Bees and Yarn

We've had a truly lovely weekend with David and Ann, who came up on Friday night, and leave in the morning. There has been a lot of baked goodness, including my cinnamon rolls, which I promised to note here.

• 250g strong white flour
• 1tsp salt
• 75g butter
• 2½tsp yeast
• 100g granulated sugar
• 250ml warm milk

Make that into a dough, and knead it well (it's a rich dough, so it needs a good knead). When it's doubled, roll it out into about a 16" square. Pour 75g of melted butter over it, then pour 140g light brown sugar mixed with 3tbsp cinnamon onto it. Roll it up, and cut it into eight. I like using a length of cotton to radially guillotine the roll: it is immeasurably neater than trying to slice.

Arrange into a baking dish, and allow to rise again. Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes. They can either be served warm, or they store fine for a couple of days.

If you make up a cream cheese icing (85g butter/soft margarine, 120g icing sugar, 45g cream cheese, ½tsp vanilla extract and a pinch of salt), and spread it on the top before microwaving for a minute per roll...then that works really, really well.

We managed a walk, and a few games, and a film. As well as a lot of coffee, gin, wine, and knitting. I managed to start building a beehive, too (a stand, floor, and roof), which will go in the garden in time.

WBC-style stand and roof, with an open mesh floor and 70mm eke, all in BS National pattern (© Ian 2016)

Beer, Bees, Lawn, and Painting

This weekend rounds off a week off for us, and there've been a few bits to get done. Firstly the beehives needed preparing for winter, which meant taking off the (modest) honey crop, wrapping them up with bubble-wrap for warmth, and preparing some space in the top of the hive for winter feed.

We also needed to paint the new front door, and touch up the paint on the apple walk, which is looking really good.

Apple Arch (© Ian 2016)

Having got about two-thirds of the way through the current barrel, it's necessary to start a new batch of beer, which is now glugging cheerfully to itself in the corner of the sitting room. Less excitingly, we mowed and edged the lawn...not many more times for that job left this year.

Mozzarella

For a long time, I've wanted to make cheese. There are two main reasons for this: I like making things, and I like cheese. I'm always fascinated by how things are made, constructed, created, or cooked. One of my birthday presents this year was a kit with recipes and some of the consumables needed to make several sorts of cheese: I just needed milk. We thought we'd start with mozzarella, which seemed straightforward enough, and which we like. The principles are quite straightforward: you warm the milk to 35°C with some calcium chloride and citric acid, then add rennet. After a pause, for the curds to form, you cut them up, warm the mix again (to 42°C), and let them rest briefly. The curds come out, and then you either dip them in hot water, or use the microwave to heat them to about 60°C, when they can be stretched and formed into a ball. I overstretched them, this time, so the mozzarella was a bit harder than 'normal'.

Mozzarella balls (© Ian 2016)

After that excitement, we had a wine tasting at home, with half a dozen whites, half a dozen reds, a rosé, a port, a sherry, and a creamy coconut liqueur. We may order a dozen of one of the reds; it was extremely good. 

Apples and Berries

The older apple trees in the orchard (the ones planted some twenty years ago) have started ripening, and some are falling on windier days. While these don't tend to be ripe, and aren't great for eating (you can cook them: we may use some for mincemeat), they make brilliant fruit juice. Our apple juice endeavours in the past have been hard work, because before you press the apples, you have to crush them.

The traditional method, it appears, is to put them in a large vessel, and whack them with&emdash;essentially&emdash;a beam of wood. In the past, we've grated them, but that is hard and slow work. In anticipation of ever-increasing apple crops, we bought a powered scratter, which turned last night's job into a real pleasure. It's essentially a spinning blade attached to a 1kW motor, and it turns a trug (40l volume)) of apples into pulp in, oh, two minutes.

The pulp gets loaded into the press, which we squeeze down: from a 40l trug of apples, we get about 10&endash;12l of juice, which we pasteurize to 70°C, and bottle with a Campden tablet per gallon. Hopefully it'll store reasonably.

We also made our apple & vanilla Danishes, and almond pastries, today. They're delicious.

Almond Pastries, and Apple & Vanilla Rolls (© Ian 2016)

We started a batch of ginger wine, too (ginger, sugar and water into the slow cooker); tomorrow, that'll go into a demijohn for a couple of weeks. This time, Liz helped: it's not a surprise for her birthday!

Yesterday, we also started some berry cordial. This year it's mostly blackberries, with a few elderberries. They get boiled up, and left overnight with pectolase. Today, we strained them, added sugar and spice (cinnamon, unsurprisingly), and boiled that before bottling it.

Baking and Bottling

We've taken this week off work, and have nothing 'serious' planned for at least the first five days: we're just taking them as they come, and doing what we fancy. So far, that's involved mainly food and drink.

I started a batch of blackberry brandy. I don't appear to have noted the last batch (or two, actually), which was a blackberry and cinnamon. On trying it, I'm not convinced by the cinnamon, sadly, so I'm probably going to leave the bottle to Liz to finish (who loves cinnamon), and I'll go back to making plain blackberry, which this new bottle is. I shall have to limit myself to other liqueurs until about Christmas.

This was not the extent of our cinnamon adventure, though, as we also made a batch of cinnamon rolls, using a different recipe to our last attempt. These are better, but need a little work. It's hard work, this product testing.

Cinnamon roll with vanilla icing (© Ian 2016)

Grass and Blackberries

A quick mow of the lawn, tonight: it's only growing slowly, but I'm trying to keep it trimmed whenever conditions allow, as I can't get that many cuts in before the weathers consistently too wet, I'm sure.

More pleasurably, we started a couple of gallons of blackberry wine off. 3kg of berries, topped up to a couple of gallons with hot water. Once it's at about 35°C, I add pectolase, and then leave it 'til tomorrow before adding the yeast (a general GV3). In five days, we'll strain it into demijohns along with 1.5kg sugar/vessel, and leave it to do its thing.

Pictures, Plastering, Planning

I've had a three-day weekend (Liz was working on Friday), although in some ways it's not been the most productive, for being longer. Friday was a rather unsatisfactory day, as I struggled to make progress with one of the main planned jobs—getting the CCTV up and running properly. The external camera system's not been working quite as intended. The footage is recorded (a little too zealously, so I could do with tweaking the motion sensitivity), and I can monitor it from anywhere in the world via the wonders of the internet. However, I can't see previously recorded footage, only live: which isn't much good for when I want to know why the house alarm's gone off. Anyway, I've got not further with that, and am still only able to see recorded footage locally.

However, I did get further with other things. I've made a trip to the tip/scrap metal place with a load of rubbish, which has improved the situation on the drive and in the preservatory. Our new bike rack has arrived, so I've assembled it and attached it to the car. I've also finally got round to installing the network switch, which means that all the ethernet sockets are now live. That, in turn, has meant I've been able to install the two IP cameras, meaning I can check in on the cats while away from the house...well, that's one benefit.

Saturday was a long, but much more satisfactory day. I've sorted out the satellite cable where it comes into the sitting room, wiring it into the same patch socket as the three data sockets behind the TV unit, which is much neater. I've also gun foamed all the gaps and holes in the plasterboard in the sitting room and dining room, which has meant Liz has been able to finish plastering them both.

While she did so, I tidied up the kitchen plasterboard: tweaking how it's sat behind the radiator, filling holes and gaps with more foam, and preparing the tricky area between the doors where the light-switches go. We've then plastered the room, between us: Liz getting it onto the wall, and I've gone along behind her, smoothing it to match the other plaster in the room. It looks comparable, actually, which is a relief.

Marmite was deeply unimpressed, but I added some pawprints: she, like Domino and Chess, is now immortalized on the wall.

Today's been easier-going. We went to Samuel's christening, which took us out until mid-afternoon. When we got home, I racked the wine into demijohns, and have barrelled the batch of beer I started in July. It's meant to only take ten days, or so, to ferment...but it always takes more like ten weeks. Never mind. It's now in a barrel, in the cellar, and should be ready to drink in a week or two.

The last task has been planning our long-intended curtain for the gable end of the dining room. The wall's a nice stone wall, against which one of our mirrors looks good, and we didn't want to lose this when we insulated. Instead, the insulation is, technically, removable, so in theory every spring we can take it down and have a stone wall once more. Whether we bother remains to be seen. However, for the months where the insulation is up, we want to hang a curtain, and we've come up with an ivy-leaf design we plan to make. Just need to order some fabric, and we can give it a try in a couple of weeks.

Late Cuttings

The newly repaired intelligent water heater arrived back this morning from its circuit board transplant. We got it reinstalled as early as we could, and it was up and running again by lunchtime. Not clear, yet, what went wrong with it, but hopefully the manufacturer will get to the bottom of that after testing.

The accumulator tank's lost heat, obviously, in a week of not being heated, but will hopefully be back up to operating temperatures within a few days.

We've spent a lot of the rest of the weekend in the garden, keeping it looking as good as possible for the rest of the season. I've mown and edged the lawn: it's growing really slowly, now, but still looks neater after it's mown. There was less than one hopper full of clippings, whereas it can be nearly five when it's growing at full speed—that's for a weekly cut. Liz has managed to weed practically the entire garden this weekend, another testament to how much slower things grow (and germinate) at this point in the year. I've taken a large number of cuttings: lots of achillea (the Cassis mix, the white, Inca Gold, and Lemon from the colour wheel and herb garden), more Verbena bonariensis
, another clutch of agryanthemum stems (which root in water, before potting them up), sage, box, and fuchsias—the unnamed ones in the front garden and in the long border, as well as Army Nurse, Hawkshead, and Delta's Sarah. I'm trying to get some layers of the Virginia Creeper (in full, fiery splendour at the moment, over the front of the house) to take, as well, though they're a slow affair. I've also divided a number of perennials, ready to pass on to a friend of Liz's who has a new border to fill: the variegated Gardener's Garters grass, the Golden Alexander lysimachia, three heucheras, and (these are seedlings potted up) sweet rocket, aquilegia, catananche, gaura, and wild strawberries. They await collection next week, with some cuttings, and spring-divided perennials, to follow next year.
Liz has spent some of this afternoon plastering the front wall of the sitting room, which looks much better. We're trying to get all of the downstairs plastering finished in the next few weeks, so we can also paint before the Christmas decorations go up. That's partly so it looks better for the six weeks the house will be decorated...and partly because we then won't be able to do any plastering or painting downstairs until mid January.

In between things, I also collected as many elderberries as I could—which isn't many. It doesn't look like a great year for them: most of the corymbs didn't have a high proportion of set berries, and they weren't as plump as they often are. Still: I bulked them (1.8kg) up to 3kg of fruit with some frozen blackberries, and have set off a 2 gallon batch of wine: fruit, boiling water, nutrient. Pectolase before I go to bed, and then yeast tomorrow. On Thursday (or maybe Friday), I'll strain onto sugar in two demijohns.

Radiators and Elderflowers

A day off for me, today, which has meant, inevitably, getting on with a list of jobs. First was getting the fridge-freezers onto the driveway, and giving them a thorough clean. They, the filing cabinet, and pine desk, were all collected over the course of the morning, and have gone to new homes. The garage is much neater as a result, and the pine desk has been replaced in the front guest room with an adopted antique dresser. That needs a bit of attention, but should clean up nicely.

After the lawnmower's failure last weekend, I then replaced a new switch/capacitor unit, and also lowered and sharpened the blade. It should cut more cleanly, now, and actually works, which is a clear improvement.

I've cut 50-odd elderflower florets, and started a double batch of cordial. That should be ready on Saturday, or Sunday if it's slow. (To the 50 heads, add 6 pints boiled water, 6lb sugar, five thinly sliced lemons, 4oz citric acid. Leave for 2-3 days, stirring a few times, and strain. I also add some wine-maker's stabilizing powder and a Campden tablet, to reduce the chances of spoilage.)

I then did a trip to the tip (sorry, Household Waste Recycling Centre), with a load of left-overs from building work and tidying, and then scurried to a scrap metal merchant to get rid of the accumulated scrap. Most of that's been near-worthless ferrous (a whole £3.80), but the £25 for the old water cylinder is better. That will probably go into the Tatton Park fund for a week's time.

Liz finished her work soon after I got back from that, and together we've hung the two towel radiators in the bathrooms. The guest en suite didn't have a radiator over the winter, as we'd not got one to put up; our en suite had the old radiator (albeit in a different position), which worked, thermally, but was a bit in the way. The new ones fit their spaces really nicely, and were surprisingly simple to put up. I now need to sort out the plumbing, which is a little less urgent, as they're not running. We need to briefly take them down to plaster and paint, and then I can finish off.

I also finished the work under the back guest room floor, where there's a void where the old staircase was. This has a nexus of plumbing, as it's where the central heating flow/return enter the old house, and it's also where the power for the immersion heaters, and the data cabling to the garage go. I took a telephone cable that way, too, and I've now pushed this out into the library alcove, where I'll be putting a telephone point. I also took through another Cat 6 cable, which will mean I can then daisy-chain another telephone point out into the garage, meaning it has telephony, as well as ethernet. Very modern, for an 1841-built house.

All that done, there was just time to vacuum, dust, tidy, wash up, and cook dinner before collapsing. Just.

Plumbing, planting, potatoes

We've had a pleasant couple of days in Scarborough, with the obligatory beach-front ice-cream. Back home, we've been checking that we're happy with the pond construction and layout, because we plan to line it in a week. As we were using the very fast and effective, but relatively imprecise minidigger to excavate, it does need a degree of manual finessing, to get the shape and depths we want. Hopefully that will only take a day or so to get right, and we can then line it, build the retaining dry-stone wall, fill it, and sort out the edges.

Today, we've had a day of smaller jobs. Inside, the dandelion wine is now in its demijohn. We spent the first part of the morning connecting the two outside taps (near the greenhouse) that I started to do last summer, and never quite finished. This means that there are now two watering points which don't require the workshop door to be propped open, which is much better—it means that the kitchen garden irrigation can be left automatically running, which is critical when we're away during the warmer months. The second hose point will let us set up automatic drip irrigation inside the greenhous (much better for the tomatoes during the summer), which is a later project.

Because we only made about half of the climbers' supports 'properly' last year, we've put up a further five that are more rustic, shall we say: lengths of poplar, tied together at the top. Less attractive, but functional. I hope to make more proper frames in the autumn.

We've planted out the tulbaghia, chives, coriander and parsley into the herb garden; as well as the agapanthus into the long border, as frosts should be past, now. I've taken a number of cuttings from the dahlias in the greenhouse, which are starting to grow on well (Bishop of Llandaff and Twyning's After Eight). They go in a propagator in the dining room for a few weeks until they've rooted, and will then grow on in pots this year.

Down in the kitchen garden, the beetroot are now planted out (a rainbow mix, this year: we found the flavour much superior to Boltardy, and really pretty, too). The cauliflowers are also out, and we've planted the second half of the mini salad bed. I think these plants have been in modules for too long, though, so they might not thrive.

The potatoes are doing well, and almost all needed earthing up. The scorzonera has germinated really well; almost every station has a couple of seedlings. The parsnips, inevitably, are much slower, and will probably be less reliable. That's fine, though, we don't need many.

Tidying

Two minor notes: I pitched the yeast for the dandelion wine yesterday, which now needs a few more days in the bucket before moving into the demijohn for several months. This evening we've managed to get a couple of hours outside, mowing & edging the lawn (me) and weeding (Liz).

Sweetpea Supports

Last year, I made a number of timber-framed wigwams for growing annual climbers up, but only added the woven willow sides to those for the sweetpeas. They worked really well, though, and it was only time (that is, insulating the walls of the house!) that stopped me doing so for the pea and bean supports in the herb garden. They had to suffice with strings, which didn't work nearly as well. The beauty of the diamond-woven willow is that the tendrils seem to latch on very readily, meaning that they only need a little help to get started, and then the climbers just take off by themselves, with very little twisting in.

Yesterday afternoon, we worked together to get the willows put on the sides of the six remaining supports in the herb garden, spurred on by the growth the beans and peas are putting on while on the dining room windowsill. We're hoping to be able to plant them out next weekend, if the weather's looking stable.

We also managed to sow a number of seeds; some more legumes (to account for germination losses), and a tray of brassicas: cauliflowers, swedes, and turnips.

Today we've mown the lawn, and edged it (have adopted shears from my parents, who don't have any lawn, now), for which it's looking immensely neater; weeded (well, Liz did this), and have started putting a timber frame onto the fruit cages to replace the wire net supports. The nets, and wires that carried them, have gradually deteriorated, mainly because of the combined effect of wind and snow. I'm hoping that timber framework, combined with chicken wire mesh roof, will be longer-lasting. We're about half way on the frame: adding the net/mesh is going to be a bit time-consuming, though.

At lunch, we started a batch of dandelion wine, using flowers picked before I mowed the lawn. The combined yield of the lawn and paths, fittingly, is about perfect for a one-gallon batch. The petals stew (with chopped raisins) until later this week, when lemon and yeast are added. Five more days in the bucket, then it goes into a demi-john until autumn. We've also got round to bottling the two gallons of elderflower, and one of bramble-tip, that I made last year. All very good, so we're planning to make more of both in the coming weeks.

Wiltshire Cured Ham

As I noted, we collected the half-pig from the butchers after getting home from Ludlow yesterday. As normal, we're turning some of it into bacon and hams, and leaving some as joints for casseroles or roasting. There are also a number of chops (which, it turns out, are huge), and we've also got a bag of 'bits' (tails, trotters, kidney, heart, liver), which need different processing.

In previous years we've also made sausages, but we've actually still got loads left from last year, so we're not doing that. (It must be said, we also don't really have time for sausage-making at the moment.) Instead, we're mincing the trimmed scraps of meat (about 5lb), mixing them into sausagemeat, and freezing them in patties. If we do run out of sausages before next autumn, and want to, we can always make them as needed, after all.

The sausagemeat made, we mixed up the curing brine for the bacon and hams. We're repeating the Wiltshire cure, which is a beer-based brine:

• 4l beer (again, the Harvest Mild I brewed a few months ago)
• 1900g salt
• 1000g black treacle
• 65g saltpetre
• 50g black peppercorns
• 50 juniper berries

Once mixed, that's brought to the boil, and simmered for 10–15 minutes. I'll chill it overnight, and add the joints in the morning. They're refrigerated, stirring whenever I remember, for 36 hours (the bacon) or 3.5 days (the hams).

Bramble-Tip Wine

I totally forgot to do this yesterday, so after mowing the lawn this evening, I've transferred the bramble-tip wine (pint of bramble tips, steeped overnight, boiled for fifteen minutes, poured onto sugar, yeast added when cooled, and sat for ten days) into a demi john. It smells surprisingly enticing: I'm looking forward to trying it in a few months.

Harvest Mild

Last summer, I made a batch of Young's 'Harvest Mild' beer, which was ready, I think, in August/September. We've really enjoyed it, and it made very good Wiltshire cured hams, so—as we're getting to the end of the barrel—I thought I'd make more. I've set it off this evening, having freed up the big 5 gallon fermenting bucket from the elderflower wine. The little barrel (3 gallon) still has a gallon of bramble-tip wine in it, which will go into a demi john on Wednesday.

It took a long time (two months) to be ready for a barrel last year, so hopefully it'll be a bit quicker.

Nettle Cordial

The days started with some weeding, and my finishing off the shed-boxes (needed to add weather strips inside the last two boxes' doors, and paint the floor of the one which has the lawnmower in, as this will often be a bit damp). I also added some extra strings to the willow-less legume frames, as they're starting to get going.

Even though we planted out a great number of things earlier, we still have a lot of small plants growing on, mostly around the greenhouse, or on the weed membrane near the kitchen. Today we managed to plant out a number of these—but there are still lots of pots left! It takes many, many plants to fill half an acre, it turns out.

Into the long border have gone several astrantia (A. major, A. minor, A. maxima, as well as a variegated form from my parents' garden—it might be A. major 'Sunningdale Variegated'); a few trios of coreopsis; some more of our seed-grown Stipa tenuissima; and some geums.

More geums, and some mixed achillea, went into the bed on the games lawn side of the septic tank, to balance it with the other side (the geums there are doing marvellously, and look good set against the new green background of the sheds.

A few spare achilleas, and then some campanulas, aquilegias (Magpie and Royal Purple), and lupins (mixed, hopefully nice colours!) went into the two beds around the sweet peas that aren't looking so good (the back one of the three is pretty good, but the others' wildflowers didn't germinate well.

We also had three little dicentra (with rather darker, single-colour flowers: we're not much taken with the pink & white normal form, but this one, and the all-white we already have, are much more to our taste), which have gone in the copse bed.

A bunch of hardy fuchsias (Hawkshead, Delta's Sarah, and Army Nurse), have been potted up, along with a dozen box cuttings, a number of 'Tail Feathers' grass (Pennisetum macrourum), rose campion, and other achilleas.

Over lunch, we moved the elderflower wine into demi-johns (adding yeast nutrient), and also bottled the nettle cordial which we started a week ago. It looks a brighter colour than last time.

Nettle cordial straining (© Ian 2014)

We had hoped to move a load of chippings onto the weed membranes, but only managed about ten barrow-loads, because first we had raspberries and courgettes to pick. The raspberries are doing much better this year, probably because they've been well mulched last year and this, and we got the pruning right last August. The courgettes are just starting to form: it seems earlier than last year. I think we just about had them in mid/late July, so it's earlier than that. The plants seem to be fruiting at a smaller size, too: I don't know how much of all this is down to the variety (Defender), which is new to us.

It's been a good weekend for cat company: they've been much in evidence.

Hungry cat (© Ian 2014)

A number of seedlings are growing on well, including these dierama, which I'm looking forward to having.

Dierama (RHS seed) two weeks ago... (© Ian 2014)

...and now (© Ian 2014)

Odd Jobs

Today—as Wednesday will be, I expect—has mostly been little jobs. Liz has finished 'weeding' the orchard, and I've cut paths through the grass. That leaves things flowering (which looks good), and takes less time (also good), while looking deliberate and allowing easier access to the trees and clearings.

I've topped up the chippings on the steps under the greenhouse, and in front of the wood shelter (where they were getting weedy, and decomposing). That's let us re-stack a load of wood, delivered last week, more neatly on the drive. We'll need to spend a day next weekend sawing, splitting, and stacking, though.

The greenhouse is finally sorted, and we've potted a load of things into proper pots, and laid them out on the new 'patio' outside the dining room. That needed levelling, before pots would be stable, and that's done. We need a new load of chippings to spread on the membrane, so that it looks a little less artificial.

We've also been able to collect enough flowers to start 2 gallons of elderflower wine, as well as (yesterday) bramble tips (the first 4" of brambles) for a gallon of wine (a new one for us, to make up for missing the dandelions). The bramble tips steep in hot water overnight, and then get simmered for fifteen minutes (over lunch), before straining the liquor onto sugar (I'll add yeast before I go to bed). The elderflowers have boiling water poured on them, along with sugar; yeast will be added in the morning.

Floor Finished

We made a list on Saturday morning of some things we wanted to try to do this weekend (a long one). Pleasing progress has been made, although, as it ever was, not quite everything happened.

Painting the last section (3/8ths) of the garage floor with bituminous sealant happened on Friday evening, Saturday lunch time, and Sunday morning. The plan was that the last coat (Sunday first thing) would then have a clear 24 hours to dry before we put the rest of the floor down.

Saturday morning, before we could do the second coat, we spent digging over a further section of knot garden. While I cut turves, and dug over the stony ground, Liz was busy clearing our stone dyke from last time. We've not worked on extending the herb garden since September, in order to get the overwintering alliums in the ground, so it's nice to once more make progress on it. Although we only did a couple of hours work (too hot!), we returned to the garden on Sunday, and have marked out anew the pattern. We needed to do this because we've changed our mind about the size of the squares (diamonds), which we decided were too small (roughly 1m edges), and needed to be 50% bigger. There wasn't quite enough space in them to allow planting, but still be able to walk through them.

The original (rough) plan for beds and edges in the herb garden (© Ian 2013–14)

That also means we'll only have two sorts of edge: lavender and step-over apples (which I'll try to graft over the winter). The box will be grown on to form box balls in the garden, instead of hedging: we think they might, for one thing, replace some of the Lady's Mantle that's really a weed in the long border. They'd occupy the same niche, of a rounded green mass, but with the advantage of year-round structure, and less invasive self-seeding.

The new pattern fits around the corner nicely, and finishes in about the same place, which is good. We then moved the part-painted climber supports into the beds, settling on a layout that has the taller of these forming a backdrop to the garden, in the boxes furthest from the house. There are only four of these at the moment, but I can always make more in time. The smaller are nearer the house, and there are squares that suitably frame views from the windows with supports. It looks very pleasing, and once the supports are painted, and sunk into the ground, I hope it's going to look really good.

On Saturday afternoon, we constructed a hinged roof that goes over the steps down into the wet cellar from the driveway, which will allow us to store bikes on the steps but keep the worst of the weather off them. It's a simple wooden frame, with tongue and groove cladding, but it looks quite smart...although it does draw my attention to the falling-apart (non-structural!) wall next to it, which edges the pathway. Another day's work there, I think. At the same time, Liz cleared the driveway of a pile of apple prunings that have been sat there drying: they'll be rather fragrant kindling next winter.

They've been sitting around for longer than they should (by some way, really), but we've bottled the five demijohns of wine that were waiting.

• Dandelion, from May 2013. For whatever reason, the dandelions rather passed me by this May, so I don't have a new batch on the go. This one seems good, though.
• Greengage from October (a more reasonable time-scale). This was slightly fizzy, so I added a Campden tablet, and bottled it a couple of days later. The taste seemed improved, too, after this.
• Elderflower from July: very good, this one.
• Blackberry from September, a predictably dessert-wine red. It was also slightly fizzy, but a tablet and 36 hours rest sorted this out.
• Chardonnay from a kit, in June last year. It's really rather Chardonnay-like!

In the same vein, this evening we've made a five-pint batch of elderflower cordial. Different process to previously: a dozen flowerheads, a pared then sliced lemon, and then a boiling sugar solution poured over them (1 pint water, 1lb10 sugar). You add 2.5tbsp of citric acid, once cool, and allow to sit for 24 hours before bottling.

The batch of cider that we pressed last autumn has, in turn, finally been racked into two demi-johns. It's not tasting quite 'right', but as I understand it, cider often needs a decent maturation period, so I'll bear with it.

Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, making a hatch for the garage loft, and putting up the last of the insulation. Hanging the hatch will have to wait until I've found the right hinges.

Today, then, was spent finishing the garage floor. The sealant paint was nicely dry by mid morning, so we were able to immediately start work on laying the insulation, screwing down the battens, and filling the gaps with solid insulation. The plywood sheets went on with relatively little fuss, so by about 1530 we'd finished. An hour later, and the room was tidied up, rather than having everything stacked into the half that had a floor, and we've even managed to set out the two armchairs we've had stored in a corner since 2009.

Last thing for the weekend was getting some of the preparatory work done for our new patio doors, which arrived on Friday. They're being fitted on Wednesday (including breaking out the hole for them, replacing the garden window in the dining room), and we've done as much fitting of hardware, and so on, as possible.

Vegetable Planting

It's that time of year when the vegetable beds in the kitchen garden go from bare (or green manure covered), to filled, quite rapidly. The onions and potatoes went in about six weeks ago, and are doing well. We've now planted out a couple of blocks of beetroot (half a variety of mixed colours, and half Boltardy), 32 Brilliant celeriac, six courgettes (Defender), and scarlet kale and cauliflowers amongst the spinach. We've sown some more radishes, and sown a pot of scorzonera, as they haven't germinated in the bed. Some of the summer-sown brassicas (winter cabbage, cauliflowers, swedes) have gone into pots to germinate.

As a result, the kitchen garden's looking a lot more full. There's space, still, for leeks to go out (still in the greenhouse), and of course the potatoes get replaced as we lift them.

At the other end of the garden, the rhubarb had put on loads of new growth, meaning there was about 10kg of stems to pick. With such a large amount at once, it's been worth bottling, so we've preserved four and a half big Kilner jars.

While doing so, I've also made a batch of rhubarb vodka, with 8oz of chopped rhubarb, 4oz of sugar, and a 70cl bottle of vodka. Should be ready in a few months...

That was this morning: this afternoon, we sawed, split, and stacked a load of poplar.

Cider

We've been pressing apples for the last couple of evenings, scratting the apples, and pressing the milled pomace. A couple of trugs full of apples has been enough to put two gallons of juice into a fermenting bucket, which I've inoculated with 'Nottingham' yeast this evening, as well as bottle eleven 1l kilner bottles with pasteurized juice. The pomace is still in the press, dripping slowly, and there should be about another litre tomorrow evening.

I anticipate the cider fermentation to be a bit frothy and messy, initially, which is why the two gallons of must are in a five gallon bucket. Once it's calmed, I'll move it into a pair of demi-johns, to complete fermentation. I must remember to add pectolase, too, or it'll definitely be a bit hazy.