Christmas Party

Christmas 'Tree' (© Ian 2012)

We spent Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, with Jenny, Philip, and the fosterlings, and Philip's parents while they visited. It's been a pleasant few days, with lots of food and games and presents (including two rather good garden books by Monty Don and Alan Titchmarsh). Yesterday, we made the most of the garden centre's sale, and found some new/extra lights for the fireplace swag—the lights ceased to function a couple of days ago, but the new, more numerous LED lights are really good.

Our more-tasteful-than-sometimes Christmas cake (© Ian 2012) 

This evening, we hosted a small party, for Jenny, Philip, the children, Cath, Jason, and Cath's parents; we've spent a lot of today, and bits of the last couple of days, making things: including some very tasty mincemeat-laced muffins, and rather tasty cheese nibbles. I might get round to recipes; you never know.

The dining room (© Ian 2012)

Gingerbread

Last year, we made gingerbread houses for the fosterlings. They were good fun, and this year we decided to try something more challenging. It has been.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Parts for the Gingerbread House (© Ian 2012)

Parts for the Gingerbread House (© Ian 2012)

Yesterday we spent making the templates, and baking most of the gingerbread: today we finished baking, and assembled everything.

The 2012 Gingerbread House (© Ian 2012)

Eight kilos of sugar, flour, ginger, and nuts later, a scale replica of Jenny & Philip's house and garden, with a minimum of artistic license. The conservatory was a trigonometry exercise for me (I had to resort to long unused vector maths to work out the triangles involved...), while Liz is responsible for the marzipan and angelica plants, and the chocolate trees.

Jenny & Philip's House in Gingerbread (© Ian 2012)

The Nutcracker

We had my parents for a pre-Christmas visit last weekend, which we all enjoyed. This has been our last week at work before a couple of weeks of leave, and it's gone by pleasingly quickly (not least because we also had Friday off!). We spent yesterday splitting and stacking a ton of chestnut, which is now safely stowed in the wood shelter. Today's been rather more seasonal, as we went to Leeds Grand to watch the Northern Ballet perform The Nutcracker. It was an excellent production, and a lot of fun: it's been a long time since I've watched a ballet live, although we have a recording of the Royal Ballet's Nutcracker that we can watch at Christmas.

Christmas Decorations

Fireplace Swag (© Ian 2012)

We've spent most of the weekend putting up the Christmas decorations. This necessitated a trip up the hillside, to collect the holly for making the swag, putting in vases, and doing the stairs' handrails. We bulked this out with conifer from the garden (which is easier to make into a swag), and holly (for the kissing bough and wreath). It's all looking rather good, and decidedly seasonal. We don't have a 'proper' Christmas tree, having decided to do without while our Scot's pines grow. However, I did find two attractive boughs of silver birch, which I spray painted white, and are standing in. Actually, I really like it, and we might keep it for a second tree in future years.

Atypical Christmas tree (silver birch branches, sprayed white) (© Ian 2012)

We also cooked one of the Wiltshire cure hams we made in September. This was a more complex recipe than the previous salting, and included treacle and beer. It was definitely worth it, though: the ham was delicious.

I also unveiled the ginger wine I'd made some time ago for Liz's birthday, and it is, apparently, really tasty. I still think it smells horrible, though.

Herbs

We had a weekend in Cambridge (a displaced half-yearly get-together, which was really good), and popped in to our old garden centre on the way home. As well as admiring Christmas trees, and finding one decoration we liked (very restrained), we also picked up a second pair of loppers (on offer; we thought they'd come in handy clearing the hillside), and a load of end-of-season herbaceous plants. That included an aquilegia, some bronze fennel, some variegated thymes ('Foxley'), and a pair of white rosemaries (Rosmarinus officinalis var. albus).

They don't have an immediate home: the herbs will be grown on, for the future herb garden. A couple of the thymes might go in the front garden wall, that said, before layering them for more plants.

Not much to report, therein: the weekend was lovely, with much food and games, but no photos. We're at home next weekend, and will probably put up the Christmas decorations, as well as trying one of the hams we cured earlier in the autumn.

More Trees

As I alluded, we intend to add a number of trees to our new hillside: some utility species, but also enough fruit trees to make a productive orchard on the lower half-acre. These arrived a couple of days ago, and so we've heeled them in to 'keep' until we can clear ground for them. They'll be fine where they are until the spring, so as long as we've put them in their final spots by the end of February (or so), they won't notice the fact that they're in the vegetable garden while dormant.

There are fifteen fruit trees:

• Apples:
• Pixie
• Lord Lambourne
• Fiesta
• Falstaff
• James Grieve
• Charles Ross
• Blenheim Orange
• Bramley's Seedling
• Pears:
• Concorde
• Beth
• Conference
• Plums/damsons/gages:
• Victoria (two of these, as they're great)
• Oullin's Golden Gage
• Merryweather Damson

Five ornamental trees:

• Purple birch
• Plum 'Spring Glow' and Pissardii
• 'Royalty' crab-apple
• Cherry 'Royal Burgandy'

And then thirty willows (ten each of scarlet, osier, and golden); twenty 'Midwinter Fire' dogwoods (some of these are for the garden); and ten sweet chestnuts.

Yes: we have a lot of ground clearing and digging to do...

Brushcutting with Sigrid

We had a day out yesterday, visiting the media museum in Bradford, in celebration of a fosterling's birthday. Good fun; the exhibits are interesting, and we saw a polar documentary at the Imax.

Today's been a getting-things-done kind of day: some wood stacking, for one thing. We also dug up the older of the two strawberry beds, taking out all of the Honeoye, Cambridge Favourite, and Florence that we put in three years ago (and then lifted into raised beds). They've not fruited brilliantly this year, as you might expect, but the Cambridge and Florence have always disappointed. So, we've replaced them with 25 new ('fresh') Honeoyes, and we've taken the extra step of planting them through weed-suppressant membrane. That should help reduce weeds, but also prevent runners, which lead to a congested and confused bed. Combined with a bit more management of runners (ie, removing most, and deliberately potting the ones we want), this should see better yields.

As we're reusing the same bed, we dug out a good amount of soil, and replaced it from soil that's been in the vegetable garden (that is, un-strawberried), and mixed in plenty of compost. At the same time, I spread compost around the rhubarb: I'll probably add some more later in the winter.

Lastly: my new brushcutter (a Husqvarna 135R, which I have christened Sigrid (shorter than 'the brushcutter', and she's Swedish)) arrived this week, so I gave her a try out. I've trimmed the verge outside the house (with strimmer attachment), and tried out the blade for clearing the hillside. Barely made an impression, in some senses, as there's half an acre to get through and I only did ten minutes' work, but I'm confident it'll do the job well. Strimming the verge was considerably easier than the last time I did so, with an electric strimmer. But that's the advantage of a 1.4kW petrol brushcutter, compared to a 350W electric model, I suppose! The right tool for the job makes such a difference...

Confirmation

Reading these entries, one might realise that I've been buying a lot of trees recently. A pair of walnuts, and twenty-five Scot's pines: and a large order of other trees that won't arrive until next month (more on that later).

And this without making clear where they're all  going to fit, given that although the garden is large, two dozen pines do take up a fair bit of space.

I haven't wanted to commit this to paper, as it were, until it was all finalized, which, pleasingly, it was, last night, with a Land Registry confirmation of title. A couple of months ago, our long-resident neighbour, Bob, put his house on the market. We'd known it was coming, as he'd mentioned planning to move in January, and had been waiting to find his next house before putting the Barn on the market. Since moving here, we've had in mind that we'd like to own the land in front of the house, as it's underutilized (it's scrubby moorland, really, with some trees), and very prominent from the front windows.

Fortunately, Bob was amenable to a sale, and so in mid-September, we purchased half of the field (the half directly outside the house), with Peter and Sara purchasing the other half (directly behind them). Each half is about 1.4 acres: ours is roughly equally split between very rough grazing, trees with some clearings, and gorse and heather with a few holly trees. When I say 'rough', I really mean it. It's boggy, tussocky, and full of patches of poor grass, brambles, quick and black thorn, and gorse. With a lot of love, I hope to turn it into an orchard, probably with orvine lawnmowers.

The trees, once the clearings are reclaimed from the bracken, should be lovely to visit, and we intend to add a few trees to the mix: sweet chestnuts and willow, for example, which have a lot of utility value. The top patch is much too steep for most uses, but I hope one day to erect a few beehives, and collect honey from the heather and gorse.

The view from the top is splendid, and I'll take a photo when I can.

So: plenty of space for all those trees, as well as, hopefully, a greenhouse and a summerhouse hidden in the trees. The woodland clearings are ideal for turning into little sanctuaries, and with some spring bulbs and dogwood will be lovely in the early part of the year. A proper orchard, with plenty of fruit trees, will get us that bit closer to keeping ourselves self-sufficient in fruit.

Now we just need to clear the weeds, and start to make the land properly usable again.

Another Walnut

Last year, at about this time, we bought our quince tree ('Serbian Gold', or 'Lescovac'), at our favourite local garden's Christmas launch evening. We typically go to this every year, even though it's early to start Christmas by my reckoning, because they inexplicably give a 15% discount for the evening. Not just on Christmas stock—on everything. Baubles, wellies, perennials, fertilizer: the lot.

Well, that's too good to pass up, isn't it? So off we toddle, round the entire garden centre, and stock up on everything mundane we know we need. I confess to starting a shopping list of necessary-but-not-urgent things we need some months in advance.

The garden centre's loyalty card scheme also sent me a voucher for a half-price outside plant last year, which was the reason for getting the quince: although it excluded Christmas trees and houseplants, all other outside plants were eligible: and half-price off a fruit tree brings their normal ~£40 price tag down to the same region as a 2–3 year old maiden bare-root, but much larger.

They obviously didn't think this was a problem, though I'm sure most of the vouchers get used on shrubs and perennials in the £5–15 range, and so they sent me another one.

That, too, was too tempting to pass up.

We bought a walnut from RHS Harlow Carr in September, which was reduced by 50% at the end of the season (I'm still not really sure why, but there you go: it would have over-wintered perfectly happily, and they still have a number of apples and pears that weren't cleared out, as our visit two weeks ago demonstrated). The walnut variety, Broadview, is nominally self-fertile, but—like all self-fertile fruit trees—will still set more fruit if there's a cross-pollinator available. So I was delighted to find a Buccaneer in the nut aisle at the garden centre, nominally £39.99: but of course I only paid £20, which is still £10–15 less than I've found (cultivated) walnuts elsewhere. I'm delighted, of course.

There was also a sweet chestnut, which would have been nearly as good value (£18), but I'd quite like Marron de Lyon (which this wasn't), and it wouldn't have fitted in the car. The Buccaneer was a good 8–9' tall, and just fitted in: the chestnut was taller and bushier, and wouldn't have had a chance. But it would have been very satisfying.

Pond Practice

Our visit to Molly was partly with the intention of renovating her garden pond (the traditional exchange of labour for food and company!). She had a small pond, a few feet in diameter, and about a foot deep, but it wasn't entirely satisfactory. The fountain was unimpressive (it had to be turned down low, or it threw the water out of the pond), and it was rapidly out-grown by the plants.

So we dug her a new one.

Newly dug pond: ledge all the way round (bit bigger in top right, due to soakaway pipe) and with a wildlife escape ramp in the top left. The pond's 6'x8', and around 2' deep: there was about three barrows of rubble buried in the soil (© Ian 2012)

Half-way through filling up, before trimming (© Ian 2012)

Pond filled and fountain running. The edging will be tidied up after planting (© Ian 2012)

Of course, no trip to Ludlow is complete without a trip to the plant stalls on the market, and this time was no exception. We found a really lovely oak-leaved hydrangea (H. quercifolia): it has pretty leaves, with good autumn colour. It would hold its own, I think, as a deciduous shrub, but it also flowers (large, white, typical hydrangea flowers) in late summer. We also pinched some cuttings of a red-stemmed variegated willow, and half a dozen kaffir lilies (Schizostylis coccinea). Ample reward for pond digging, I think.

Oak-leaved hydrangea, along with willow cuttings (front left) (© Ian 2012)

Beeston Castle

Uneventful day in the garden yesterday: wood stacking, turning the compost bins, and tidying the garden porch. The compost bins are doing well: the right hand (mature compost) bin was half-full, having been taking compost for it for things like the new shrubs. The middle bay is now ready, so that I turned into the rightmost bay. It is writhing with worms, and looks excellent.

The left hand bay has been filled over the last few months, and hasn't really got very far. Hopefully turning and aerating it will have helped, but I must try to pour some water on to it, and see if that helps. Even though it wasn't well advanced, I had to turn it into the middle bay, as it was full, as was the compost bin in the porch, as was the compost crock in the kitchen. This was unsustainable.

Having come in, we had a more exciting evening, and made our Christmas cake. Took forever to cook, as normal—about four hours twenty, while the recipe suggests 3–3½ hours. It looks delicious, though: I'll water it a few times over the coming couple of months.

Today we travelled down to visit Molly in Ludlow, and called in at Beeston Castle. Liz went there many years ago (and has no recollection of it): it's a 13th century (read: proper Medieval) castle built by Ranulf of Chester in the 1220s on ancient bronze age earthworks. It was siezed by Henry III on the death of Ranulf's heir, and was a Royal castle until it was thought obsolete in the 16th century. Its inner ward is on a peak surrounded on three sides by sheer cliff; the fourth side, connecting with the outer ward, is protected by a deep ditch cut into the rock.

It's impossible to take by storm.

The (modern!) bridge and inner ward's gatehouse, Beeston Castle (© Ian 2012)

View of the inner ward from outside the outer ward (© Ian 2012)

The castle was the site of siege during the Civil War: it started in Parliamentarian hands, was taken by Royalists (by stealth and treachery), and then invested by the Roundheads. A year-long seige eventually ended in November 1645: the Royalist garrison managed to convince their besiegers that their supplies were stronger, and negotiated good terms for surrender. They marched out with colours flying and with their arms; they left practically no food (there's a secure well, 100m deep, in the inner ward).

The Parliamentary forces slighted the castle, to prevent its reuse, and it's been a ruin since.

Later, an extra 40 acre ring of land was enclosed by a Victorian wall, and exotic animals were kept as an attraction, and there are some natural sandstone caves in the grounds.

View of the gatehouse to the inner ward (© Ian 2012)

View from the inner ward across to Peckforton Castle (a Victorian conceit, not really a castle proper) (© Ian 2012)

View from the inner ward: you can see up to 30 miles, to Liverpool, Manchester, the Pennines, and the Welsh mountains (© Ian 2012)

The 40 acres of wooded grounds have numerous oaks of a significant size (© Ian 2012)

Christmas Trees

We spent most of yesterday getting some plants into the new bed in front of the copse. To start with, we've put the two dogwoods we already had (Cornus alba 'Elegantissima' and 'Spaethii') near the bottom apex of the bed (near the fruit cages); three new witch-hazels (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena'  and 'Magic Fire, and H. mollis) went further up, on the copse side, and we moved the weigela (W. florida 'Variegata') and the caryopteris (C. x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold') in as well. A group of heathers (white darleyensis: 'Silberschmelze', I think), and two groups of hellebores also found homes.

Then we went to town with bulbs. 180 daffodills (a mix, including jonquillas and narcissi, 'Golden Ducat', 'Pacific Coast', 'White Lion' and 'Minnow'), 100 chionodoxa, and 100 crocus ('Ard Schenk', 'Sieberi Firefly', 'Barr's Purple' and 'Romance').

Having done that, we weeded the bed in front of the dining room window, and planted a further fifty mixed daffodils, fifty Dutch irises, three allium 'Hair' and three A. caeruleum, and 32 of each of A. sphaerocephalon and ostrowskanium.

Today, we'd happily weeded the vegetable beds, and had a pleasing hour planting pots of tulips (loads of them, as you'd expect: 30 mixed Rembrandt; 25 mixed Kaufmanniana; 60 mixed Triumph) and lifting the gladioli (not done well this year, and small bulbs), when a delivery man dropped off twenty five Christmas trees.

Not cut, or very large: twenty-five 2 year old, bare-rooted, Scot's pines (Pinus sylvestris). We're planning on finding a spot for these, and cutting one or two down each year as our Christmas tree (this is, evidently, a longish-term plan)—but we hadn't expected them to arrive until, say, December. Or preferably January. And we didn't have anywhere to put them.

Undeterred, we immediately set to clearing the bed around the Victoria plum, to the side of the future pond. This bed we planned to create in the spring, running round three sides of the pond, and encompassing the fruit trees, and the bed alongside the septic tank. A quick debate about shape and size, and I started lifting turves. I got past the plum, as far as the spot we're planning for a bench, figured that was enough space, and started de-stoning the ground. This part of the operation probably took as long as lifting the turf, and we excavated probably two barrows of stone. Beyond the plum, I met my match, in the shape of a huge stone probably two feet long and one wide, with an unknown depth. I gave up there, and we planted the pines on the other side of the plum. They'll over-winter there, and we'll aim to find permanent sites for them while they're still dormant, and get them there by March.

Ducks

For her birthday, Jenny asked for two pairs of call ducks, which we, Katie, and the fosterlings dutifully obtained. One pair is (I think) 'dark blue silver', and the others are white. They arrived last week, and had been settling in nicely.

This morning, we were getting on with clearing one of the beds in front of the copse, when shouting and hollering from Jenny and Philip's direction suggested a problem. Fearing that one of the cats (both were out, and only one was supervising us) had 'discovered' the ducks, we went round. Instead, the dog had got out, and caught the white drake, Ninada. Unfortunately, he seems to have suffered serious internal injury, and died en route to the vet. I buried him in the copse this afternoon.

In brighter news, the big bed (which already had three fruit trees in it) is now complete, in a sense. The turf has all be cut and lifted (and stacked to rot down), and the heap of chippings that's been there since June has been spread out. It looks suspiciously like a flower bed. We'll start to put more plants in over the next couple of days.

RHS Harlow Carr at Hallowe'en

Partly for Jenny's birthday, partly to take advantage of the hallowe'en events, we all went to Harlow Carr for the day. They had a monster trail and boggart workshop for the fosterlings, while we enjoyed a woodland crafts (coppicing and woodwork) display, and the plants. Obviously.

The Main Borders, RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2012)

Compare and contrast with the same border in September:

Op. cit. (© Ian 2012)

The children spent a while playing in the tree house playground, which I rather liked, too (though I wasn't allowed on...)

Craggle-Top Treehouse, RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2012)

Copse of white poplars, RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2012)

From the bird hide, RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2012)

 We were very restrained, and didn't buy any plants (just a small Christmas decoration: more on that in a month, perhaps).

Chimney

As we're starting to need the stove (we had it running on Saturday, and it worked a treat keeping the house toasty during the day), I decided it was time to sweep the chimney. It turned out to be more straightforward than it could have been, and the chimney doesn't seem to have been too dirty. Fair bit of soot came down, but no huge lumps, or anything alarming.

The stove (© Ian 2012)

Roll on a winter of toasty stove use.

Seeds, Settlers, and St Honoré

Alan and Ann were with us for the weekend, as I alluded to last week. The Gateau St Honoré was a great success. We modified the recipe somewhat, filling the choux buns with crème pâtissière, and I've now bought a piping bag, so the filling of the gateau was neatly piped. I didn't quench the spun sugar, so that was still molten and spinnable, too. All in all, very good.

And then the cat happened. We (stupidly) left the gateau unattended for all of a few minutes, and the custard monster spotted it, hopped onto the sideboard, and helped himself to the (obviously delicious) crème pâtissière. As a result, it was no longer photogenic (sorry), although he'd taken a relatively small amount, so we repaired it and served it (Liz got the catted bit*).

*He's her cat, in these circumstances, in the same way that Domino's mine at three in the morning when he needs the loo, but wants company finding the litter tray in the dark. His superior night vision notwithstanding.

We played two games of Settlers (an entirely epic Greater Catan plus Cities and Knights, which lasted about seven hours), and a more normal Cities and Knights of a couple of hours. Greater Catan was, as normal, an excellent treat, and worth the set-up time!

After they left this afternoon, we've also sown some centranthus and achillea seeds, and will be putting a pack of Leymus arenarius seeds (blue-grey clump-forming grass) in the fridge to pre-chill. They'll be sown in about six weeks.

Test Run Bakery

We've got visitors next weekend, and want to try something new for dessert; having been inspired by The Great British Bake-Off, we thought we'd try a Gateau St Honoré. No, neither of us has made crème pâtissière before. No, we've never made choux pastry. Nope, not made spun sugar before. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, the caramel. Which, on quenching in the saucepan, solidified. Tasted good; much too solid to do anything with. I shall have to attempt it again.

Anyway: we found a recipe that uses an almond pastry for the base; a crème pâtissière recipe that isn't too extravagant on the eggs, and uses (whole) milk instead of cream; and I picked my mum's brains about making the choux buns (she's made profiteroles before, I haven't...).

It wasn't the most artistically perfect, but by goodness did it taste excellent.

Gateaux St Honoré (© Ian 2012)

In other news, I've almost finished the boiler room work, and we pottered in the garden for a bit. We pulled up another parsnip (similarly large, but tasted much better and sweeter, I think due to the colder weather since the last one), and also replanted the hanging baskets ready for winter. Out came the petunias and lobelias, and in went supplementary cineraria, and new primroses. They're looking good, and will improve as they grow on.

Because the likelihood of proper frosts is increasing, we also lifted all the geraniums and potted fuchsias from the front, and took them into the workshop, where they'll overwinter. In doing so, we discovered that several pots had chafer grubs in them, which had eaten a lot of the roots of the affected heucheras and primroses (fortunately, only two of each, I think). The affected plants have been re-potted (having checked through the roots!), and the soil from those planters is in the compost bin, having squashed as many grubs as I could see.

Birthday and Cordial

This weekend was Liz's grandma's birthday, which meant a big family gathering at Liz's uncle's house. It was a nice day, and it was good to see everyone. Katie made rather an attractive cake:

The cake that Katie made (© Ian 2012)

Yesterday, though, was spent outside, sorting out wood. However, we managed to pop out to collect blackberries, the fourth lot this autumn. Having done so, we amassed the remains of last year's frozen blackberries, bilberries, and damsons, with a view to making a spiced berry cordial for the winter. Last year we had a (roughly) 50:50 split between blackberries and elderberries—but there are almost no elderberries this year. We managed to collect a miserly 100g.

Nonetheless, we pulled together 4.5kg of fruit, made it up to 6l with hot water, and then boiled it down to 4.5l. Tonight, I've added pectolase, which will break down the fruit, and release more juice, and then tomorrow I can squeeze and strain all the juices out. Next, you add 2.25kg of sugar (500g for every original kilo of fruit), and boil it for five minutes with spices (allspice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves).

Bottled, it should store into the new year.

Bracken

The blueberries in the fruit garden aren't doing too well; the smaller ones haven't grown much this year, and the leaves haven't looked especially healthy. My opinion is that they need mulching, but the problem is that they're ericaceous, and need an acidic, sequestered-iron-rich soil to cope. The topsoil we filled the beds with is, probably, not quite what they want, and although it will gradually become more suitable, I don't think they're happy.

So: what to mulch with? I don't want to buy ericaceous compost, and would rather find an alternative. Pleasingly, there seems to be one: composted bracken. Composted pine needles, bark, heather, and bracken all appear to create an ericaceous compost—Monty Don has a Guardian article some years ago extolling it. Bracken is something we have lots of. There's probably half an acre on the hillside opposite the house that's covered with it, so this evening we've been up and filled a cubic-metre dumpy bag with bracken.

I'm going to set up a Dalek-style plastic composter somewhere inobtrusive, and fill it up with the bracken (and some 'active' compost, to get it going), with the aim of mulching the blueberries with something they'll like in the spring. If it works, there's more than enough bracken out there to compost significant amounts, which will be invaluable as a mulch for all the calcifruge plants in the garden: the heathers, raspberries, rhododendrons will all prefer it, as well as the Vaccinum fruits (cranberry, blueberry, bilberry and so on).

Beetroot

We've had a largely uneventful weekend, doing bits and pieces around the house and garden (workshop sorting; splitting and stacking wood; housework), with one highlight: lifting the beetroot.

In a year of mediocre crops, and difficult growing conditions, the beetroot have excelled. We planted out a couple of hundred seedlings, Boltardy and Cylindra, and they've done really well. The largest are about the size of a cricket ball (Boltardy), or 20cm long and 5cm across (Cylindra). We had some for dinner, along with our first parsnip (having had one or two frosts), and they taste really good, too. Fortunately, despite their size, they're not woody, either.

Good to have at least one success story!

Blood Cakes and Sausages

One of the new things we wanted to try this year with our half pig is black pudding, which is hard to find in a 'happy' form. Because the pig's from a local smallholder, abattoir, and butcher, it was possible to collect the blood on slaughter day.

I froze this, because I needed fat from the rest of the pig (only collected a week later), and defrosted it above simmering water this morning.

To make the puddings:

• The night before, cook 500g of pearl barley (done in advance as it takes about an hour to cook), and set 500g of oatmeal (I used porridge oats that went through the blender) soaking in enough water to make a porridge.
• Chop 1kg of back fat into small pieces. Put some of this in a big pan (I used an 8l stock pot, which was just big enough), and add 1kg of finely diced onion. Sweat this very gently, until the onion's translucent, then add the rest of the fat. Cook this gently until the fat's running.
• Add the oatmeal, the barley, 600ml of double cream, and plenty of seasoning. We used coriander, cumin, mace, salt, pepper.
• Stir in the blood. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
• Cook until it start to thicken, then pour into lined & greased loaf tins: we needed about twelve 500ml tins. Cover loosely with greased foil.
• Put in water baths in the oven, at 170°C, for about 80–90 minutes, until a knife goes into them cleanly.

Once cool, I've sliced and frozen ours. These aren't, strictly, black puddings, but blood cakes. You can funnel the mix into large sausage skins, and poach them, but this runs the risk of explosive mess, which I didn't want on our first attempt.

Verdict: extremely good. Could do with slightly more seasoning, though.

Alongside this, we also made two dishes of brawn: basically, put all the 'bits' in a big pan, cover with water, add a big handful of herbs, cloves, mace, salt and pepper, and simmer for 4–5 hours. By bits, I mean anything you have left over. In our case, I put in the trotters, bones, ears, and some of the cheeks (I took off the properly meaty bits for sausages).

Once it's cooked, you can pull apart the meat, and put everything you fancy eating into a flat dish. The remaining stock gets boiled down by 50–60%, and then poured on top. We had disproportionately many trotters (we got the spares), so the stock was properly gelatinous, and set really firm. The brawn gets chilled, and I'll then cut it into portion-sized pieces, and it'll go in casseroles or other dishes where a little meat is useful.

Last thing was the sausages. We decided to limit ourselves to pork & leek, and Welsh Dragon (leek and chilli), which were the most successful (and versatile) of last year's trials.

The basic recipe for sausages is a mix of meat (not too lean or too fatty), to which you add 1% salt (10g per kilo of meat); 5–10% cereal (100g/kilo: I use chopped up porridge oats); 5–7% water; and 0.1% pepper.

I think that 10% oats, and 7% water, is about right. Cereal isn't a cost-saving filler; it's really important to the flavour and texture. Last year's batch had 5%, and was actually too meaty, and too greasy. I say 'too': it was, in fact, delicious, and that was my only criticism.

To this, you can then add anything you fancy. Spices should be around 1% (again, 10g or 2 tsp per kilo); fruit or vegetables (apples or leeks, for examples) should be 5–10%. Therefore, the Welsh Dragon sausages are:

• 1kg ground pork, mixed lean and fatty
• 100g chopped oats/oatmeal
• 75ml cold water
• 10g (2 tsp) salt
• a few twists of black pepper
• 100g chopped leeks
• 10g (2 tsp) chilli powder

The leek ones just omit the chilli. Tasty? Oh, yes. We started the sausages yesterday, and will finish them shortly: we've just tried the black pudding, bacon, and some of the sausages for a cooked breakfast, and they're really, really, good.

Bacon and Hams

I collected the rest of our half pig today, from the local butcher who's prepared it. The first order of business is getting the bacon and hams into brine, and the other joints into the freezer. The meat that will become sausages, and the fat I need for the black puddings, will go to one side in the fridge, and we'll make them at the weekend.

After the success of last year's bacon, we've decided to repeat a wet cure for the bacon: 2 litres of cold water, 500g of salt, 15g of saltpetre, and some ground black pepper. The belly goes into this (weighed down with a plate) for 24 hours: tomorrow evening, I'll slice it, package it, and freeze it.

For the hams, we've decided to try something different: a Wiltshire cure. As I can't smoke things (yet!), it'll just be the curing part of the process, after which it'll be frozen until needed. It's more extravagant ingredients, so we're trying just two hams: if it's really worth it, we might do more next year. The hams will be in from tonight until Sunday morning.

Construction

It's been a busy, and long weekend, doing some construction and tidying in the garage/workshop. When the biomass boiler was installed, it required taking down an internal wall in the garage (next to the old boiler), which included the door into the workshop. Since then, the new boiler has largely blocked the access into the workshop from the garage: it's been manageable, but far from ideal.

The first task, then, was to take the old door and frame, and re-install them in the partition wall. It's only a chipboard wall, with timber supports, so I cut a suitable aperture, affixed studs, and put in the frame and door. Slightly inelegant, perhaps, but it's worked pretty well. It's nice to have unimpeded access to the workshop once more!

This necessitated moving the workbench along the room (out of the way of the new doorway), and so while I dealt with the door, Liz did a mammoth tidying job in the workshop, which has got, frankly, out of hand. This continued into today, while I started to rebuild the breeze-block wall that had come down, and started to construct an insulated boiler room within the workshop (to reduce heat loss from the boiler and accumulator tank).

The wall is about 60% done, but I needed a break from the job. There'll still be a gap, as I'm not going to completely rebuild the wall, but that will be filled with a stud wall. We're still looking forward to converting the garage into a second sitting room, and I want to make that stud wall easier to remove, should access to the side of the boiler space be needed.

My boiler room sub-section of the workshop is going to comprise a big door in front of the boiler and tank, which will be heavily insulated. I'm also going to massively increase the amount of insulation on the tank and pipework, to conserve the energy put into the thermal store, which will be easier with the confined space. I reckon constructing the rest of the boiler door, and the wall, will probably be another day's work, sometime over the next couple of weekends.

Blood

We ordered a half pig from a smallholding a few weeks/months ago, and the pig has gone to the abattoir today. The carcase will go to the butcher after a weekend hanging, and be ready for me to collect middle of next week.

In the meantime, though, I called in at the slaughterhouse and collected a gallon of the blood. We're planning to make black pudding, and need a couple of litres. Once the rest of the meat has arrived, we'll need some of the back fat, along with other ingredients (pearl barley, breadcrumbs, cream, seasoning), and can make the puddings next weekend. We'll also be making sausages, again, as they've been very tasty.

I'm glad I wasn't pulled over, and asked to explain a tub of blood.

300

Yesterday's post marked three hundred entries! I've written less often this year, probably because of diversions from the garden and house, and a poor growing year. Nonetheless, it's a milestone for me.

In other, more interesting news, we've had a really good day in the garden. We started by going out picking blackberries, and came home with a couple of punnets. They've not really hit the peak of ripening, so we'll probably go out again no sooner than next weekend. This first harvest is ten days later than last year, out of interest: that's in line with my guess that most things are a week or two late this year.

Liz has, over the last week, lifted all the maincrop potatoes (Bounty and Cara), which have been really disappointing. I haven't weighed them yet, but there's nothing like the number we got last year. Because the conditions have been abnormally awful, we can't know if it's to do with the change of variety (it was Druid last year). However, I think we'll go back to Druid, which performed really well (and was only marginally more expensive).

With the space this has freed up, we've now planted our over-winter alliums: a hundred Summer Gold onions; three heads' worth of Germidour garlic, and fifteen Elephant Garlics (from our own stock). The remaining space won't have crops on until spring, so I then sowed this with green manure (the same mix as before: two clovers, Italian rye-grass, and mustard). So long as it's reasonable for the next couple of weeks, this should get a good start to see the soil through the autumn and winter.

We also thinned the turnips, scarlet kale and sprouts, which were all sown or planted too thickly. The uprooted kale and sprouts will serve as greens, so there's no waste there, but the turnips have no such reprieve. I don't like thinning, but it's entirely necessary, of course.

We had two dozen penstemons by mail order, and these have now been potted up. They were 'Electric Blue', 'Snowbells', 'Tubular Bells Rose', and 'Carillo Purple'. We also potted on some other small plants, mostly echinacea, geums, and lavenders.

Last thing was to come inside and pickle a kilo of onions. Same as the last batch; hot pickled, which we prefer. After topping-and-tailing, you run boiling water over the onions (makes them easier to peel, and causes less tears), peel them, and add them to boiling spiced vinegar (750ml spirit vinegar, 1–2 tsp of each of mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, and cinnamon; and 15–20 peppercorns). After boiling for 6 minutes, they can be bottled.

Wood-store

For the last month or so, at weekends and evenings, we've been building a wood store. It's where we originally thought we might put a shed and greenhouse, but we've had concerns about light levels (and the site's suitability for a greenhouse); the shape of the ground available isn't ideal; and we need the space for seasoning wood. Until now, we've been stacking the wood and covering it with a tarpaulin, the sides of the dismantled shed, and a couple of fence panels. Not the most attractive, and sadly ineffectual. The wood's not dried at all well, and in places is wetter than it went in.

It's taken so long partly because we've been building the new store around the woodstacks, because there's nowhere else for the wood to go, and moving it all wholesale onto the games lawn (the only alternative) would have taken an enormous amount of time/energy in itself. So we've worked around the stacks, dismantling them where we needed to dig post holes, and tossing it into heaps.

The woodstore is now complete. It's built of 75mm posts, with bearers/rafters at a height of 195cm at the front. There's a 5° pitch to the roof, so it's taller at the back. We stepped the roof, or the left side (where the ground's quite a lot lower) would have been very tall. The roof is made of 22mm OSB, painted with weather-proof shed/fence paint. This we covered with two layers of polyethylene, a continuous layer of pond liner, and clamped all the way around. This makes it completely watertight, and means that we can (in the spring) add fascia boards around it, and turn it into a green roof—with the sorts of plants I was eyeing up at Harlow Carr.

Wood store, from the path to the fruit beds (© Ian 2012)

It's got guttering along the front, draining into a waterbutt that I've never got round to attaching to the house's gutters. And, finally, we've cleared the ground between it and the kitchen garden beds, put down weed-suppressant membrane, made a stone-lined rill ditch (to minimize water entering from the front, and put down chippings. Constructing it has been a mammoth bit of work, but it's given us about 50m³ of wood storage, which should be two years' worth of good drying space.

Front of wood store, with mulched path and drainage rill (© Ian 2012)

And don't worry, we've got alternative/back-up plans for shed and greenhouse locating.

Maintenance

Today's been mostly spent on various bits of tidying and maintaining. I've done a lot of repointing (a few bits of wall; two slate lintels; the window-frames in the garage and workshop; and the gable end of the utility room), which took a while. I also resealed the picture windows in the sitting room and dining room, as those frames are still wood. We'll replace them with uPVC, eventually, but they're holding on, and as one (we don't know which) might turn into French doors into a conservatory, we don't want to commit yet to a replacement design.

Liz did sterling work trimming the grass in the colour wheel corner (between the paving slabs), and tidying up around the garden. We finished by cutting back the ivy growing on the front of the house, which has reached the guttering. I've cut it down to halfway up the first-floor windows, and will need to maintain it at about that height.

Knee-High

It's been absolutely ages since I last mowed the lawn, as I've never had a coincidence of the time and the weather to do so. The grass has, therefore, looked awful, but there's been little I could do about it. So, today, we tackled it, as it's been dry since last Friday. A horrible job, that's taken almost the entire day (well, you try mowing half an acre of lawn that's been left two months, with a Flymo), and completely filled a compost bin with clippings.

Fortunately, I spent a while yesterday turning the compost, and now have a bay of ready compost, a bay of 'nearly' compost, and, now, a bay of grass clippings, mixed with stable muck from next door's horse.

The lawn looks immeasurably improved, though it will look a different kind of terrible tomorrow, as it's had such a proportionately severe clip.

We popped out in the middle of the day, including taking a load of scrap metal (including corrugated iron dug out when planting the fruit trees, two old bike frames, and the old TV aerial) away. That generated the princely sum of £8, which will at least buy a few plants. While we were out, we checked the damson that gave us a foraged bonus last autumn, but sadly it's bare. No surprise: none of our cherries or plums have any fruit this year, and we've only one apple (no pears or quinces), and there're only about four apples on the hillside. The one exception is our ornamental/edible dwarf cherry, the exact name of which escapes me. That had its best year yet, with several dozen (tiny) fruit. Very tasty, but each one's the size of a blueberry, with a 3–4mm stone, so not that substantial!

More Plants on the Wish-List

A few plants we saw at Harlow Carr, and warrant noting down.

• Achillea 'Lachsschönheit' (Galaxy Series), which I discover has an AGM.
• Achillea 'Martina', also AGM'd. Obviously, I have impeccable taste.
• Eupatorium cannabinum, or hemp agrimony.
• A few alpine-type plants, which would be good for a rockery or green roof:
• Geranium sanguineum var. striatum and G. himalayense, which are low and spreading geraniums.
• Hakonechloa macra, the green form, as well as the 'Alboaurea' which has--wait for it--an AGM. The plain form has more striking red stems than the gold.
• Bergenia 'Abendglut', advantages of being evergreen, tolerant of site and soil, and colourful.
• Iris setosa in dwarf form.
• Rhodanthemum hosmariense, the Moroccan daisy, with divided silver foliage, classic daisy flowers, and and AGM to boot.

RHS Harlow Carr

Today we had a day out to RHS Harlow Carr, with my parents. We're trying to make the most of our RHS membership, so we'll probably go a few times: probably next in January, to see the winter garden. Short trips like that are a luxury of free admission, I feel, so we'll try to get our money's worth!

As normal, lots of ideas and plants. I always like gunnera (G. manicata or, Mutant Rhubarb), although it's entirely impractical in a 'normal' sized garden. A more modest-sized rhubarb might feature in our bog-garden, though.

Gunnera manicata (© Ian 2012)

We're looking out for heucheras and heucherellas to tie the colour-wheel beds together, and this one caught our eyes. We also spotted a heuchera 'Cherry Cola', which might have promise.

Unlabelled heuchera (© Ian 2012) 

Harlow Carr has the classic long herbaceous perennial borders you might expect, and these are in full splendour, in late summer sun. There are nice touches bringing the beds together, too, like box cones at all the corners, which help unify the very different planting schemes.

Borders at RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2012) 

We spotted a rather nice backdrop to a seat, which was similar to something we saw at the Tatton Park show (second photo down)

Another promising seat idea (© Ian 2012)

I've been trying to work out how to demarcate the pathways through the 'copse' (bottom left corner of the garden), which is going to have chippings mulch over it all, with paths left clear of plants (with the assistance of weed suppressant membrane). This, from Harlow Carr's herb garden, seems like a good idea that will blend in nicely, and could (with some work) be self-made.

Willow 'wattle' edging for paths (© Ian 2012) 

Lastly, another seat, that was beautifully incorporated into a bed. A possibility for the bench next to the pond, I think:

Bench in a bed (© Ian 2012)

While browsing through the plant shop, we also found a half-price walnut tree, which has been on my wish-list for a while. It's a cultivated form, Broadview, which should crop in a few years. Ideally, we'd have two, to improve pollination, so I shall keep looking for a second.

There's an excellent RHS publication on walnuts, too: Walnuts Without the Wait.

Rushbearing

Every year, there's a rushbearing festival in Sowerby Bridge, a revival of an old custom of bringing new flooring rushes to the churches in the area. It's been going on since 1977, and now features a rush cart, morris dancing teams, and a lot of ancillary events. We went along today, with Jenny, Philip, and the children.

The cart (filled with rushes, bearing a girl, and pulled by sixty men) makes its way along the country roads, stopping off for refreshments, and accompanied by half a dozen dance teams. I think the cart-top seat is a little precarious, myself.

Morris dancers and rush-cart (© Ian 2012)

Swallows

We've not really seen swallows at the nest in our porch this year, despite the early reappearance of a male. For a night or two, there was some evidence of someone nesting (that is, there were droppings under the nest in the morning), but nothing else. It's now coming to the end of the swallow's summer season, and they're starting to flock ready for a return south for the winter.

They've been doing this quite noisily (but pleasantly), and there was a group of over fifty on the telegraph wires outside the house this evening. They flew off a few minutes after I took these photos.

Swallows flocking before migration south ( Ian 2012)

Colour Wheel

As mentioned, while we were at RHS Tatton Park, we rather like the show garden 'A Taste of Ness', which was designed with a long bed encircling decking and pond. The long bed worked from whites, into yellows and on through the spectrum, ending in blues at the other end.

'A Taste of Ness' at RHS Tatton Park (© Ian 2012)

The decking, pond and beanbags weren't particularly what caught our eyes, but the colour scheme. We'd been wondering how to arrange the colours of the garden, and decided this would work with the wheel beds we'd planned:

The seating corner, with putative beds marked out (© Ian 2012)

I had a spare few minutes, and have come up with the following. The idea is that each bed will be white at the arbour end, and then move through pastel colours with deepening colour, before being intense colours at the opposite ends to the arbour.

Colour wheel plan for the seating area (© Ian 2012).

Running through, we'll use a few key plants to tie things together. The grasses from Tatton Park will feature: deschampsias, molinia, panicum and stipa. They can go in almost all the beds (mostly the yellow, orange, and red sections): we've got seeds for a glaucous, blue grass (Leymus arenarius), and we've two variegated grasses for the green bed (the reed grass from Tatton, and the one we pinched from Molly. Heucheras will go everywhere but the blue beds, I reckon; the eryngium obviously belongs near the top of the blue bed. We've bought a number of sweet peas, which will give us wigwams of colour in many of the spots. Once that backbone is there, we'll go to work filling the gaps, safe in the knowledge that any colour has a pre-defined spot!