Gardening Without Backache -No Dig Gardening

I'm a huge fan of Charles Dowding's method of No Dig Gardening. There are loads of reasons why I'm so keen,  one of the main ones being my state of aged decrepitude which prevents me from doing as much digging as I used to be able to manage. But for the best explanation take a look at  any of Charles many books and articles on the subject. In a nutshell the idea is that you cover the ground that you have, whatever it's like, with a layer of compost and you plant into it. That's about it, and because it's such a simple idea, people tend to think it can't possibly work. Surely you have to dig, trench, rake,kill the weeds, and so on? Well no, what you should really be doing is to attempt to disturb the soil as little as possible,- digging just destroys the soil structure and chops up beneficial earthworms and other soil organisms. So not only do you not need to do it, you positively shouldn't do it.

When I moved here a year ago, we had no real garden to speak of, but lots and lots of lawn. So the first job was to fence off an area of the field to make a vegetable garden. I covered the areas to be planted with cardboard, to help kill the grass, and took delivery of a ten ton pile of compost courtesy of Severn Waste who make the compost from green waste. The compost is very reasonable in price, but unfortunately the delivery costs do add up. It all depends how far you are from your local green waste processor - check out your local depot.

All I had to do was move it to the appointed beds, which took a while I must admit. A few barrowloads every day soon made an impact.

The results have been amazing. Not everything did well, but most of what I planted did ok, considering it's the first year of a new garden. In an indifferent year for tomatoes we had tons, squashes and pumpkins grew like triffids, beans did less well, but salads and herbs were great.  The new asparagus bed is looking fine, although it's too new to harvest until next year, so we will see what next year's growth looks like in due course.

The main disappointment was my raspberry canes, most of which failed, so I will be filling in the gaps during the winter months with some new plants. Strawberrries and brassicas both grew well but were subject to caterpillar and bird attacks respectively so I will need to arrange protection for them for next year.

Anyway that was last year, and I have just availed myself of another ten tons of compost, this time for my new ornamental plantings. Luckily the very helpful lady at Severn Waste managed to find a delivery for me at a good price. So I took delivery of the ten tons on the appointed day courtesy of the lovely Louise, of Louise Ward Haulage based in Evesham, who has been operating her 18 ton tipper truck for nearly twenty years, and did an excellent job at a good price. I have a ready supply of cardboard from our warehouse, so I used it as a base, It's not really vital but it rots down readily and does help a bit to kill the weeds and grass. So it's back to barrowing for the next week or two. Before I get to do the good bit, the planting.

Christmas Pudding (Revised Recipe)

I posted my traditional Christmas pud recipe a year or two ago, but I've slightly revised a few of the ingredients. I rather like Nigella's recipe, so I've added some prunes to the mix, so it really can be called a plum pudding, but I can't be paying twenty odd quid for the Pedro Ximenes sherry, so I will stick with my mix of any sweetish sherry that's in the cupboard, and some  dark flavourful beer for the liquid part.

And speaking of beer, I seem to have struck up something of a passing relationship with my local brewery here in Gloucester, called, naturally enough, Gloucester Brewery. They have kindly allowed me to pick up an occasional bag of their spent brewery grains which my cows pigs and chickens absolutely love, and whilst I'm doing that, I get to pop in and have a look around their newly revamped shop on Gloucester Quays. It's in one of the many wonderful old buildings on the quay, and has been done up very sensitively and in keeping with the old vaults. It must have cost quite a bit, and the work has been going on for some time now, but the end result is really good. I generally take them in a few of my free range eggs in return for the spent grains, which I hope they like. So today finding myself in need of the aforementioned dark full flavoured beer, I bought a bottle of this Dockside Dark
with (it says on the label) "coffee chocolate and subtle sweetness". It's just perfect for Christmas pudding, so I might make an extra one for the guys down there as a small thank you. Mind you, I'm not sure how pleased they'll be - although I love it, I know that traditional Christmas pudding isn't everyone's thing. Still it's the thought that counts!

About a pound/450 grams of mixed dried fruit, about half currants and the rest sultanas and finely chopped ready to eat prunes.
Zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
half a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg
6 ounces/150 grams of dark brown muscovado sugar
1 tablespoon of black treacle
a glug of rum or brandy

4 ounces/100 grams fresh white breadcrumbs
2 ounces/50 gr ground almonds
3 ounces75 gr plain flour
6 ounces/100 gr shredded suet
Around half a pint/250ml of sweetish sherry and dark beer such as Dockside Dark 50:50 mix
3 eggs
1 medium cooking apple such as Bramley, grated, I never bother peeling but you can if you like.

Soak the dried fruits in the sherry and beer mix overnight or longer. Add all the other ingredients and stir well.Everyone in the family should get to have a stir, and make a wish.
 Add your family heirloom charms or coins cleaned with an overnight vinegar soak. Turn into a large pudding basin or two smaller ones.. Cover and steam for at least six hours. Allow to cool and store until Christmas day when you will need to steam again for a couple of hours. Or if you're pushed for hob space on the day just use the microwave to reheat for  a couple of minutes or so when you're ready.

Herdwick Sheep,(or Olympic Hurdlers)

First blog post for ages, yes I know, I get more erratic over time, and in all sorts of ways, but that's another story.

Well anyway, when we first came here to Ashleworth in Gloucestershire, I decided to get a few sheep, so I got a couple of pretty Jacobs, a couple of pedigree Coloured Ryelands

Coloured Ryelands

and a ram, Teddy the Tup,

Teddy the Tup as a lamb

and all was well. They wandered about nibbling grass and generally doing sheepy stuff. So far so good.
















Then a friend announced that he had five lovely Herdwick ewes for me, and that's when the trouble started. 

Herdwicks are fell sheep, happiest on the windswept landscape of Cumbria, where they rarely see a human being from one month's end to another, and don't come across many fences or other means of containment. It turns out that when they do come across either of these obstacles their first reaction is running and jumping, usually both. Herdwicks are great at browsing on rough grazing, of which I have quite a bit, but when they'd had their fill they were over the months to be found mostly out on the lane, in the vegetable garden, harrasing the chickens in the chicken run ,stuck in the hedge, in the neighbours field or, worst of all, along the lane and on the neighbour's front lawn. (The neighbours were very understanding, fortunately). I came to the conclusion that Herdwicks are not sheep, they are gazelles with woolly coats on.  So although they produced five lovely lambs

 which are Ryeland/Herdwick crosses and so hopefully less wild, I decided that would have to go.

 Two are in  the freezer, and the other three were sold last week to a lovely man who came to collect them in his van with his little daughter.  It took us all an hour and a half  to catch them and load them onto the vehicle, (in the pouring rain I might add) but the nice man and his little girl seemed pleased with them and eventually drove off over the horizon as I breathed a sigh of relief. No doubt a proper farmer with big fields and proper fences would have no trouble with them, but here at the Cottage Garden Farmette, they were just the right sheep in the wrong place, or possibly the wrong sheep in the wrong place.

And just a quick word about the ones in the freezer. My Proper Farmer friend warned me that mutton can be strong, tough and fatty,so it was with some trepidation that we tried the first chops for dinner the other night. They were delicious. And I'm really looking forward to a slow roasted leg or shoulder some time soon as per this recipe of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. The fuller flavour of  the meat of older sheep which has fallen out of favour in recent decades with consumers  (referred to as hogget if it's just over a year or so old, or mutton if  it's a properly older sheep,) has been championed by a number of high profile individuals, the said Hugh FW, and apparently no less a person than the Prince of Wales goes banging on about hogget and mutton at every opportunity. If it's good enough for His Royal Highness, it's good enough for me. I bet he's got proper fences.

Welcome to Rosie

I've got a cow. A beautiful pedigree Jersey heifer, Dalena Gunner Rosen or Rosie as I call her. She's absolutely lovely, halter trained so easy for me to handle, and with a quiet and docile nature. I've always wanted a cow, and when the opportunity to buy Rosie came up I couldn't resist. I've had her about a week or so now, and it's been a steep learning curve for me, but I've had a lot of help and support from Lena who breeds Jersey cows, and from farming friends and neighbours. The first day I spent trying to work out how to keep the cows feet out of the milk bucket, and the second day, I managed with aching back and arms to get about half a bucket of milk when Rosie decided to change position and in the blink of an eye, over went the bucket. I now know the origin of the saying about not crying over spilt milk!

On about the second or third day, when I was starting to think I'd never be able to manage it, and I don't mind admitting that tears of frustration were not far away, along came Jeremy my farming friend and gave me an on site demo and a few tips. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Among Jeremy's suggestions was to get

a calf for Rosie to nurse. It's important that all the available milk is taken from the cow at each milking, or the cow's system takes any left unmilked as a sign to reduce the supply. So  a few days later a lovely little Aberdeen Angus cross calf came along and she takes any milk that I fail to get and will enable me to go over to once a day milking in due course, as she grows and takes a larger supply. Also she's really cute and Rosie loves her. and I don't think it's ever ideal to have one of any animal on its own

Of course it's pretty unusual these days for people to keep a single cow, it's not economic in modern farming terms, but in days gone by many country people kept a house cow, and enjoyed their own dairy produce. I've so far made some delicious butter, some crème fraiche. I've also made some not very successful clotted cream, and some soft cheese that was rubbery enough to stuff a mattress with.  But never mind, there's an endless supply of fresh milk every day at the moment I'll try again, and as I say it's a learning curve. I've learnt so much since I've been here at Chidgley, and fulfilled some long standing ambitions, so I'm grateful for that. Anyone know where I can get one of those old fashioned three leg milking stool with a little handle on the side for any quick position changes that may be needed? -  I'm sitting on an upturned bucket at the moment and the maker's mark is becoming indelibly imprinted on my rear...

Spot The Goose Egg

 My geese are laying well. I've never had geese eggs before and they are certainly impressive in size, and the taste is just gorgeous. Recipes suggest allowing three chicken eggs for one goose egg, so you'd think they wouldn't be difficult to spot. But the geese seem to like burying the eggs in the straw in their nest, so you have to dig around quite a bit to find them.

I have four geese, or rather three geese and Hissing Sid, the gander. Ganders are known to be a tad on the over protective side during the mating season, which is about now, but although he does hiss a bit at any passing individual, including the dog, who just ignores him, I can't say he's particularly intimidating.

I made a  jam and cream sponge the other day for the holiday cottage visitors with a goose egg, and it seemed to go down well. They weren't on holiday in fact, but were  students who were making a murder mystery/comedy film as a final exam project for a film studies degree, and for some reason decided that we would make a good location for the action. They had part of the field roped off as a "police investigation area" and with policemen and white suited forensic officers wandering about in the field it certainly kept us amused. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished production.



But back to goose eggs, delicious to use in any recipe but probably best of all soft boiled with a big pile of toast soldiers. Place egg in tap hot water, bring to the boil, boil for about eight minutes.

Ginger and Marmalade Cake

The thing about having a good supply of home made marmalade, or indeed any other preserve, is what to do with it once you've made it. I do give quite a bit of it away, and it's quite handy for guests in our holiday cottage, but that still leaves a good supply to use ourselves. So this is an easy mix cake that keeps moist in the cake tin, and has a good flavour without the need for icings, fillings and all the attendant sugar calories and effort. It's a versatile recipe, you don't have to be too exact with it, and it's useful for using up odds and ends of things in the cupboard, the last of the golden syrup,

 remains of a jar of crystallized honey, and so on. You can use all syrup if you like, and grated citrus makes a good addition if you have the inclination.

 

Marmalade and Ginger Cake

Stand a saucepan on your digital scales and weigh in
350grams/12 ounces of golden syrup, honey and marmalade in whatever proportions you like
150 grams/6ounces of butter
and warm over gentle heat until just  melted





Put the pan back on the scales and add
9ounces/250grams  of plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
good pinch salt
2 medium eggs
about a quarter pint/150 ml milk

and beat briefly with a hand mixer till smooth. Or a wooden spoon if you are from Yorkshire (ie strong in  th' arm and weak in th' 'ead, Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred)

Pour into a lined tin, mine was 11" x8"/ 27cm x 20cm

Bake in a moderate oven for about 30 mins till risen and firm.  Try to avoid getting the top too dark.

 

Best Ever Yorkshire Pudding Recipe

Now you may think that this tray of charcoal boulders is less than the post title suggests. But you would be wrong.  They are in fact  Perfect Yorkshire puddings. It's just that they've been in the oven about an hour too long! Yesterday was the only normal day of weather we have had around here for weeks, and when I say normal I mean normal mildly wintry sort of day, but not raining,  I repeat in case you live in Somerset and can't believe it, not raining so we were outside plodding about in the mud, talking to people we hadn't seen for ages, enjoying the relatively dry air,  discussing the floods again.
Then I suddenly remembered  the oven. Aarghh!!

Luckily I made the full amount of the recipe, which does two twelve hole muffin size tins, so I was able to quickly despatch this lot to the chicken run, and bung a second lot in the oven,. And this time I stayed in the kitchen till they were done!

Anyway to get to the point, the recipe is James Martin's recipe as demonstrated recently on BBC1 Saturday Kitchen. I've tried many recipes over the years but this is my favourite. I really tried it because I have a million eggs to use up at the moment, all the chickens have decided to come into lay, and this recipe uses 8 eggs or even 10 if you have some tiny pullet eggs like I have. You get a good flavour, and a spectacular rise, which is really the whole point.  I stuck pretty much to the recipe except the first bit, I just measured everything straight into a pyrex jug and mixed with an electric hand mixer until smooth, then put it into the fridge overnight. Make sure the tins are hot, the combination of smoking hot tin and fridge cold batter really makes the difference I think. All in all a great recipe for impressing the in-laws, or anyone else really. And if you must go off down the garden, take a timer with you.

Classic Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 free-range eggs
• 600ml/1 pint milk
• 55g/2oz dripping

Preparation method

1. Place the flour and a little salt and freshly ground black pepper into a bowl. Add the eggs, mixing in with a whisk, then gradually pour in the milk, mixing slowly to prevent lumps forming.
2. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill in the fridge overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
4. Put a little of the dripping in four non-stick Yorkshire pudding tins. Place the tins in the oven until smoking hot.
5. Remove from the oven and quickly fill the moulds with the batter. Return to the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes.
6. Turn the oven down to 190C/375F/Gas 5 and cook for a further 10 minutes to set the bottom of the puddings.
7. Remove from the oven and serve.

Pink Gin and Other Antiques

I love old stuff, (no untoward joke will be inserted here at the expense of Mr Wilkinson, it's Valentines Day after all), but so apparently does everyone else. Again, I'm not referring to Mr Wilkinson here, but antiques programmes - you can't turn on the telly without being regaled by some tweedy suited expert in a bow tie going on about the value of some bit of old tat. Of course I do realise that one person's bit of tat is another's priceless antique, or at least "Vintage Collectable". And as I say I do love old stuff.
I have no idea of the values of things, and I only buy what I like, but Mr Wilkinson and I have a bit of an ongoing issue with what is called de-cluttering these days, so I try to limit myself to buying things that will be of actual use. Trying to go with William Morris "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful" would be my ideal, but you can't help thinking that Anti-Clutterists only read the first phrase,- Have nothing in your houses - and leave it at that! I could never be a minimalist!

So anyway that summarises my excuses for buying these lovely little glasses in a charity shop the other day. I say little, and they are small in comparison to the vast modern wine glasses we all use now, but they are so pretty I couldn't resist them. As I was standing at the counter to pay for them, all of £4.50 in total, the lady behind me pointed out that they were really too small to be of much use, what was I thinking of putting in them, clearly thinking no more than a small sherry when the vicar calls round.
  "Gin" said I,
"No room for the  ice lemon and tonic water though" she said doubtfully,
"Indeed," I said "but if you get your husband (other cocktail wizards are available) to shake it up in a cocktail shaker with ice and a dash of angosturas, then strain it into the glass, it should be just about the right size".
And indeed it is.
Cheers!

How to store wild mushrooms

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but I thought I would just make a note for the record, that I had a massive harvest of wild field mushrooms. this is the first time I've come across such a generous crop of field  mushrooms Agaricus Campestris ever.

They were in the permanent pasture fields above our smallholding. Once they start to come out, they really do get going so you have to pick and use them whilst they at their delicious best. and therein lies the difficulty. For whilst everyone loves a stuffed mushroom to two, one does begin to run a bit short of enthusiasm after a week or so. They don't keep more than a day at most so to enjoy the benefits of the crop a way of storing has to be found. Well, I after some experimentation, I found that a duxelles mix is the best way of storing this lovely autumnal bounty. You can then store it in the freezer ready for use as a lovely pasta sauce or maybe as part odd that special beef Wellington you're planning for a dinner party. Or you can use it for the basis of a mushroom flan or spread on puff pastry as a canapé. Should you come across a good deal for mushrooms at the supermarket this would be a good way of preserving them. Use the food processor for chopping if you're in a rush.

Mushroom Duxelles
large basket of freshly picked field mushrooms, or a punnet from the supermarket
large clove of garlic
 2 shallots
2 oz butter
splash of dry vermouth

Finely chop the shallots and gently fry in butter till soft.
Finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan with the grated garlic, salt and pepper and vermouth
Allow to cook gently until most of the moisture has evaporated, leaving a dry ish paste-like mix.
Leave to cool check seasoning and store in small quantities (ice  cube trays make it easy to use as much as you need).

To use as pasta sauce melt a few cubes in a saucepan with some cream or crime fraiche and a handful of parsley and stir into freshly boiled pasta.

 

I have to re state, as always, that I only pick and eat fungi that I know and can positively identify. Please do your research, or better still  take an expert's advice before eating any wild fungi.

From small acorns......

So, at the beginning of July I brought home three little black piglets. I bought them from a local breeder and they were small enough to fit comfortably in the back of the car. They looked like this

                                                             Cute.

The pigs are Large Blacks, sometimes called Cornish Blacks, and are the most endangered British native breed. The Large Black was the most numerous and popular pig on British farms and in most other countries too until it fell from favour after the second world war when the modern hybrid white pig took over, with its lean long body. Nowadays people think that black pigs produce black crackling, but they do of course emerge from the abbatior with normal pink pig skin, no black crackling, thank goodness!



Raising pigs though can be quite an expensive business. To start with a rare breed weaner ready to leave it's mother at around 8 weeks old, will cost from around £35 to £65, depending on whether it's registered with the breed society or not, and as registering costs, mine aren't, but are still good pigs from pedigree parents. Then at the other end of the procedure there is the abbatior and butchering costs, I'm expecting to pay around £50 to £60 per pig, plus the cost of getting them there which entails hiring a trailer as I don't have my own. But the major cost of raising the pig is the cost of feeding. I can buy pig feed from my local feed mill in 20Kilo bags, and if I fed my pigs on this alone, depending on how long it takes to raise them to a good weight, I could easily spend  a hundred pounds on feeding each pig.

So, this being the case I've been on the lookout for alternative food sources. and it isn't easy these

days because most traditional ways of feeding pigs have become illegal, and those that aren't illegal have fallen into disuse. Pigs are omnivores, and will eat a wide variety of foodstuffs. That's not to say that they should ever be given rubbish, and if you feed your animals rubbish, you will get rubbish as an end product. But vast amounts of perfectly usable food which could be fed to pigs is thrown away and goes into landfill every year. After the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease, it is now
illegal to feed pigs anything which has been inside a domestic or commercial kitchen, so called post consumer food, but it's fine to give them waste fruit and veg and bread, and crops from the field.

 So with this information at the front of my mind I went to see my local shopkeepers to see what I could find. Needless to say the big supermarkets were less than helpful. Not the local managers and staff  who were all sympathetic to my ideas, and one assistant even said he had asked if waste flowers could be sent to the local old people's home but even this was refused! They had all been instructed

from head office that waste food could not be sent anywhere other than landfill and the reasoning was  that someone might eat it and be poisoned, and then sue them! First of all, if the food is good enough   for people to eat they should be selling it to people, and it it's not, then why not let pigs make use of it?

My local greengrocer on the other hand keeps a
designated bin at each of his shops where spoiled produce is stored until either I or another pig keeper comes along to take it away. And my local mini supermarket keeps the stale bread for me to collect when it's past it's sell by date. the pigs love it and seem to be thriving on it, but I just wonder if I can get a relatively large amount of waste from just a few local shops, how much must the big supermarkets be throwing away every week or every year? Stuff that must cost them money to dispose of, and could be turned into delicious pork chops! And remember of course that anything that costs supermarkets money will be charged to consumers in the end. And no one has been poisoned from attempting to eat stale bread or black bananas from my local shops so why can't mr Tesco do the same? Could it be because they don't want anyone to know just how much food they waste? could it be that they would rather ship it all off on the quiet to landfill   and hope that it will be out of sight and out of mind for the rest of us. Read more about this on the Pig Idea.

Anyway, I've also found some other generous suppliers of waste products that pigs just love. Today I picked up half a dozen sacks of spent grain from a local brewery.  And I've been collecting apple pomace from Brendon Community Orchard who produce delicious local apple juice and provide  a great community facility. And lastly, we live on the edge of the Nettlecombe Estate, which is famous for it's wonderful oak trees. A local man collects acorns every year from the mighty Nettlecombe oaks, Quercus Petraea, and supplies them to commercial growers. Luckily for me he only needs the biggest and best acorns, and the rest - small, damaged, or wormy ones are available for me, or rather my pigs.  It's a bit backbreaking gathering them all up, but I'm sure the girls appreciate my efforts - here they are tucking into the latest sackfull

You can see from the pictures that the pigs make quite a good job of digging up the field!

Trains and/or Boats..

I went up to London on Wednesday to visit my daughter and granddaughter, and as I'm now quite a long way from London, I thought I would let the train take the strain as they used to say in the train adverts years ago. The view from the window over what should have been green fields was quite amazing, in as much as it was just water, water everywhere. For anyone who doesn't know, there has been extensive flooding in this area resulting from heavy rains falling on already waterlogged ground.  I took this video on my phone, just a few miles from Taunton, and I thought you might like to see it. It did feel quite weird with the water washing right up to the sides of the train.