Surprise Brewing

Little does Liz know, but I have started a surreptitious batch of ginger wine. I don't like ginger wine (or various other ginger derivatives: my personal nightmare dish is melon with parma ham and ginger), but she's fond of it. Because of the asymmetry, we never buy any, so I thought I'd make her some for her birthday. It's safe for me to discuss it here, as she never visits. Touch wood.

It's a little more involved than some, but quite straightforward. Peel and roughly chop 200g of root ginger into a slow cooker, and add 600g of sugar and the zest of three lemons. Add about 2.5l of boiling water to the pot. 'Cook' overnight. Pour into a demijohn (a bucket would do), and allow to cool to 25–30°C. Add yeast (I used GV3, and added vitamin B tablets and yeast nutrient) and pectolase. Leave it for 24 hours, then add the juice of those three lemons.

Thereafter, stir (agitate) daily for a fortnight. At that point, I'll strain it into a clean demijohn, add 400g of sugar, 350g of chopped raisins, and another 50g of ginger (probably grated). That will ferment for a further ten days.

At this point, you need to bring the fermentation to a halt, while there's still some sugar. It'll need straining again, and this time a Campden tablet and a few grams of potassium sorbate get added. It should clear in a couple of weeks, when 150ml of brandy gets added, and I'll make it up to a gallon. I'll bottle it into 75cl quantities, and it'll then go in the cellar for a couple of months (or longer).

Hopefully, it'll be tasty—though I may not think so personally.

Less secretively, we also started a nettle cordial. This, by contrast, is shockingly simple. Collect nettle tops (the top 3 pairs of leaves), wash and spin dry, and put in a covered container. Add 1kg sugar, 500ml boiling water, and 40g citric acid. That's done: it now gets stirred daily for five days, at which point it will hopefully be delightful. It is, in fact, already smelling pretty good (hint of gooseberry, I think), and the liquid's going slightly pink. Results, as you'd expect, will follow.

Heucheras

We've spent the weekend in Ludlow, visiting Molly, which—as normal—has been a pleasant and relaxing break. She's just purchased a small plot of land adjoining the garden, which has made a significant difference to the house. The sitting room window is now not overshadowed by a boundary wall; the pond can double in size; she has space for a vegetable/fruit plot; and there's space for off-road parking. Of course, some of this is still theoretical. The wall needs its demolition completing; the pond must be dug (and relined); the paving slabs must make way for veg beds; the parking alone has actually been accomplished. That said, the difference it will make is clear, and we did a few bits to help get her there, as well as things around the rest of the garden that require greater height or strength: pruning a philadelphis that's outgrown its space (while avoiding a montana clematis growing through it!); pruning the apricot and plum trees; making and filling a small bed next to the parking space; emptying the compost bin; replanting a large tub of tomatoes; and the like. Needless to say, we were amply rewarded come meal-times.

New heucheras (© Ian 2012)

Ludlow has an excellent market, with several plant stalls, our favourite of which is in the Buttercross. True to form, we wandered out for a walk, and came back with bags full of plants. Three new heucheras, a Ninebark 'Lady in Red' (Physocarpus opulifolius), and a 'Black Lace' elder (Sambucus nigra). Combined with some fuchsia and pelagonium cuttings, a couple of silver birch seedlings, and a corkscrew willow, pilfered from the garden, it was quite a stocking-up visit.

Watering

Having (finally) had some warm weather, we had to water the pots tonight, and the fruit and vegetables. We took the irrigation system's sprinklers off last autumn (expecting a winter where there was snowfall and freezing temperatures!), so first I've had to reattach them. I only did the vegetable garden's, as the fruit ones are a bit more involved, and the bushes are less susceptible to drying out, as they have better established roots. The extension to the irrigation system, to cover the rhubarb and second strawberry bed, still needs completing, which is on the to-do list. The currants, gooseberries, and raspberries are all looking really good, and we'll hopefully have a large crop of them all. The fruit trees, old and new, are all now in leaf, and some of them are flowering. The quince, plums and cherries aren't, yet, but they're a bit later. They've all been watered, too, as trees need a bit of extra help in their first year.

Steam

It's Philip's birthday later this week, so we all went out for the day on Saturday, to Haworth. Coincidentally, and unknown to us until we arrived, it was a 1940's Vintage Day, which meant the streets of Haworth were filled with people dressed for the period, many in service uniforms from the War. Commonwealth, USA, and a couple of Axis, too. We walked through the village, stopping at the traditional sweetshop, and pausing briefly at the churchyard, before walking on to Oxenhope and back for a picnic lunch. We then went on to Oakworth on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway steam service, before walking back to Haworth.

KWVR Steam train arriving at Oakworth; waiting at Oakworth station; and between Haworth and Oxenhope (© Ian 2012)

Sunday was spent in the garden, mostly clearing and pruning. The last of the cotoneaster is finally out of the top bank (as in, cut to ground level: there are still roots I'd like to pull up); we also decided that the conifer in that bank wasn't worth saving. It was dead and bare where the cotoneaster had engulfed it, and its location wasn't good, blocking the view from the dining room quite badly. Down it came, and it's much better without it. There's also a laurel/bay that has a bare back from where the cotoneaster was behind it. However, it's otherwise quite an attractive bush, so we're going to leave it to see if it re-sprouts. If it does, I'll try digging it up and moving it to a better spot, as it's not in the right location.

A scraggy conifer next to the vegetable garden was next to come down, along with a sorry excuse for a conifer that's struggled along in the copse, and two sad looking pines near the fence. I also took the opportunity to trim back the leylandii along the bottom fence, and tie them into a more up-right pose.

Finally, we pruned the two flowering currants (one of them rather hard, continuing the rejuvenation program we started last summer), and other shrubs in the lower bank that have finished flowering. Our pile of brush-to-be-chipped is now enormous: fortunately, we've got a larger, petrol-driven shredder booked for the upcoming bank holiday weekend, and hope to get it turned into mulch then.

Dandelion Wine

A relatively uneventful weekend, but I did start a batch of dandelion wine. This meant cutting 450g of dandelion heads (this is lots, I now know), and pouring 4.5l of boiling water over them. That was Saturday: today, I've poured the juice into the preserving pan, added the peel of four oranges, and boiled for ten minutes, before straining the liquid over 1.5kg of sugar in a demijohn. I'll add the yeast when it's cooled, and it should clear in the autumn, ready to drink around Christmas.

Dandelion flowers for brewing (© Ian 2012)

I also planted forty anemones (de Caen and St Brigid) into pots. The anemones we planted straight into the ground around the trees in autumn 2009 never came up, but this year some of those in the front wall did: they went in in 2010, so it took two winters for them to show up. By doing these into pots, I'm hoping to keep track of them more readily, and hope that they will be quicker. Instead of soaking them for a day, which is the advice, I actually soaked them for four. They seemed a lot plumper and happier (and it was possible to tell which way up they belong!), which may also have helped.

I used some of the leaf mould we collected in 2010, and it is lovely. The 2011 leaves are still in bin liners, waiting to go in the wire cages, and the 2010 leaves have broken down into a wonderful compost. It's really light, rich, and nice to work. Excited about compost? Ah, well.

Dicentra and Hazel

Back from a pleasant stay with my parents (including a trip to the Leyburn-based food fair, which was excellent), we had three new dicentra to plant. They have darker flowers than the common pink-and-white form; more magenta-like, and I think they're prettier than the pink-and-white variety. They also go nicely with the white-flowered D. spectabilis 'Alba' we already have. Anyway; all four are now planted in the corner of what will be the 'woodland' area of the garden.

We also finished digging the holes for the Pearsons' Prolific hazel, and half the willow arch that will lead from water garden to games lawn. The number of stones in this area has made it a time-consuming job! The bed that will lie between the pond and the septic tank cover is just as slow. Still; at least these three plants are in. We also planted a few patches of alliums, a pot of sparaxis, and five cactus dahlia that we were sent with another order, and put plastic-bottle cloches over half the beetroot, which are struggling to get going in the chilly weather. No, it's not a controlled experiment, we only had enough bottles for half of them.

Swallow Returns

A swallow has arrived and taken up residence in the nest in the porch. I'm hoping it's the male of the same pair who built the nest last year, but I don't think I can check! It's almost certain to be a male (they arrive first), and I've been hoping to see him for the last week or two. On Monday evening I spotted a couple of swallows on the drive home, for the first time, so presumably the birds are arriving in the area.

With a little luck, his mate will get back soon, and they'll get a clutch of eggs laid soon. Last year they seemed to be a bit late, and we never saw any fledglings.

Newly arrived male barn swallow (© Ian 2012)