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)