting to eat eight types of leaf' moment or after a drunken bet. Going well though and getting used.

Leeks
In a new location this year that isn't producing the enthusiasm we're used to but they are getting there. They'll be fine in the end but frankly they should be embarrassed for letting the side down, they have been planted in Wales after all.

Spring Onions
Couldn't get through them all so now have loads that are drainpipe sized. Strong taste too. They look impressive so might consider passing some of them off as leeks if any welsh neighbours call in just to save face.

Sprouts
Coming on nicely, they'll be big, flavoursome and ready to be left on the side of most peoples plate at Christmas.

Pots,
New potatoes were great. Just cut the tops of the main crop (about 24 plants) to leave them for a bit for hardening off before storage.

Beetroot
Big, tasty and plentiful, we'll run out of jars before these - fortunately it's nice un-pickled too.

Peas
Rubbish this year.

Beans
Tasty, coming in a bit later than usual but looking to crop really well.

Parsnips
Looking good

Rhubarb
A little bug eaten but big.

Asparagus
Some serious growth on this bad boy recently, can't harvest it for a year or two but looking good for the future.

Toms
Cropping a little later in the greenhouse this year but tasty and numerous.

Peppers
Our trial plants are in the process of making a few little beauties. 

Squashes
Oh mother of God did we cock this up. We put in 24 plants without realising that some of the varieties can sprout up to 36 fruit EACH. This twelve metre bed is no longer one bed but a massive jungle that has spread so far that we're finding new squashes tangled in other veg two beds over. Our whole garden has been taken over by these crazy plants. They taste good though so if any two or three hundred of you would like to get hold of forty litres of squash soup let us know.

Fennel
Looking plump, can't wait for that aniseed taste to perk up some recipes.

Bee build

I've been helping out with the local bee association during some of the local country shows, trying to recruit new members and increasing bee awareness etc...

One of the organisers had a bright idea, separate some drones (stingless boy bees) in a box and invite kids and adults to put their hand in and gently stroke some bees.

It was great interaction and generated lots of interest and smiles but unfortunately the drones only lasted a couple of hours before the cool temperature got to them.

So drone box mark II. I knocked together a better box that has an internal reptile tank style heat mat that keeps the box at around 33-35oc (close to a hives internal temperature). The bees love it (and last comfortably and long enough to be released back at the hive) and the kids and adults at these shows love it too.

So come and see us fondling bees at a country show near you!

 

 

Bubbles baby!!!

Last years elderflower champagne was a bit of a disaster, it just tasted all yeasty.

In true organisational style we then left it bottled in the cellar in case it improved with age .... and forgot about it.

This year I doubled our chances (of success AND failure) by making two different recipes. One, the more conventional route, went mouldy in the bucket. The other, basically mix it leave it 24 hours and bottle it, was stunning. So outrageously good that I'm gutted I only made ten litres as most of it has disappeared.

On the plus side when I finally remembered last years bottles I made to empty them for re-use I found that actually, one year on and they're actually quite drinkable. Bonus.

PIZZA !!!

For several months I have been contemplating pizza.

As we get pretty excited about outdoor life and food it seemed obvious to us that we needed a garden campfire, TICK. First thing we did.

I then started reading up about these outdoor pizza ovens and it led me into one of my biggest projects to date.

Having found a suitable space in the garden I started to research in earnest and here was the first big problem. There sees to be masses of info about these sort of cooking projects but they fall loosely into two categories; first, very quick (and efficient) clay cob ovens that are often thrown up in a weekend from nothing but clay, sawdust, sand and some community spirit or, second, a professionally styled bricks and mortar oven that are generally designed by practical people who know a lot about thermo regulation and proper construction.

Here was the issue, I am awful at brickwork. The very limited amount I have been involved with has demonstrated again and again that me, concrete and bricks are not a happy coupling, however, I also wanted to build something sturdier than a clay cob oven which generally are affected by the weather.

By chance I stumbled upon a man and a blog, he had pondered similar points and designed his own that used limited brick skill and made a permanent oven at little cost and hardship. BINGO.

I paid the two quid for his plans and got started, having mostly followed his original design I don't think it would be right to put a step by step guide up here, he's earned his two quid fairly.

So here's a summary,
I chose to build a concrete slab on which I placed railway sleepers as a platform and base for the oven just as he did, he correctly pointed out that the same platform could be built from blocks at far less cost but there was no way I was going to attempt it. The finished project probably weighs an easy ton and frankly I was stressed enough about getting the slab right.

Then, he used bottle and clay to fill a square 'doughnut' in the platform for insulation and upon which his floor bricks then oven would stand. I didn't fancy collecting bottles for weeks so I took an alternate suggestion from him and used Celotex (like Kingspan) that I had a supply of from other builds. This was a huge mistake, more about this later.
On went paver bricks which are cheap and have a nice flat side all packed in with sand.

The next big bit was the brick arch and dome (think igloo). I was unable to tell what kind of bricks he'd used - he did say they were normal house bricks, not expensive firebricks - but I couldn't see from his pictures whether he'd used solid ones or those that have a frog. I was concerned that a frog might enable an air pocket to build up in the structure so I decided to get solid bricks. Not a massive problem but the only ones I could find locally were engineering blocks, great little bricks but they cost about £60 as apposed to the planned £15!!!
Also the fire screed he recommended (which is great) cost about £50 in P&P because I couldn't get it locally and these issues really jumped my budget. Came out better than expected though.

Perhaps the biggest drama occurred with the insulation layer. Most people who are making a modern brick oven simply mix loads of vermiculite or perlite with a bit of cement and slap on a good thick layer. I'd decided however that as I was following an instructional I should really follow it properly. I therefore used clay slip (liquid clay mixed with sawdust). At first I got hold of lumps of clay (which actually cost more than I expected) and then mixed it by hand with water to make a yoghurt slush. This took about five soul-destroying hours and my fingernails are still split. Half way through I switched to powdered fire clay which was far cheaper and almost instant in its preparation.





This method of insulation did work very well and would be great if you could dig the clay out of your garden for free but it took about three weeks to get it on and properly dried out (vermiculite/cement mix would have taken a couple of days). Fortunately I was forced to do this part of the build at a time when I was away for days at a time with work and so would stick on some slip then have to leave it to dry while I was away - had I been sitting here waiting for it to cure before moving in I'd have gone crazy waiting and waiting.

The final cement/sand/lime layer was a doddle and makes it look pretty rustic and funky.

The first firing went really well, pictures of the pizza can be seen below but after the second go it became apparent that the floor was dropping. MASSIVE PANIC because the brickwork layer of the oven sits entirely on this. The reason was the Celotex insulation was getting so hot that it was giving way. I had visions of the whole oven collapsing and having to start from scratch.

I had taken a match to a scrap of Celotex before putting it into the build to make sure nothing sinister happened and it was fine but the awesome insulated oven heat simply melted it. Here I had some seriously good luck. I was able to take out the sand/paver brick floor and rip out what remained of the Celotex, I then hastily poured in a vermiculite/cement mix and repacked the bricks back on top. Scary work because had the oven collapsed while I was scraping it all out I'd have probably lost a hand!

All done now and it works fine (so far). This fortnight project ended up taking six stressful weeks and I probably spent close to £200 more than I budgeted thanks to unexpected P&P, more expensive bricks and dealing with the floor problem. Had I had the benefit of hindsight I'd have used vermiculite in the production of the base and insulation layer instead of clay and sawdust, it would have cost no more (probably a little less) and meant I could do it from start to finish in a weather dependant 8 or 9 days with the drying times.

Still, it all seemed worth it when I plonked in a pizza and 90 seconds later this came out...

Best pizza I've ever tasted!

 

A pain free extraction

We're about ready to extract honey for the first time.

Extractors are not cheap and while I can (and will) hire one from the local beekeeping association for a cheap £5 I decided to have a go at building one myself. I've seen some YouTube vids from around the world (mostly the US) of many people who have successfully built their own centrifuge so why not!

I got these bits...

- Black plastic dustbin
- Long metal thread
- 12 washers
- 4 nuts
- Some scrap wood (beech I think)
- Honey gate (I stole one off a spare bucket)

 Total cost, £14
Total time, 1.5 hours .......

 

 

 

 

It works really well too! I intend to make two dowel lugs to hold the top horizontal bracket in place across the top of the bin rather than use clamps and for next year I might be tempted to upgrade to a metal dustbin as they are so much sturdier.



Crunchy carrots

Our carrots are crunchy apparently. We wouldn't know because they keep getting eaten by (we think) mice.

Last year we grew about four hundred carrots with great success, they lasted us the whole year and we were hoping to do similar this year.

Sadly of our first seedlings batch that we placed in the ground about half disappeared entirely. Birds can't get at them, slugs blatantly are not to blame so we're blaming mice. Our second and third batches had similar problems despite us having placed so many traps around them that I wouldn't have been surprised if United Nations Mine Action hadn't set a tent up. Still many of them went.

Irritatingly those that were planted in the next bed were untouched and while we did catch some mice many no doubt remain. We've decided to grow one final seedlings tray in the hope that if we can find space to stick them elsewhere they'll have a chance to grow. We'll just end up harvesting them while they are still small but they are often tastier anyway.

Busy little bees

Our newest bee nuc are doing well. They were a massive nuc in fairness and the weather has been great but check this out.

In the week after they had been added to an empty hive (we'd decided to give them a short feed to help their stores) and they'd made all this around their feeder in the empty super that we were using as an eek.

 

Of course the little buggers should have been focusing on drawing out our foundation but at least they are keen. We removed this, stuck on a super and in a further week they'd drawn eight of the super frames AND filled it with nectar. Looking good for honey then!

Pergatory Pergola

In the beginning we made a little fenced off area from pallets filled with strawberry plants. Then we decided to build an outdoor stone floor pizza oven within it (nearly finished). This of course led us consider outdoor pizza in a relaxing rural Welsh garden - a great combination if it isn't pouring with rain and your pizza going all soggy.

 

Therefore we decided we needed a garden shade to sit under which we could then add some discreet plastic sheeting to as a rain shelter. So while the wife and kids were away I got started.

 

This project wasn't technically difficult, particularly expensive or massively time consuming yet the finished effect would really transform this part of the garden by providing a visual AND practical structure that should increase our garden season no end. There was only one tiny little hiccup - the thing needed to go up on what was previously a substantial garden rockery. Arse.

 

Having organised an unsuspecting helper by way of my dad to get the large posts into the ground I arranged for the materials to be delivered and we began.

 

It. Was. Horrible.

 

I'd decided that rather than cement/post fix the posts in which would require digging six reasonable sized holes in such rocky ground as I usually would I opted to use metposts, a metal tub in which the post base sits that has a long spike to be driven deep into the ground for stability. In theory all we'd need to do is make a small hole with a bar to the required depth then hammer in the post and tadaa! repeat five more times. I'd hoped that this would be quicker (it wasn't) and it would be easier (it wasn't) because we'd need a smaller hole to begin with (we didn't).

 

The ground was like concrete due to the recent heatwave and the rocks were plentiful. We found that through jabbing (and hammering) the bar into the earth it still took excessive sweating and cursing to make a decent sized, deep hole even when watering the ground as we went. Having checked and re-checked that the depth was good we hammered in our first metpost expecting it to become buried until it rested snuggly on the turf. But it just didn't, instead it sank about a foot, projected from the earth like the Eiffel Tower and remained extremely wobbly. Clearly this would not do so we decided to remove the post, widen the hole a bit and try again. 

 

It was at this point that we realised that even though the met post was only partially in place and despite the fact it was freely wobbling within our pilot hole it was impossible to get the bloody thing out. Pulling, hammering, levering with a bar and eventually it would loosen enough for use to tug the thing away and start developing the hole again but it was frustrating and physically demanding work. Nightmare.

 

Jabbing the bar in and yanking it around seemed to widen the hole effectively enough so we tried again. It got just as stuck. We widened, looked and felt around in the whole we had made to help easy the metpost in. There were no rocks, it was deep enough and the earth was now moist but try as we might the bloody think just wouldn't get lower AND every time we had to remove it was a ten minute battle. Finally we found a tiny piece of stone half way own the hole. Fifteen minutes of bashing and pulling and we managed to remove what we thought would be a Stonehenge remnant only to find that our progress had been thwarted by a pea sized pebble. Triumphantly the metpost went back in, hammering began in earnest and we gleefully watched it pass deeper into the hole than we'd managed thus far and then inexplicably it stopped again. We'd made about one inch of progress and had to do everything all over again.  

 

In the end it took almost seven hours of constant battling to get the six posts in. We destroyed one five foot bar, obtained countless blisters and even then we still had to cut down four of the met posts just to get them in. It took such a toll on my hands that for the entire night and most of the next day I couldn't sense my fingertips properly.

 

Fortunately they all went in pretty solid in the end and the next day I was able to cut and fix in place the majority of the cross pieces to finish the structure off by myself since my dad had crawled home vowing never to bring his gardening gloves to our place ever again.

 

It still needs painting before we can add the plastic cover and of course we'll be sticking more strawberries and grapes however despite the initial hassle it's gone up pretty straight and I think it looks great. Can't wait to use it properly although as my wife pointed out when she say it..you'll have to make a new picnic table for it now.  

 

  

 

Hell Week

Every once in a while Karen disappears off onto a course or family visit (or both) and takes the kids with her for a week or so. These have become my hell weeks...

Many married men might instantly assume that such a week alone at home could let them delve back into their days of single youthdom, where kids do not shriek, wives do not nag and toilet seats remain mysteriously aloft - I do not.

Far from a deluge of beer and pizza such weeks seem instead to awaken my inner navvy. Given such a period of relative peace and quiet I start thinking about what I could knock off from the long list of things to do when I'm found unhindered by nappy changes, trips to playgroup and my wife's incessant efforts to get me to pick up socks. As the time of their departure becomes increasingly near I plan and jot, working out what jobs I can fit in and what materials I'll need - I delight in producing a timetable that is shaped by my own hand with no outside influence THIS IS FREEDOM.

The down side is I get so determined to get everything that I plan finished in time for their return that I rarely sleep, eat of do anything that isn't list based for the entire period. I steadily go from one task to the next hungrily snatching a bite of God knows what whenever something vaguely edible seems within reach. My muscles ache, my hands are blistered and I have barely any fingernails left but I got everything finished.

So last week over five days and in addition to running our business, feeding the chickens, pigs and watering the plants this is what I did...

- Built a climbing wall for the kids in their garden play area
- Reorganised the kids play area so a trampoline would also fit in
- Built a massive pergola
- Continued to build (by way of adding a thick insulating layer) our garden pizza oven
- Did some sorting with of our bees
- Made a website for my wife's new interest

The list is not vast but the effort and times given was. I'll be writing some blog articles about some of these things where you can find out more if you are interested.

Tropical paradise in Wales

On a whim we bought an apricot tree online, I think it was about ten pounds including delivery. It duly arrived - think bundle of unimpressive twigs wrapped in cardboard to look like a two metre cotton bud. Frankly we didn't have high hopes of growing produce especially as the courier produced it from under what appeared to be a large boxed television and it was boomerang shaped.

Still we stuck it in what was then one of our relatively unused greenhouses and forgot about it apart from the occasional guilt fuelled watering.

It flourished and this year guess what!

 

We've harvested close to twenty ripe and flavoursome fruit. It has however now outgrown our little greenhouse and this week we relocated it to our huge planter by the front door. Not sure how well it will fruit there but we'll see, in the meantime it looks pretty.

A sailor's life for us!

This week we have mostly been putting up hammocks.

I bought a double cotton hammock a few months ago and never got around to doing anything with it. The last week of glorious weather however had me trawling through the back of our cupboards in search of a piece of tropical, idyllic furniture.

Having found the hammock it was then time to find the trees. I settled for two firs that stand on top of a bank that overlooks the back garden. You can see the whole landscape bathed in light whilst keeping under the cool shade of a couple of two sixty foot trunks.

Not the greatest photo but now that I've tidied up the vegetation and opened up the view it is a great place to chillax, and, best of all it's a double!

Anyway this got us thinking and Karen remembered that she had, from days of old, another hammock - as yet unused (this tends to happen with hammocks that are kept in Wales). So two posts and a bit of concrete later and we also have a double hammock next to our fire pit.

Enthusiasm got the better of us and we started putting the posts in during a thunderstorm (hopefully not an omen for its infrequent use?) but done and dusted in a day.

 

 

An Ebay bargain and a little showering of fairy(saw)dust...

There has for some considerable time been lots of goings on with this whole 'upcycling' movement. Slow as ever to jump on a bandwagon we have recently started to experiment with various bits of what can only be called other peoples broken crap in an effort to create something practical, amusing or magnificent for the house or garden.

We've tackled some ideas recently (and blogged about most of them) including:

- Grabbed some free timber (an old deck) and turned it into a cold frame
- Found a bathroom sink at the dump and created a sink water feature
- Turned a long ranch fence into a two ton raspberry planter
- Various items such as Belfast sinks turned into planters
- Old trailer into a herb planter
- Pallet seating area with strawberry planter fence

and the list goes on...

We like the principal, getting free or cheap stuff and giving it a new lease of life, there are cautions however, getting free timber doesn't mean you won't need to spend a small fortune on paint for it as we've found out from time to time.

Anyway I have many woodwork projects that are desperately screaming for my attention but I found an opportunity to ignore them and try something that I've seen others do. So about a week ago I bought and collected a cheap second hand little kids bed via Ebay. Here it is:

 

 

Now, literally a couple of hours (mostly spent waiting for paint to dry) later plus two offcuts of pine that I had knocking about and Hey Presto! our kids have a tiny person garden bench to sit on.

 

 

 



Trojan chicken, the tale of a wooden hen...

We've been meaning to replace our chicken signs. We stuck some out by the road a couple of years ago to let people know that we often have surplus eggs, in typical fashion for us we weren't happy with a simple print out so made wooden ones and painted them all up.

We had two, the larger one is a looking a little worn these days and the smaller one was (we think) recently ripped down and carted down the road either by kids or a pub returnee - extremely unusual behaviour for this area but there we go, perhaps we had offended them in some way or perhaps they are just gits?

So having drawn and cut out the relevant shapes earlier in the week I passed the buck on to Karen, our resident artist, who got cracking with the brushes this afternoon during the sunny weather and they are now ready to take their place high up on our wall like sentinels overlooking the neighbours.

This time we'll set the smaller one back a little further from the road so if anyone fancies having a go at it again they'll have to climb our wall. Whether they can hack their way through chest high brambles, a field of nettles and 150,000 unimpressed bees and get back out is entirely another matter and one that I wouldn't mind watching.

Thousands more kids for fathers day.

WOW.

Went to pick up the queen bee we desperately hope will replace the lost one in our pink hive and got a surprise. Apparently my wonderful wife had phoned ahead and added a nuc of bees to my collection as a Father's day present from the kids.

A massive shock (and a VERY expensive treat) but very nice as surprises go. It did mean I had to miss out an intended trip to the local timber supplier in order to get them home quickly in the heat. He was probably a bit confused when I rang, "Sorry, I'll have to pop by next week instead. Got ten thousand bees in the car and I need to get home"

Currently (and depending on how pink manage with this new queen) we have all four hives up and running. Magic!

Poo Pipe Problem

We have a problem with a poo pipe. Not a plumbing problem but an ugliness one.

Outside the front of our house there is an eye-shatteringly awful, though necessary, piece of external plumbing. The toilet disposal pipe which runs through our bathroom wall and down to the drain below shines in the afternoon sun creating a halo effect against the backdrop of our historic charming dwelling. It is large, it is a multi-directional piece of honking plastic that from time to time creates a loud whooshing sound akin to a bag of spanners falling over Niagra Falls.

Once upon a time some bright spark had the good sense to cover the thing up with some form of botanical delight, there is a small stumpy trunk and many wall pegs that have been previously used to wire supports for a plant. This would have been a well placed, decorative foliage screen to at least hide the unsightly mess if not the sound of our bathroom adventures.

So having recently moved our honeysuckle from the south side of the house where it was getting scorched by the sun (in Wales!) and becoming unhappy we decided to plant it on the north side where it should be a smiley. So I made a large planter this week and in she went.

It has since flowered in the last few days so hopefully it will now rocket up our wall and completely camouflage the grey tubes that have been giving us nightmares for the last two years. In future guests will be able to park up, admire the rustic aesthetic of our character home and, if they time their arrival correctly, be left running for cover when the sound of a mighty tidal wave suddenly springs upon them.
 

Bee shed finishing touch

A quick update...

Karen finally got around to finishing off the painting of the bee shed. Not drastically important but cute none-the-less.

Presse Party !

Elderflower Presse

This is our favourite (and well tested) recipe for elderflower presse. We decided to make tons of this last year given we have about five HUGE elderflowers in the garden and it is delicious. We made about 25 litres last year and still have a bit left over in the freezer (it freezes really well) but the flowers are out again so here goes...

We usually make this in double batches with no problems

Ingredients
25 Elderflowers (ideally picked on a warm, dry day)
3 Lemons - we'll use their juice and their finely grated zest
1 Orange - again using both the juice and the grated zest
1 Heaped teaspoon of Citric Acid (available in most chemists ask for it though as they keep it hidden)
826g Sugar - white, granulated stuff

Optional (but we love it!)
80g peeled, grated ginger

Method
- Take a look at the flowers and remove any leaves, dead bits and give them a shake to throw off any little critters.
- Stick the flower heads in a large bowl with the lemon and orange zest (NOT the juice which should be shoved into the fridge for tomorrow)
- Bring 1.5 litres of water to the boil then pour over the flowers/zest in the bowl
- Cover and leave overnight

Next Day
- Strain the liquid from the bowl, muslin is great for this, I tend to give the flower heads a good squeeze or two - you'd be amazed just how much extra liquid you'll get out of them.
- Add the sugar, lemon and orange juice and the citric acid.
- Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, bring to a simmer (NOT boil) and keep it just bubbling for a few minutes.
- Use a clean funnel to pour while still hot into sterilised bottles, seal them and sit back.

Top Tips
1. To sterilise the bottles we tend to use hot soapy water and really clean them out well, then we fill them with boiling water and let them sit for a bit. Finally we shove them into a VERY low oven and keep the door open for a few minutes to dry them off.

2. If you let the simmered fluid cool a bit whilst covered then pour them into clean plastic bottles (used pop bottles?) give the bottle a bit of a squeeze and leave a fluid gap at the top then screw them up tight - this allows for a bit of expansion. They'll be great in the freezer for AGES !

The psyche of Russ...

Very excited about this naff little project.

I wanted to attempt some sort of creative visual feature near our chicken area that could catch the eye. Having no creative or artistic talent I Pinterested and YouTubed other people's great ideas. This was my thought process.

1. Put a mirror behind our bird bath - led to...
2. Put up a shabby wooden wall with a mirror on and stand the bird bath in front of it - led to...
3. Why not use an old sink instead of a birdbath - led to...
4. Why not make a tiny bit of a bathroom with a mirror on a wall and a bird bath in the sink - led to...
5. Why not add a fountain or water flowing thing too

Now you've delved into the psyche of Russ this is the result of a couple of hours mucking about...

 

and thanks to a £7 solar pump I found on Ebay this is what happens when the sun shines (take a look now you may never see it again!)

 

Garden plans...

So here is the plan...

This is a basic representation of how our back garden will look unless we get bored, run out of money or change our minds !

Stuff we've already done:
- A series of posts with a rope between them for roses and ivy to grow up and over to create arches (top left in orange), in place but waiting for plants to get their finger out.
- Rockery, finished.
- Summerhouse, wicker Ebay find all up and running.
- Bees, hives built, garden sectioned off with rustic fencing, we'll be adding a low hedge to soon.
- Sink, see todays other post!
- Fire Pit, the first thing we did after moving in. Been cooking it up good style for a while now.
- All the 'T' marks are new fruit trees that we have put in this year.

Stuff still to do:
- Massive amounts of weeding, this will take forever..!
- Pond, this picture shows the new shape we hope to have next year. Currently it is just a rough oval but we want to 'Y' shape it at one end to shape it around the black spot.
- The black spot, this will be a garden bed made from an old trampoline (Ebay find for £10!) and a structure that will probably be a living willow gazebo thing (to be done in the autumn)
- Old shrub bed by the arch will be ripped out and returned to lawn but also our apricot tree will go here.
- Low walls on the terrace will be built, mainly out of stone reclaimed from elsewhere in the garden to create a better border between the terrace and the rockery/lawn.
- Gravel ! The driveway, terrace and front of the house desperately needs re-gravelling. We've found a local supplier who can deliver around 14 tons for a couple of hundred quid but right now we can't guarantee the motivation to move it about and a pile that big on our driveway will stop us getting in! 
- The circle with the '?' is a dark clearing under the trees high up overlooking the garden. Not sure what will be going here...

and that's it!

P.S. If anyone fancies helping us move a lorry load of gravel let us know!

Mourning a Monarch?

After recent bee successes; starting a third colony and re-queening to clear chalk brood issues we have been feeling pretty good. Halfway through our first full season and we feel we have been breaking new beekeeping ground, for us anyway.

We have Blue hive, a very prolific strong colony that we used to start two nucs. Pink, a decent sized colony that after removing a queen that was a bit on the slow side and not helping with the significant chalk brood hiccup was back in action and laying well. True our Green hive made with one of the nucs sadly created great emergency queen cells, matured a queen then unfortunately lost her somewhere, maybe eaten on the mating flight? But having successfully combined that little colony with the other nuc we still reckon we're up on the deal.

Last weeks' hive check has shown Blue hive seemingly back up to great strength, still lots of capped brood in the main brood box and recently drawn out brood super though they are a little slack in drawing out their honey supers. Yellow - all systems go. Pink however has had a bit of calamity we think.

Last week Karen didn't observe the pink hive queen in person but did see plenty of egg so was happy. She was also pleased to report that they were filling a honey super. This week however, disaster. I checked pink, didn't see a queen and could see only a few uncapped larvae and absolutely no egg.

Looks like we've lost the queen.

We can't figure out why. There is plenty of space, no sign of excessive nurse bees and nothing to suggest any reason for swarming that we can see. The queen whilst new, was carefully introduced and has spent the last few weeks happily laying within the hive seemingly accepted by the other bees. So where has she gone? We don't think we've crushed her or accidently damaged her, the hive seems happy, non-aggressive and full of bees. I can't imagine that she would swarm so shortly after seemingly being accepted into the colony and we've been out in the garden from dawn until dusk over the last week and had no sign of swarming.

I'm hoping that I just missed her, this hive contains some of our older comb, it wasn't the brightest day and eggs are hard to see. But I also think I checked pretty carefully, particularly once I became concerned. On the cuff I grabbed a super brood frame from blue and shoved it into the middle of the pink brood and sealed up the hive. I'm hoping that if the queen is present and hiding (probably wishful thinking at this point) that she'll be visible when we check in a couple of days. If she has died/gone then at least the remaining bees will now have access to some egg to start making emergency queen cells - seeing those would confirm our fears but hopefully indicate that the colony is adapting for survival. Of course in either case we are disappointed that one of our two decent colonies would now be unlikely to make any honey for us - we were looking forward to trying some this year but most important is getting them back to having a reliable queen, otherwise our well populated pink hive is in danger...

Fingers crossed and we'll update in a few days when we plan to have a decent extra check of pink to find out what is going on.

Freecycle - a tale of determination

A long time ago, not long after we moved in, I signed up for a few of those community/getting rid of junk sort of websites. Preloved has been useful on the odd occasion that we've managed to pick up some decent kids bikes for a couple of quid that were actually great finds. A nosey sort, I did like to keep an eye on Freecycle - never got anything from it but found some sort of humour in eyeing up other peoples' random cast-offs (normally so random they couldn't even Ebay it and had to try giving it away) Bizarrely Freecycle seemed particularly attractive to me at times when I should have be weeding/cleaning out animals/changing nappies etc....

The correlation between my Freecycle interest and my actual 'free' time was noticed by my adoring wife who immediately nipped this, my one enjoyable escapist activity, in the bud pretty quickly when the kids really started to smell and the weeds crowded the upstairs windows. Once pushed I did however take solace in removing my Freecycle account that I would now longer receive the fifteen plus hourly emails that it automatically forwarded to me desperate to let me know that  someone within forty miles was giving away a used lightbulb from a non-smoking home.

Recent thoughts about sorting the more aesthetic side of the house have been causing me to ponder garden features. Little snippets of interest that we can cautiously arrange with great effort to look like a natural or carelessly placed visual feast amongst the bushes have been tingling my creative tastebuds. Of course we could just go to B&Q with a credit card and pack a van full of slate monoliths or bamboo arbours but, light wallet aside, that sort of commercial, conveyor belt décor wouldn't feel right in our rustic, proper old house garden alongside a pallet fence strawberry planter and bee garden. I was thinking more old ploughs, milk churn planters, trombone water features and unique stuff made from junk. Back to Preloved and Freecycle then...

Actually since I restarted the sites this week I happened upon some local rubbish on a trip out that will keep me and my workshop occupied for the moment (more on these soon) but none-the-less signing onto Freecycle proved on this occasion to be an instant hit, validating my entire previous interest and justifying my removal from nappy duty for some considerable time.

Would you believe that on my first look at the local group a listing had been added an hour before for an item located six miles away. FREE to anyone that arranged to collect it. Instantly I wanted it. I have no ability to use it but I wanted it. The timing suggested it was meant to be, however...

It is heavy. So heavy that I would need to organise four friends to help us move it. But I wanted it.

It is large. So large that I would have to hire a van to move it and we would have to permanently swap our living room with our dining room just to accommodate it. But I wanted it.

After a few phone calls, logistical arrangements and a long night of shuffling furniture between rooms we went to see it for the first time today. It was classy. It was beautiful. We bought it home, all battling and sweating to get it into the house, even the horrendous downpour switched off for the exact time it took to move it from house to van and van to house. Like destiny.

It fits perfectly in our new dining room and looks extraordinary. Two immediate thoughts; I am now going to have to revisit a childhood pastime and fit it into my already crammed existence and my mum is going to be outrageously jealous.

I still cannot believe someone wanted to give away such an incredible and valuable item. I'm not sure what the rules of Freecycle are but we might have to wander back with a bottle of something special next time we are passing.

Until then sit back, adore and feel ever so slightly smug.

Amidst the hoovering Karen couldn't help but stop and admire the new furniture

Piano - Collard and Collard. Dress - models own.

upcycling

A few weeks ago we had an unexpected opportunity to pick up some Perspex from neighbours who were throwing out secondary glazing that had been in their cellar since their windows were done a while back.

We took several sheets and immediately used some to replace some broken greenhouse glass which worked very well. I've also ear-marked some to make transparent crown boards for my hives - I have two already and like to be able to lift the lid and see in without having to disturb the bees.

The last sheet has been hanging around waiting for me to make Karen a cold frame for next years growing - obviously I haven't been rushing.

Anyway, the same neighbours took down an old, partly rotted deck last week and offered the timber to us if we had any use for it. Down and outs that we are of course we said yes.

I had a spare hour today so in the sweltering heat of the afternoon I banged together a cold frame. Cost us nothing and looks like it will do the job.

Bee-autiful bee garden?

As we are starting to concentrate on the aesthetics of our garden we have been talking about what to do to make the bee garden a bit more interesting. We like the rustic look of having grass around their little area at natural 'meadow' length however in the last week or so it went ballistic and the poor bees were having to machete their way out of the hives.

So last night after they were tucked up in bed we got cracking. We've snipped most of the long grass and done some emergency weeding (I bought a £12 electric strimmer today just for this purpose) although most of the really long grass is now laying flat as apposed to having been properly cut.

We've also made some raised beds and planted some flowers. We also made some plans for this space..

- Place a hedge (probably cherry laurel?) around the inside of the twig fence
- Install a curious water feature (I've bought a little solar powered water pump for this)
- Find some sort of visual feature in addition to the colourful hives - completely drawn a blank at this so le me know if you have any ideas

Here is a terrible snap of the working progress.

 

Fishtastic !

Quick update from yesterdays fishcake post...they tasted amazing with our home grown new potatoes boiled in mint from our rockery, plus some salad from the garden.

Tasty!

Fishtastic fishcakes

We have a favourite fish bloke in one of the local towns and as I was passing his place on delivery day I couldn't resist grabbing a few bits and pieces. We've decided to use the stuff and remake a fishcake recipe I came up with a couple of weeks ago and put everything else into one of our favourite fish pies...

Mmm Fish Cakes - this is how I like them...

Ingredients
Fish of your choice (a couple of fillets will do) I used two of sea bass
Potato (as always maris or Edwards are great)
Capers, about two teaspoons of roughly chopped
Lemon Zest, about one and a half teaspoons
Optional herbs such as chive, fennel, dill etc
milk and water (I use 150ml of each or thereabouts)
Horseradish, one and a half full teaspoons
Wholegrain mustard, one and a half full teaspoons
One beaten egg
Flour
Breadcrumbs (three - four slices or similar)

My Method
Place the fish (I used two sea bass fillets) skin side down in a frying pan, add the milk/water mix, stick on the lid then bring up to the boil. Once boiling reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for four minutes, after the four minutes turn off the heat and keep the lid on for a further ten - the residual heat will cook the fish nicely.

During this time boil up some potatoes (about six at moderate size) that have been cut small for around ten minutes until they are cooked but still holding their shape then drain and mash.

In a bowl mix the mash, the capers, lemon zest, horseradish, mustard and then flake in the fish. Because I had them I added about 100g of already cooked crayfish that had been roughly chopped. I also added a good full teaspoon of finely chopped chives and fennel. Be gentle when you mix everything together because you'll want the fish to stay fairly chunky.

Now for the messy bit. With well floured hands grab a golf ball sized lump of mixture then flatten it out to make a cake about 2cm thick. Roll the cake carefully in the egg then roll in the breadcrumbs, I stick flour, egg and crumbs on a separate plate and organise this conveyer style. Repeat until done, I managed to get six out of the batch.

Now either fry the fish cakes up immediately for instant satisfaction or plate them, cover them with clingfilm and bang them into the fridge for  day.

 

Meat and Ale Pie

I'm trying to get used to making more effort in the kitchen at the moment given that soon fruit and veg will be once again abundant and we'll have hours of blanching, jam making and other similar stuff to do.

So we'll be adding loads of recipes as we go but as I made some stuff this weekend I thought I'd stick a couple up on the blog to get on with.

My recipes tend not to be massively scientific, weights and measures are generally approximate and based on how I feel at the time and how fresh/smelly/tasty the ingredients seem on the day. So all I can tell you is if it makes it onto the blog it turned out tasty and no-one died.

Meat and Ale Pie

For reasons unknown to myself I felt the urge to make one of these, not tried before...

Ingredients
Diced Game 500g (or other preferred meat, I just found this in our freezer)
Flour (just a bit)
Onion
Mushroom
Carrots
Bottle of ale
Stock Cube (I used a veg one)
Optional splashes of red wine vinegar (balsamic would do) and Port
Pastry (I cheated by using some ready to use Jusroll puff pastry)
Splash of Oil for lubing the pan
Mushrooms
Tomato Puree
Single cream or crème freche
A sprinkle of salt and pepper

My Method
Rub the meat in seasoned flour then heat a bit of oil in a pan (large frying pan is fine but ideally with a lid) and then slam in the diced meat and brown off - takes around ten minutes?
Then remove the meat to stand for a mo, scrape the bottom of the pan so the tasty bits travel with the meat.
In the same pan (might need another splash of oil?) soften the chopped onion until transparent without burning then throw in the chopped carrots for a few minutes. I added a splash of the ale here to help simmer/steam the carrots for about five minutes.
I then crumbled in the stock cube because I never see the point in going to the hassle of melting it in boiled water first - the ale is mostly water anyway. Stick the meat back in and also add some tomato puree (about a desert spoon) a splash of port (this is optional but I'm classy enough to have some laying around the house) and a dribble of the vinegar. Of course I also added the ale at this point - as someone that never drinks this ale stuff I chose to buy a bottle of London Pride purely because I'm about five foot four and it happened to be at eye level in the local garage.

Give it a gentle stir then bang on the lid, bring it up to the boil then turn down to a gentle simmer and I left it for between 40-60 minutes. I didn't time it precisely but basically I leave it long enough until the meat and carrot is done - if it helps it turned out to be the right amount of time to drink a relaxed glass of wine whilst watching my wife weed around nine fruit trees. About ten minutes before the end I tend to add some roughly chopped mushroom then leave the lid off and watch it really thicken up. Take off the heat, stir in a spoonful or two of cream then shove it in a casserole dish.

**To make the same dish so much quicker cook the chopped carrots in a steamer/Microwave first then you only need to simmer the mixture until the meat is tender - about twenty minutes.

If like me you are a lazy pastry chef I find the Jusroll stuff is pretty good and easily found in shop fridges around the globe. Either way shove it over the dish, trim with a little extra then press down around the edges. Don't forget to jab two steam holes through it somewhere then bang it into a pre-heated oven at 200oc or gas mark 6.

Thirty minutes later and it is hot to trot !

 

More-a-planting

So I have had some set-backs this year - none of the carrots or parsnips I planted germinated. None of the beetroot, swede or perpetual spinach did either. So I had to start it all off in the greenhouse and now, what a nightmare, I have to transplant the lot...

 

Beetroot, perpetual spinach and swedes transplanted into their freshly weeded bed...

 

The two beetroot seedlings that did germinate...

 

Jacob chose to grow some carrots so here he is transplanting them...

 

Russ filled the final remaining raised bed so I planted out the butternut squash, pumpkins and patty pan squashes too...

 

The most soul-destroying thing? Actually running out of space so we are now talking about creating some beds outside of the veg cage for the more resistant crops..... who would have thought eh!?

Progress report

Well the warm weather and abundant rain has brought up more than weeds (although the weeds seem to have the upper hand...) so here is a sneak peak at what going up in the veg patch at the mo!

 

Tomatoes and red peppers haven't looked back since we put them in their growbags!

Strawberries starting to blush - can't wait!

 

Will the garlic every stop growing!!!!

 

I planted asparagus on a whim and am dead pleased that both plants have sent up a long flowering tendril. Obviously no harvest this year but looking forward to years to come...

 

Early peas a-flowering

 

First earlies potatoes almost a-ready

 

After a lag-period the rhubard has also started producing leaf after leaf

 

 

Looking pretty tasty!!!!